Marking Criteria

The lab report should be in APA style and be based on the following guidelines.

Overall word count should be no more than 3,000 words, although 10% variation will be allowed without penalty.

Note that the section word counts provided below are only a guideline - marking will only take account of the overall word count.

Cover sheet

• p. 1
• Download and insert

Cover page

• p. 2
• Title (~10-15 words)
  • Does the title convey the content of the report?
  • Is it succinct, catchy and memorable?
• Student name, ID
• Word count (for main body - not including abstract, tables, figures, appendices and references)

Abstract

• p. 3
• ~150-200 words
• Marked as part of Intro
• Does it describe the purpose of the study?
• Does it summarise the literature review?
• Are the hypotheses clear?
• Does it describe the method without being overly detailed?
• Are the key results summarised?
• Are the theoretical implications mentioned?
• Are the methodological implications considered?

Introduction (15%)

• p. 4
• ~600 words
• Concisely summarise the study's purpose - introduce and explain the research question
• Develop and focus on a coherent research question and clearly state testable hypotheses.
• The research question is up to you, and you should use your own ideas, but it must connect logically to the data and should draw on the background reading listed in the references. 
• Overview and critique relevant past research, identifying key issues which can be addressed in this study
• Create logical hypotheses with theoretical argument and citations.
• Do the hypotheses state the direction (where appropriate) of the expected findings?
• Do the hypotheses inappropriately imply causation for cross-sectional research?
• Are the hypotheses clearly identified, possibly by number? (this usually makes it easier to organise the results and discussion)

Method (15%)

• ~500 words
• Clearly explain how the study was conducted in sufficient detail to allow a replication study, but without extraneous detail.
• Will someone, say in Japan in 20 years time, have sufficient information to fully replicate the study?
• Participants:
  • Has a descriptive, relevant description of the participants been succinctly provided? (probably one to two paragraphs)
  • You may wish to compare the sample with these population statistics for UC students 1995-2005.
• Measures
  • Has the development of the materials been well described?
  • Are the questionnaire items described and examples provided?
  • Is the measurement scale accurately described, including the meaning of high/low scores?
• Procedure
  • Is the sampling technique described?
  • How long did participants take?
  • Refusal rate?
  • Procedural anomalies?

Results (45%)

• ~1200 words
• Described how the data was screened before proceeding with the statistical analyses:
  • Were there any out of range values and what did you do about them?
  • Was there any missing data and how did you deal with it?
• Have you used correct APA format for statistical symbols (e.g., see Reporting Statistics in APA Style)
  • Have you used the correct statistical symbols and abbreviations?
  • Have you italicised English letters used as statistical symbols?
• Do you use APA layout for tables?
  • centred
  • informative title
  • right aligned statistics
  • exclude redundant information? (e.g. instead of reporting the same N on several lines of the table, it would be better to put the N in brackets as part of the table title)
  • is a note included to explain any abbreviations or anomalies?
  • horizontal lines above and below heading row and below bottom row; no vertical lines
• Have you inserted figures where they aid understanding of the data?
• Do you have perfect APA layout for figures?
  • centred
  • informative title (usually best to do in the word processor, not SPSS)
  • no inner frame (switch off manually in SPSS chart editor)
  • axes use same font as text (change manually in SPSS chart editor)
  • axis labels are consistent with terms in the text
  • is a note included to explain any abbreviations or anomalies?
• Are statistics reported to two decimal places, unless there is a particular reason to use more or less decimal places?
• Are appendices easy to find when a reader wants to check your analyses?
• Do you clearly identify the independent and dependent variables for inferential statistical analyses?
• Do you report results in a robotic manner, or does your reporting of the results demonstrate an indepth understanding?
• Do you structure each of the results in a similar, logical manner or is there inconsistency between the approach of each analysis?
• Do you capitalise "Table", "Figure", and "Appendix" in the text (yes, you should)?
• Is there evidence that effort has been to include special statistical symbols where appropriate. Examples: α (alpha), β (beta), χ² (chi-squared), η² (eta-squared).
• Are SPSS variable names used in reporting and discussing results? (They are inappropriate)
• Are the directions of any relationships reported?
• Is the strength of relationship (e.g., Cohen's d, η²) reported where appropriate?

Qualitative Analysis (10%)

• Purpose of analysis
• Data coding
• Themes / trends with illustrative quotes
• For more detail see:
  • Writing Up a Qualitative Analysis

Factor Analyses & Reliabilities (15%)

• Type & purpose of factor analyses
• Meeting of assumptions (sample size, cases:variables ratio, factorability of correlation matrix)
• Whether expected structure was evident (number of factors extracted & how this was decided)
• % of variance explained
• Which items were retained/deleted and why?
• Table of factor loadings
• Name and description of each factor
• Reliabilities
• Composite scores (could be covered in other sections)
• Correlations amongst factors (could be covered in other sections)
• For more detail see:
  • Writing Up a Factor Analysis [.doc]

Multiple Regression (10%)

• Type & purpose of regression
• Independent variables and dependent variables, including any manipulations (recoding)
• Assumptions, particularly correlations between IV and DV and amongst IVs
• Correlation table
• Amount of variance explained (R²)), at each step if hierarchical
• Significance and size of R²
• Significance, size, direction and relative contribution of each IV
• Table of multiple regression coefficients, including B for intercept & IVs and Beta, t, p, and possibly the zero-order and partial correlations for each IV
• State whether hypothesis/hypotheses was/were rejected
• For more detail see:
  • Writing up a MLR [.doc]

ANOVA (10%)

• Type and purpose of ANOVA
• Independent variables and dependent variables, including any manipulations (recoding)
• Assumptions, particularly normality of DVs & homogeneity of variance
• Table of descriptive statistics, with cell means, standard deviations, ns and marginal (sub-total) and total descriptive statistics
• Figure such as line graph or error bar graph to illustrate the relationship amongst variables of interest [optional]
• Statistical significance of main effects and interaction effects, η² for the overall model, and the partial η² for each IV - include comment on direction and size of effects
• Posthoc tests or planned comparisons to identify differences between any means that aren't clear from the main analysis
• State whether hypothesis/hypotheses was/were rejected
• For more detail see:
  • Writing up an ANOVA [.doc]

Discussion (25%)

• ~700 words
• Insightful and balanced interpretation of the results with tangible recommendations for future practice and research.
• Does the discussion demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the research area and the results?
• Is this discussion boring because it just resummarises the results without providing useful, addition commentary?
• Is the discussion limited in scope or does it demonstrate a breadth of thinking and analysis?
• Does the discussion try to defend its hypotheses (or attack the hypotheses) or does it take a balanced, considered approach?
• Do you consider the power of the study?
• Do you consider the appropriateness of the sampling technique?
• Do you consider the generalisability of the findings?
• Does the discussion build upon the material reviewed in the introduction?
• Do you consider a range of potential implications and applications of the current study?
• Is the discussion balanced, emphasising the strengths and the weaknesses of the current study?

Appendices

• Selected SPSS output with annotations to demonstrate how you arrived at your results.
• Do not include the questionnaire.

General Checklist

• ~10% of the marks in each section will reflect the APA style
• Use Times New Roman 12 throughout
• Single-spacing for electronic submissions
• Wide margins throughout (e.g., 2.5 cm on all sides)
• Page numbers (but not first page), bottom centred, 12 pt Times New Roman
• Write in the 3rd person (i.e. no 1st person ("I" or "our" statements) or 2nd person ("you" statements)
• Logical flow from paragraph to paragraph (or are there illogical jumps between some paragraphs?)
• Does each sentence contain one main point?
• Paragraph length - too long (e.g. more than about 2/3 page?) or too short (e.g. 1-2 sentences)?
• Does each paragraph introduce a concept, flesh out the detail, and conclude by clarifying your point?
• Is there untidy splitting of tables, figures, titles, and so on, over different pages?
• Is the text left justified, but not right justified?
• Are abbreviations such as "e.g." and "i.e." only used inside brackets?
• Do you use spaces before and after symbols such as = and p? (treat them like words)
• Do full stops occur after the close of brackets and after the close of direction quotations?
• Are page numbers cited for direct quotations?
• Are quotes > 40 words inset, without quotation marks?
• Are all authors cited the first time a paper is referenced?
• Is "et al." used for second and subsequent citations which have three or more authors?
• Avoid directional references to "above", "below", "following" and "preceding"
• Do you use bold font?  (not APA format)
• Are appropriate, conventional abbreviations used?  For example, ANOVA.
• Grammar:
  • Are ownership apostrophes used correctly?
  • Is Australian spelling, rather than American spelling used?
  • Are fully grammatical sentences used? (e.g. watch out for incomplete sentences such as "For example ongoing pain related to their injury or cognitive deficits.")

Notes

1. Each student must contribute at least 5 cases of real data by the end of W2. Failure to do so will attract a  penalty (4 / 40 marks) on the lab report.
2. Reports over the 3,000 word limit will be penalised 1% per extra 100 words.  Abstract, Tables, Figures and Appendices are not included the word count.
3. Penalties (2 / 40 marks per day) will apply to late assignments, and extensions will only be granted in extreme circumstances. Technology problems (e.g., hard drive crashes, dial-up problems, corrupted disks, viruses, etc.) will not be accepted as grounds for an extension. You should take appropriate precautions to avoid these problems (e.g., use backups and don't leave the assignment to the last minute).