Report writing — OCR A-Level Psychology
Test yourself on Report writing with OCR A-Level practice questions.
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Report writing explained
A journal article follows a fixed running order because each part answers a different question for the reader.
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The abstract tells you what was found in miniature, the introduction argues from existing theory to a testable prediction, the method tells you exactly what was done and to whom, then the results arrive stripped of interpretation, and the discussion says what it all means and what was wrong with it. References allow readers to trace cited works, and appendices provide full materials, raw data, or calculations that would clutter the main text. Milgram published his obedience work in 1963 in exactly this shape, which is why any reader can still check it. Learn the order as a chain of purposes rather than as a list of headings.
Sections and sub-sections of a practical report: abstract; introduction; method (design, sample, materials/apparatus, procedure); results; discussion; references; appendices.
A practical report follows a standard running order. The abstract provides a brief summary of the entire study. The introduction reviews past literature to justify the aim. The method details the design, sample, materials/apparatus, and procedure. For example, Loftus and Palmer's method used an independent measures design, 45 students, seven film clips, and specific questionnaire wording. The results section houses descriptive statistics (like a mean speed of 40.8 mph for 'smashed' vs 31.8 mph for 'contacted') and inferential statistics. The discussion interprets these findings. The references list all cited sources, and the appendices hold raw data and blank questionnaires.
Citing academic references: a familiarity with citing academic research using the Harvard system of referencing, e.g. Milgram, S. (1963) Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, (4), 371–378.
The purpose of a citation is retrievability: a reader should be able to go to a database and find the exact article you leant on. Inside the body of a report you give surname and year only, either as Milgram found that all forty of his participants continued to three hundred volts, with the year bracketed after his name, or as a bracketed surname and year at the end of the sentence. In the list at the back the elements run surname, initial, year, article title, journal title, volume, issue and page range, and entries are ordered alphabetically by first author surname. A book swaps the journal details for place of publication and publisher, and a chapter names its own author first and then the editors. Get the order right and the punctuation follows.
Peer review: appreciate the role of the psychological community in validating new knowledge and ensuring integrity through the process of peer review.
Before a study reaches a journal an editor sends it, usually with the author anonymised, to two or three researchers working in the same field, who judge whether the method supports the conclusion, whether the statistics were applied properly, whether the work is original and whether the ethics were sound. They recommend acceptance, revision or rejection, and the same machinery allocates grant money and selects conference papers. It is quality control rather than proof. The Open Science Collaboration reported in 2015 that when a hundred published psychology findings were repeated, fewer than half reached significance again, and Diederik Stapel published dozens of reviewed papers built on fabricated data before junior colleagues, not reviewers, exposed him.
Your focus
- Identify the main sections and sub-sections of a practical report, including the abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, references, and appendices.
- Explain the specific role and purpose of each section in communicating psychological research.
- Evaluate the placement of specific research details (e.g., raw data, sampling techniques) within the appropriate sections of a report.
Show all 12 objectives
- Identify and sequence the standard sections and sub-sections of a practical report.
- Distinguish between the contents of the introduction, method, results, and discussion sections.
- Explain the purpose of the abstract, references, and appendices in a psychological report.
- Apply the Harvard system of referencing to format in-text citations correctly using only the author's surname and the year of publication.
- Construct accurate full academic references for journal articles, books, and edited book chapters using the correct order of elements.
- Explain the purpose of citing academic references, including ensuring retrievability, crediting original researchers, and protecting against plagiarism.
- Describe the sequence of the peer review process, from submission and anonymous assessment to the final recommendation of acceptance, revision or rejection.
- Explain the functions of peer review in validating the quality of research, allocating funding and suggesting improvements prior to publication.
- Evaluate the peer review process by analysing weaknesses such as publication bias and the dual nature of reviewer anonymity.
Report writing exam tips
Marking Points
- Say what each part is for rather than what it is called; credit comes from wording such as the abstract lets a reader decide whether the full paper is worth reading, not from calling it a summary.
- Name the four sub-sections of the method as design, sample, materials or apparatus, and procedure, and tie them to replication: written in enough detail that another researcher could repeat the study and obtain comparable results.
- Put interpretation where it belongs; results carry descriptive and inferential outcomes only, while the discussion explains them, relates them back to the research reviewed earlier, evaluates the method and suggests further study.
- Treat the reference list as essential for tracing the studies the introduction argues from, and recognise that appendices hold raw data, full stimulus materials, and statistical calculations to keep the main report concise.
- Use the technical vocabulary a marker is looking for when describing a part of the report, including operationalised hypothesis, directional or non-directional, significance level and critical value.
- Define the abstract as a concise summary of the aim, method, results, and conclusions, placed at the very beginning of the report.
- Give the four method sub-sections by name with one decision each: design and why it was chosen, sample (target population, technique, and participant numbers), materials/apparatus (standardised stimuli), and procedure (an ordered account of what participants did).
- Say what the results may and may not contain: measures of central tendency and dispersion, an appropriate graph, and inferential tests with calculated and critical values (if used), but no explanation of why the results occurred.
- Place raw data, blank consent forms, standardised instructions, and statistical workings in the appendices, and explain that this keeps the report readable while leaving the evidence checkable.
- An in-text citation is surname and year only; a marker credits Loftus and Palmer with the year bracketed, and does not credit a full title or a web address dropped into the prose.
- For a journal article give author surname and initial, year in brackets, article title, journal name, volume, issue and page numbers, in that order.
- For a book give author, year, title, place of publication and publisher; for a chapter in an edited book, name the chapter author first and then the editors of the volume.
- Say why the convention exists: it credits the original researcher, lets a reader check the claim for themselves, and protects the writer against a charge of plagiarism.
- Describe the process as a sequence: submission, editor selects expert reviewers in the same field, anonymous assessment of method, analysis, originality and ethics, then a recommendation to accept, revise or reject.
- Give all three functions the board expects, which are validating the quality and relevance of research, allocating research funding, and suggesting improvements before anything is published.
- Evaluate with a named weakness: publication bias toward significant results leaves the file drawer full of non-significant studies, so the published literature looks stronger than the evidence actually is.
- Argue that anonymity cuts both ways, since it protects honest criticism but also lets a reviewer slow or block a rival, and reviewers can favour established names and familiar theories over unorthodox work.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Component one often gives a short scenario and asks which part of the report a given piece of information would appear in, worth one or two marks each, so practise sorting statements into parts against the clock.
- 💡An instruction to outline what a researcher should include in the procedure is typically worth three or four marks, so give that many separate scenario-specific details rather than one general sentence.
- 💡When asked to justify a choice, name the part and the reason together, for example that standardised instructions sit in the procedure because they let a reader judge how well the study was controlled.
- 💡Questions often present a report with something in the wrong place and ask you to explain the error, so practise saying both where it currently is and where it should have gone.
- 💡When an item asks you to suggest two things that would appear in the appendices, ensure you name scenario-specific items such as the consent form signed by these participants rather than generic ones to secure full credit.
- 💡You may be given a reference with its elements jumbled and asked to identify the volume, the year or the journal title, so learn which slot each element occupies rather than memorising one example.
- 💡Short items ask you to explain one reason researchers reference their sources; answer with credit to the original author and with checkability, never with the idea that it looks professional.
- 💡If asked to write a reference from details given in a scenario, keep the order and bracket the year, because the marks are for the convention rather than for the content.
- 💡Peer review is regularly worth four or more marks in an explain or discuss item, so prepare a paragraph with process, purpose and two criticisms rather than a one line definition.
- 💡Scenario questions ask why a researcher should submit to a peer reviewed journal rather than post findings on a personal website, so answer in terms of validation, funding and the credibility of the claim.
- 💡Link peer review to how psychological knowledge is judged scientific, because the same paragraph earns credit in questions about how science works.
Common Mistakes
- Writing the abstract as an introduction. It is written last and reports aim, method, findings and conclusion in a few sentences, so a candidate who previews the study without giving the findings loses the mark.
- Describing the sample inside the procedure. Sample is its own sub-section, so sampling technique, number of participants and how they were obtained belong there.
- Interpreting data in the results. A sentence beginning this shows that memory is reconstructive belongs in the discussion, not underneath a table of means.
- Treating the reference list as decoration. Without it a reader cannot trace the studies the introduction argues from, so the report fails its own purpose.
- Placing raw data or full questionnaires in the method section rather than correctly locating them in the appendices.
- Confusing materials with procedure. Correction: The questionnaire itself is listed under materials; what participants were asked to do with it belongs under procedure.
- Graphing every participant separately in the results. Correction: The results summarise the data, so individual raw scores belong in an appendix.
- Giving a hypothesis in the abstract and never stating it in the introduction. Correction: The operationalised hypothesis is expected at the end of the introduction.
- Citing a textbook or a revision site for a finding that belongs to the original researcher; the reference should point at the paper that reported the data.
- Listing references in the order they were mentioned. Harvard style orders the list alphabetically by first author surname, with the earliest year first where the same author appears twice.
- Putting the initial before the surname in the reference list, which makes the list impossible to alphabetise and loses the convention mark.
- Claiming that peer review checks whether the results are true. Reviewers read a manuscript; they do not rerun the study or inspect the raw data, which is how fabricated findings have passed review.
- Describing peer review as something that happens after publication, when it happens before, which is the whole point of it.
- Confusing peer review with replication. Replication is an independent team running the study again, and the replication crisis is the evidence that review on its own is not enough.