Overview

This weeks APA Style assignment requires you to read and summarize an empirical research article. The goal is to demonstrate your understanding of the research article and the research methods covered so far, while following APA Style guidelines.

Instructions

1. Read the article “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction” (Loftus & Palmer, 1974).
   • You can download the article here Download hereor view it on the next page.
   • The two resources below will assist you with reading empirical articles. Click on the links below to download them.
     • Tips on Reading Research ReportsDownload Tips on Reading Research Reports
     • Note Taking TemplateDownload Note Taking Template
2. Summarize the article. (See questions provided below the instructions)
   • Please organize your summary with the following headings:
     • Introduction
     •  Methods
       • Sample
       • Design
       • Measures
       • Procedures
     • Results
     • Discussion
3. Include an APA Style Student Title Page.
4. Include an APA Style reference page.
   • This should include a reference for the article and any other resources you use.

Please use the following template when writing your summary. It includes information on what to include and how to format it using APA style – Research_Article_Summary_Template_APAStyle.docx Download Research_Article_Summary_Template_APAStyle.docx 

This assignment should be 2 pages minimum (double-spaced), but will likely need to be more to sufficiently summarize the article.

Your assignment will pass through Turn It In, so be sure your work is your own!

You can view the rubric that will be used to grade this assignment at the bottom of the page.

 

Use the following questions to help you summarize the article. Answering these questions will help you to map out all of the information that should be included in a thorough summary.

Introduction

• What was the researcher interested in (what was the research topic)?
• What were the variables? How were they conceptually defined? (See Chapter 4, Psychological Measurement Links to an external site.; especially section 21. Practical Strategies for Psychological Measurement)
• What were the researcher’s research questions and/or hypothesis?

Methods

Sample:

• Describe the sample – sample size (how many), gender, age, ethnicity and race, any other important demographic information.
• How were they recruited?

Design:

• Was the research experimental or non-experimental?
• If non-experimental:
  • Was it simply describing variable(s), or was it correlational?
• If experimental:
  • What was the independent variable(s)? What was the dependent variable(s)?
  • Was a between-subjects or within-subjects design used?

Measures:

• How did they operationally define their variables? 
  • I.e., what measures where used? (What are they called and what do they measure?)

Procedures:

• What did the participants have to do?

Results

• What did the researchers find/what were the results?
  • Note: for this section, you do not need to include any statistical information. Using everyday language, explain what the main findings were.

Discussion

• What explanations (possible reasons) does the researcher give for the results? In other words, why do they think they found what they did?
• What were the limitations of the study?
• What do the researchers recommend future research should do?