PSY2005 Applied Psychology and Research Methods and Ethics

Psy2005: Applied Research Methods & Ethics in Psychology Lab Week 21: Writing Up A Qualitative Lab Report Tutor Led 1 Aims and Learning Outcomes Aim: This session aims to introduce students to the key parts of writing up a qualitative lab report. At the end of this session, students will be able to: • Identify the requirements of each section of the qualitative lab report • Know where to find additional resources Tutor Led 2 The Remit Tutor Led • To write a 2,500 word* qualitative lab report based on the interviews of ill physical health and university-related stress: • Transcribe the interviews • Decide on a research question and choose an analytical method – IPA or NA (see examples from previous weeks) • Conduct your analysis • Write up your interpretation – these are the findings (see example write-ups under the NA and IPA lab materials) • Write up the lab report * We would be very surprised if any submissions are below the word 2,500 words. Before anyone asks, this is +/- 10%, so you can go up to 2,750 comfortably. Beyond that, you are risking marks. This is particularly the case where work is repetitive, or lacks a succinct writing style. Also, the section word count in these slides does indeed add up to more than 2,750. You are not expected to use the higher allowable word count in every one of these sections. 3 WHAT are you interested in researching? The topics: Tutor Led Ill physical health Or University-related stress 4 HOW are you interested in researching what you are interested in? Tutor Led Two possible methods • Narrative analysis: Understanding how people construct their sense of self and their reality; exploring the life of individuals and how it affects their sense of self • (relativist and social constructionist approach) • Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Understanding in detail personal lived experience and how people make sense of this; understanding the meaning of the experience • (critical realist and interpretivist stance) 5 Positions in relation to each other: Epistemology and Ontology Tutor Led Different knowledge claims arise from different ways of engaging with the world: IPA NA 6 Bringing WHAT and HOW together: CHOOSE ONE Ill physical health: Tutor Led • Narrative Analysis: How do second-year psychology students construct their sense of self through narratives of ill physical health? • IPA: How do second-year psychology students describe their experiences of ill physical health? University-related stress: • Narrative Analysis: How do second-year psychology students construct their sense of self through narratives of university stress? • IPA: How do second-year psychology students describe their experiences of university stress? 7 Writing Up the Qualitative Lab Report These slides are your ‘go to’ guide for what to put in the report. It is a LOT to take in during one session, so please read these again after our class and list your questions for next week’s data analysis surgery/open forum. We hope this will help in your write-up. Tutor Led 8 Sections of your lab report Tutor Led Title: Best written at the end, once you have finished your report. What is this report about, in one succinct sentence? • What are the main words you want to use, so that if someone was looking for a paper in a related area, your one would come up in their search? • Your research question is NOT the title. Abstract: Approximately 150 words • A summary of the research study. Key points. Aims, participants, data collection method, analytical approach. State key findings. Suggest the implications of these findings and how they are discussed in the report • Also best written at the end Key words: 3-5 words 9 Sections of your lab report Introduction: 500-600 words Tutor Led • This is largely the same as you would have in a quant lab report • Use both quant and qual studies here (you are not limited to only using qual studies) • Discuss literature relevant to your research question and build a rationale for your study • Build critical arguments that serve as a platform for why your own study is necessary. • Don’t discuss your own study in the introduction and do NOT include anything about your methodology here! • Easy way to lose marks! Final paragraph – can draw the key points/arguments you have created throughout, and then state the aim (you must write this) and the research question (we have given you this). This is the only place you should mention your own study in the Introduction. 10 Sections of your lab report continued… Method (composed of 4 sub-sections*): 600-800 words *A little bit different from your previous, quant. reports. Tutor Led Participants: • How many participants in total (participants, not interviews) • How and where recruited from • Approach to sample selection (e.g., snowballing, purposive, etc), • How many you selected and why these • Homogenous if IPA and what makes them so. • You need to provide a rationale for everything. • Details of individual participants. • You could present participant details in a table – APA style. • If you choose to present this in a table, don’t repeat the same information in the paragraph. • Tables don’t contribute to the word count- don’t abuse this though… We should not see lab reports full of tables 11 Method continued: Tutor Led Procedure: • Describes how the study was conducted. • Rationale for method of data collection- i.e., why did we conduct semistructured interviews? • Citation to support this. • Inclusion of semi-structured interview schedule as appendix. You will be uploading the appendix as a separate document. • Refer to the relevant appendix when you mention the interview, i.e., see Appendix A • Mention ethical considerations, and refer to as appendices (e.g. information Sheet, consent form, debriefing sheet (all of these need to be submitted) • Brief outline of equipment e.g. audio recorders • Check/ask yourself/ask someone else: can someone repeat my procedure from my description of it? Are there any details missing? 12 Method continued: Tutor Led Analytical approach: • Rationale for adopting qualitative approach and the specific technique of analysis (IPA or NA) used. • Citation to support this. • Mention what the epistemological and ontological stance for method applied. • Citation to support this. • Don’t describe what ontology and epistemology are! The readers know this already • Sentence about why the method of analysis is most appropriate to the study in line with research question and include a citation to support this. • Give a brief description of how the data was analysed – what steps you followed. Provide a citation to support this • Can the reader repeat your analysis based on what you have written about the steps?. Please note that we expect to see relevant citations in this section. 13 Sections of your lab report continued… Method continued: Tutor Led Reflexivity: • Situating oneself in the research context and acknowledging the implication of one’s subjectivity. • Goes beyond your subjective demographics to consider positionality, your experiences, and values, and how these shaped your analysis and interpretation. • How you engaged in reflexive practice: • Include example(s) of your awareness of your subjective influence, how it may have influenced, and what you did to limit this influence • Do not mention unbiased, objectivity, etc. You were not unbiased! • If you feel you can be unbiased and objective with this research, you need to revisit this concept and what qualitative research is all about, as this shows you have not understood this, and it will affect the quality of your report. See earlier session materials and your own notes on Reflexivity 14 Tutor Led Findings: 800-1,000 words • Presentation of your interpretation of analysis. • Remember, you analyse your entire dataset, but you present a representation of that analysis in the Findings section. • Regardless of your chosen approach, you need to have an introductory paragraph at start of this section, reminding the reader of your research question. And state what the key findings were: • IF IPA, refer reader to the table and state each superordinate theme and their corresponding subordinate/sub themes will be discussed in turn. • IF NA, tell the reader the main ways in which participants have constructed their sense of selves. • You will present the findings in different ways depending on the analytical method: • IPA = table of super-ordinate (3 minimum to 5 maximum) with corresponding subordinate themes. • NA = coded stories in tables (3 minimum to 4 maximum) • Remember that text in tables does not contribute to the word count 15 Tutor Led Findings continued: 800-1,000 words • Present a theme/narrative as relevant. Describe it. Present illustrative quote to support. A little more description (perhaps) and then your interpretation: • Sign-posted to the reader by key words such as ‘this suggests that…’, ‘this illustrates that…’ • Interpretation is where you will get your marks! We cannot give many marks for a descriptive findings section – this is where many previous students have gotten low marks in their reports. • Remember that although your analysis is of your entire dataset, you will only be able to present some of it in the lab report – choose the most illustrative! Quotes do not count towards word count. • No long lists of quotes! Two quotes should more than suffice in support of any point being made When providing quotes in IPA you MUST refer to the participant by their pseudonym and give a good in-depth account of their lived experience. 16 Sections of your lab report continued… Common problems in the Findings section: • Taken from the Patter blog, by Pat Thomson Tutor Led Too much description and not enough analysis. • Too much description is where the writer spends most of their word budget telling the reader in great detail what the participants said, or what each set of results in the survey were, or how the research cases varied from one another. Minutiae. Repeated variations of the same quotation. Long slabs of narrative. Protracted reporting of field notes. • What’s the problem? Well, without any analysis from the writer, the reader is left to make their own interpretation of what this all means, if they can be bothered… Too little description and too much abstraction. • What’s the problem? The reader is left wondering what the themes refer to. Has the writer just made them up? Plucked them out of the air? It’d be nice to have an example of what these abstractions actually meant. Would it be too much to ask for a bit of evidence to back up these claims? 17 Discussion: 500-600 words Tutor Led • This is similar to a quant lab report. Show how the research question has been addressed, the theoretical frameworks within which the findings can be interpreted. Return to papers cited in introduction and further papers if relevant to findings. • First paragraph is a summary of the key findings. • Discuss your findings in relation to the results of the existing empirical and theoretical literature. It should be a critical discussion. Where your findings do not support the findings of other studies, you will need to discuss why you think this may be and support it with literature depending on the point being made. • Do NOT discuss individual participants here – refer to the findings as a whole. No quotes here! • Evaluation – strengths and limitations – obviously, do not state lack of generalisability or small sample size for qual research as a limitation! • Directions for future research. This shouldn’t just repeat the limitations in your study- what else should future research do? • Conclusion paragraph that draws your whole report together. • No new information here. A summary. What is the take-home message you want to leave your reader with about your entire report? 18 References: Tutor Led • We will check whether these match the citations in the report. • Need to be in APA format (7th edition). • Check the formatting of each different type of source • Each one will be different! • APA blog  helpful and show examples • Needs to be quite extensive to reflect the reading you have done Appendices: • Needs to include all appendices. These will be submitted in a separate file. • e.g. semi-structured interview schedule, Information Sheet, Consent Form, Debriefing form. • APA format – label each one in accordance and refer to them in the text, e.g. ‘a semi-structured interview was used to… (see Appendix A).’ 19 Sections of your lab report continued… Tutor Led When you submit, it save your file by the method of analysis and your student number when you upload it to Turnitin. Example: • NA M00112233 • IPA M00445566 ONLY! Nothing else. Nada! Students who do not submit their work with the file saved in this manner will lose a percentage point. 20 Qual Lab Report Template: found in Lab Week 21 and in relevant folder under ‘Summative assessment’ You need to state YOUR word count for each section and then write your content under each section heading. 21 Examples of Good Practice Tutor Led • IPA: Smith, J. & Osbourne, M. (2007). Pain as an assault on the self: An interpretive phenomenological analysis of the psychological impact of chronic benign low back pain. Psychology and Health, 22(5), 517-534. • NA: Bailey-Rodriguez, D. (2017). “We’re in the trenches together”: A pluralistic exploration of attachment behaviour dynamics in a heterosexual couple relationship across the transition to second-time parenthood. Unpublished doctoral thesis. London: Middlesex University. • Also see paper on My Learning in the Week 21 folder called: ‘For the lack of a boilerplate: Tips on writing up (and reviewing) qualitative research.’ • Use these slides on the different sections of report as a template/checklist too. 22 REMINDER: Opportunity to gain extra marks for the Qual Lab Report: Tutor Led • You can gain a bonus of 5% on your Qual Lab Report grade if you include a reflexive piece detailing ways in which you learned from your experiences on the quantitative lab report (specific challenges/facilitators in producing the quant report, reflections on your performance, etc.) to improve for the qualitative report. • The focus is on how you have reflected on the process and your performance – be specific in how you have done so. • Include it at the beginning, after the cover page, but before the title, abstract, etc. • Write around 300-400 words (not included in the lab report word count). No bonus marks will be awarded if the evaluative piece falls outside this range or if it simply describes the process of doing the quant report, the grade, and/or feedback. • You will not be penalised if you do not do this. • If you did not submit Lab Report 1, you can use the feedback from another piece of work to do this (from another module). BTW, we will be checking your feedback. Don’t fabricate it!  23

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