Laboratory Report Information Sheet for research in the Health Sciences all information. Please read the Assignment Information pdf file. All other required information will be sent over email
Laboratory Report Information Sheet You will be provided with data from a study on the effect of nature on prosocial behaviour and a description of two analyses on the data you need to conduct. You need to write up this study as a laboratory report as if you were the researcher, including finding and reviewing background literature, developing appropriate hypotheses, describing the method, analysing the data to test those hypotheses and drawing conclusions about the findings. You will also need to include the output from your analyses as an Appendix. The laboratory report is 1500 words in length (+/- 10%, excluding title page, abstract, references and appendices) and is worth 40% of your grade in this unit. A marking rubric is provided below. NOTE: You are expected to have completed all unit material (lectures, workshops, homework) up to the end of Week 7 in order to complete this assessment. There is evidence that spending time in natural environments is associated with a range of positive social and wellbeing outcomes, including more contact with other people, higher social cohesion and improved mental health (see Hartig, Mitchell, de Vries and Frumkin, 2014, for a review). However, most studies examining these effects use observational or correlational methods, which make it difficult to draw conclusions about causal relationships between exposure to nature and social and health benefits. Research by Zelinski, Dopka and Capaldi (2015) used an experimental design to investigate whether showing people videos of nature would influence how much social co-operation they engaged in. They found that participants who watched a nature video displayed more cooperative behaviours compared to those who watched an architecture video. This suggests that exposure to natural causally affects some social behaviours such as co-operation, but it is unclear what other social behaviours might be affected. There is also evidence that there may be differences across age groups in the effect of nature on mental health (Astell-Burt, Mitchell & Hartig, 2014), which suggests research into the relationships between nature and social outcomes should also examine the role of age. In this study we wanted to see whether including images of nature in a video would affect people’s willingness to engage in prosocial behaviour. In the study we measured prosocial behaviour by asking how much money people would be willing to donate to a charity. This study also allows to us to look at age differences in prosocial behaviour when exposed to nature. Students enrolled in a first-year unit at an Australian university were invited to take part in the online study. The link to the study was provided on their unit website. Those who chose to participate were provided with information describing the study and were asked for their consent to participate. After consenting, participants were asked demographic questions (age and gender). All participants were then shown two 60 second video advertisements for different children’s charities, and after each video they were asked how much money they would donate to that charity. The first advertisement video participants saw was set in an urban environment, showing scenes from a busy city in Australia, including streets and shopping centres. They were asked how much they would donate to that charity (urban condition). The participants then watched a second video advertisement that was set in nature, showing scenes from around Australia including rainforests and beaches. They were asked how much they would donate to that charity (nature condition). At the end of the study the participants were thanked for participating and were provided with the contact details of the researchers to contact if they had any questions. APA-Format APA-Style Template ALL CAPS SHORT TITLE 50 CHARACTERS OR LESS page number goes here Paper Title Goes Here, up to 12 words Autor’s student ID Author’s Institution (UC) Word count (excluding title page, abstract, references and appendices) Abstract An abstract is a single paragraph, without indentation, that summarizes the key points of the manuscript in no more than 120 words. The purpose of the abstract is to provide the reader with a brief overview of all the parts of your paper. This section is not included in the overall word count as it has its own word count. Title of Paper Gets Repeated Here Exactly As It Appears On The Title Page This is where the body of your paper begins. Note that the title of your paper appears at the top of your introduction even though other sections begin with headings like “Method”, “Results” and so on. Notice that there is no extra spacing between the paragraphs or sections. The major components of your paper (abstract, introduction, references and appendix) each begin on a new page. These components begin with centered headings at the top of the first page. Not that the title Introduction is not used for this section’s heading, rather the title of the paper is presented. Introduction should start broad with general information about the research area, introducing some general concepts and definitions the reader needs and then become more specific to the topic of the current research. There is then a sentence or two linking what previous research you have presented to the current research (how is this adding to what has been presented) and finally the introduction ends with a statement of the hypothesis/hypotheses. Throughout your paper references to appropriate published peer reviewed articles should be included (this does not include blog, pop science presentations, blogs etc.). No reference should appear in the discussion which has not been presented in the introduction. You have been given one starting reference and you need to find THREE more to explain the area and develop the rationale for the study. References can either be formatted using APA or Vancouver guidelines depending on what you have been taught/what is common in your discipline. Method Participants Information about the participants in the study are presented here. Enough detail should be provided that the reader can replicate what was done should they choose to. This includes information about who they are, how many there were what their ages looked like and their gender. Design Information about the design of the study are presented here. This should include a clear statement of the IV/s and DV/s Materials and Procedure Information about the things used for the study (materials) and the what was done (procedure) are presented here. Enough detail should be provided that the reader can replicate what was done should they choose to. Results The analyses are presented here. All statistical tests should be presented in the same way that they were presented in the tutorial. Figures should be presented to visually represent the comparisons. Example of the formatting (not using your data!) is as follows: Figure 1. Awesomeness ratings for the tutors in week 1 and week 2 of semester. There is information on Canvas which indicates how to turn Jamovi information into graphs which are formatted in this way. Discussion The analyses are interpreted considering the hypotheses and the study critiqued for how it contributes to science. What does the results add to what we already know from previous research? Limitations should be presented but the study should never be presented as irredeemable. Future directions should be suggested, and a conclusion reached. References A reference list of all the articles cited in the paper should be presented here. They should be formatted according to APA Style or Vancouver. This section does not contribute to your word count. Appendix All the appropriate Jamovi output that you used to write your participants and results sections should be pasted here. Only include one output for each analysis even if you ran the analyses multiple times. _1629114831.xls Chart1 week 1 week 2 Awesomeness rating Week of Semester Awesomeness Rating 60 78 Sheet1 Awesomeness rating week of semesterweek 160 week 278 Red59.1 Blue63.4 High sensation seeking39.9 Low sensation seeking75.2 Sheet1 Awesomeness rating Week of Semester Awesomeness Rating Handout colour Mean Number of Exercises Completed Participant's Sensation Seeking Mean Number of Exercises Completed 6611: Introduction to Psychological Research Tutorial 4 HOW TO WRITE THE LABORATORY REPORT ASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH IN THE HEALTH SCIENCES The Laboratory Report: Title Think of a title for your report: • Needs to summarise the topic of the report (and sometimes the findings) • Needs to be concise - usually quite short (here we are asking for less than 12 words) • Needs to be accurate! • Needs to make sense immediately • Think about your reader approaching this without knowing anything about the topic The Laboratory Report: Abstract • The abstract summarises your report • Usually a very strict word limit – here 80-120 words • Needs to accurately represent the content of the report • Needs to mention purpose of report, design and basic method, results and interpretation • So basically your report, but ‘condensed’ (1-2 sentences summarising each section) • Think about someone deciding whether or not to read your report on the basis of your abstract The Laboratory Report: Introduction • First you need to introduce the topic – what is it you’re talking about? (need references for this) • Then review the literature – this is essentially ‘what has already been done’ (need at least THREE references, in addition to the one starter reference provided). For each article summarise what they did and found, then ‘put it all together’ – what is the previous literature telling us? What remains to be investigated? The Laboratory Report: Introduction • Clearly state the hypotheses for each analysis (for this report there are two analyses to conduct) – Research hypothesis: What did you predict the results would be based on your review of the literature? (e.g., “It was predicted that...”) – Null hypothesis: What is your statistical null hypothesis? (e.g., “The null hypothesis was...”) – Alternative hypothesis: What is your statistical alternative hypothesis? (e.g., “The alternative hypothesis was...”) (the null and alternative hypotheses are not usually explicitly described like this in journal articles, but we would like you to in this report to demonstrate you understand them) The Laboratory Report: Method The method provides enough detail for someone to replicate your study (use the following subheadings): • Participants: Describe who they were, how they were recruited, how many, age (range, M, SD), gender (number of each). Did any participants not provide age or gender information? • Design: Describe the design of the study, and whether the study was conducted as a between-subjects or within- subjects, and name the IVs and DVs (“The independent variable was…” and