Methods Section

Participants

The participants subsection is the first subsection of a methods section. This subsection should provide the reader with enough information to judge whether the research can be generalized to a larger population. At a minimum, it (a) informs the reader about who was in the experiment (i.e., the number of participants, how they were selected, the number of participants assigned to each experimental condition), (b) describes the population tested (i.e., age, gender, ethnicity, and other variables relevant to the experiment), and (c) reports any restrictions that were imposed on the participant pool (e.g., excluded learning disabled and deaf). An example of a participants section is “Sixty children from St. Helen’s School (27 boys, 33 girls) ranging in age from 10.5 to 12 years old, received $10 for participating in this study. All children completed all of the conditions.”

Research Design

The research design subsection, which is the second subsection of a methods section, should describe all baseline and experimental conditions. It should provide a description (i.e., operationalization) for all of the independent variables, including the levels of manipulation for each variable, whether an independent variable is a between-subjects variable or a within-subjects variable, and a discussion of the counterbalancing of the between-subjects variables. In addition, the research design section describes the dependent measure(s), including the unit of measure. Finally, the research design subsection typically lists the order of the tasks as they are administered.

Materials/Apparatus

This section provides a description of equipment, physical settings, and stimuli that are important to the experiment. When describing each of these components, it is important to first evaluate the importance of that component to the overall study. For instance, with respect to equipment, the greater the need for precise measurement, the greater the need to be more specific about the description of the equipment. If, for instance, a researcher is collecting reaction time data, then the researcher needs to describe the hardware (both processor and monitor) and software (e.g., programing language, data recording) used.

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