Structure of Qualitative Practical Report – Completion

Practical
Stage 2 Psychology – Psychological Health and
Wellbeing

The Basics
 Assessment Type: Completion Practical for the D&D
 Word count: 1,500 words
 No personal pronouns (I, we, our, your etc.)
 Past tense only
 Formal scientific language

The Structure
1. Title Page
2. Introduction
3. Results
4. Discussion
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
7. Appendix
1. Title Page
 Needs to include your name, SACE ID and developed research question.
 Make sure it looks professional. No silly clip art images etc.

2. Introduction
 Begins on a new page.
 Background information – need several sentences giving relevant background information on your
chosen focus group question/s i.e., symptoms of sleep deprivation, task performance, siestas in
Australia etc.
 Aim – Clearly describe the purpose of the practical in terms of your research question.
 Research question – restate it here.
 Controlled variables – Factors that were held constant throughout the investigation i.e., same room,
same invigilator etc.
 Potential extraneous variables – Factors that were unable to be controlled or verified that may
influence the results i.e., sleep environments, preferences, mood on the day of the focus groups etc.

3. Results
 Results need to be in direct relation to your question.
 Must do content analysis with up to 5 themes (no more than this, but no less than 3)
 Tales should have 3 columns - the name of the theme, an illustrative comment (or common answer)
and the frequency of responses.
 Can have an ‘other’ theme but must include illustrative quotes to give it context in relation to your
chosen question.
 Note: this section does not contribute towards the 1,500-word count.

Tables
 Titles go above the table.
 Tables should be labelled i.e., ‘Table 1, Table 2’ etc.
 Provide a brief sentence summary underneath your table/s describing and reporting the data. Do not
analyse/interpret the data in the table here. Include what the original focus group question was here
too i.e., ‘the above themes were in direct relation to the question….’

4. Discussion
 Starts on new page.

Paragraph 1 – Interpretation of the results

 Discuss each theme separately. Talk about the frequencies as a percentage (optional) and their
significance overall to your question. E.g., this theme held the highest frequency (46%) of the data
implying that…
 Use illustrative comments to support/back up what you are saying. E.g. Under a theme of
“Avoidance” comments such as “they don’t really care” illustrate how personal opinions regarding
the smoking of tobacco can act as distracter and lead to avoidance….you can at this point add an
interpretation of your own.
 Discuss the significance of how each theme answers your question.
 If you have a theme called ‘others’ explain why and give examples of how it does not fit in with
other themes and include some responses in it to help answer the question or contradict the other
responses.
 What are the implications of these results?
 Talk about some general theories about your topic of interest (you could include referencing here )
 These theories/this info will be similar to those stated/briefly discussed in your proposal/introduction
sections.
 You MUST then link these theories back to your results. Are your results consistent with this past
research/theories? If not, why not? If they are, explain the link to your reader. Only one sentence
should be about past research – the rest needs to be explaining the meaning of your own findings

Paragraph 2 – Evaluation of procedures – validity and reliability

 Identify sources of uncertainty in the data that reduce its quality.
 Discuss the issues with the validity and reliability of the data.
 Is the data 100% accurate? Why/why not?
 Is the data going to be consistent if the investigation was repeated? Why/why not?
 Explain the specific extraneous variables that make the data and procedures limited. Focus on your
chosen variables here!

Paragraph 3 – Evaluation of procedures – sample, representativeness,

strengths and weaknesses
 Was the procedure the best way to measure arousal and relaxation? Why? Why not?
 Evaluate the sample size and representativeness
 Was the sample size big enough?
 Was the sample representative of the wider population? What factors made it unrepresentative?
 Evaluate the design and method used
 What were the strengths and weaknesses of using the chosen design?
 What were the strengths and weaknesses of using the chosen method?
 What are some improvements to the issues above that could result in better results?

Paragraph 4 – Ethical concerns

 Did the procedure adhere to all ethical guidelines in Psychology? Were any of them breached?
 Ensure you discuss at least 3 ethical considerations in depth.
Paragraph 5 - Conclusion
 Summarise your research question.
 Make a judgement as to the extent that your question was addressed by the themes.
 Use science inquiry skills (SIS) to justify your reasons for making this conclusion i.e., weaknesses
regarding your design choice.
 Explain why the results of this investigation may not lead to definitive conclusions.

Bibliography
 Include full citations of sources using the Harvard referencing system.
 Can also do in text referencing or footnotes (not endnotes!)
 No set number of sources but at least two is a good start.

Appendix
 Include raw data – focus group question/s
 Can also refer to this in your report i.e., ‘(see appendix 1).’

General information
 Word count for the above is 1,500 words.
 This includes the introduction, discussion and conclusion.
 This does not include the title page, results, bibliography, referencing or appendix.
 Write in third person throughout – no personal pronouns i.e. I, we, our, your etc.
 Write in past tense.
 Use scientific psychological terminology (sophisticated with correct terms).
IMPORTANT NOTES ON THE TERMINOLOGY – HIGHER
GRADE BANDS

 Use as many Psychological terms as possible throughout your report.

 Make sure you are referring to the labels on your graphs appropriately when discussing your results
in your discussion paragraph.

 Think about what terms your teacher has used in teaching this topic. How can you try to weave some
of them into your own paragraphs?

 Often you will lose marks if you try to explain something in ‘a roundabout’ way, when instead could
have simply stated the facts with a psychological term.

 Be straightforward and to the point! Anyone should be able to pick up your report and understand
what you are talking about (whether they know anything about Psychology or not)

 Try not to sound ‘chatty’. You need to write using formal scientific language.

 Never use the word PROVE

 For a Qualitative design, refer to it as an ‘investigation’ not an ‘experiment.’

 Avoid using bold statements or descriptive language

 DO NOT use ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘our’ etc. unless it is an illustrative comment. Always write in 3rd Person.