Writing a Lab Report
In most schools of psychology you will be required to write up lab reports as part of your psychology course. A lab report is different to an essay. It is a report about an experiment, and it is structured in a formal way. It is designed to tell others about your experiment, explain why you did it and what you expected to find; it then continues to give a detailed account of the method you used and the results of your study. The results are then discussed in relation to the theories behind your hypothesis, and you come to a conclusion about whether you succeeded in supporting your original hypothesis.
If you have read any psychology articles you will recognise that they all follow the same pattern. The begin with an Introduction, which outlines the theory behind the hypothesis being tested. This is followed by the Method section, in which you present the method used in carrying out the experiment. The third section contains the Results, and presents the results of the experiment, and finally these results are discussed in the Discussion. While these are the main sections; a report usually requires the following.
If you have read any psychology articles you will recognise that they all follow the same pattern. The begin with an Introduction, which outlines the theory behind the hypothesis being tested. This is followed by the Method section, in which you present the method used in carrying out the experiment. The third section contains the Results, and presents the results of the experiment, and finally these results are discussed in the Discussion. While these are the main sections; a report usually requires the following.
- Title
- Contents
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- References
- Appendices