Biological Psychology PSYC20006

Biological Psychology PSYC20006, Semester 1, 2025
Lab Report Assignment - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Table of Contents
1. Do we get the 10 percent leeway for Assignment 1? .......................................................3
2. How do I apply for an extension? ......................................................................................3
3. I am struggling to keep within the word count for this assignment – what advice can you
give me? ...........................................................................................................................3
4. Is there a minimum word count? ......................................................................................3
5. Can you recommend a good website that checks for plagiarism? What if ......................4
6. Should we include abbreviations in the title? ...................................................................4
7. How do you write a good title? .........................................................................................4
8. What statistics should we report in our Abstract? ............................................................5
9. If I define an abbreviation in the Abstract, can I then use the abbreviation in the lab
report or do I need to redefine it? ....................................................................................5
10. What format does the lab report have to be in? Where can I find information about APA
7 format? ..........................................................................................................................5
11. Should we ask rhetorical questions in lab reports? ...........................................................5
12. How do I choose what terms to define in a lab report? ....................................................5
13. In the Abstract, do we need to state what statistical tests we used? ...............................6
14. Do we need to include limitations or future directions in the Abstract? ..........................6
15. Can we use subheadings in the Abstract? .........................................................................6
16. Do we need to provide references in the Abstract? .........................................................6
17. How long should the Abstract be? ....................................................................................6
18. Do we need to include the aim and hypotheses in the Abstract? .....................................6
19. Should we use pronouns for a lab report? ........................................................................7
20. What tense should we write in for the lab report? ...........................................................7
21. Should we write a different rationale from what has been presented in Tutorial 1? ........7
23. How much detail do I include for each study reviewed in my Introduction section? ........8
24. Is my literature review and rationale in the Introduction section separate or integrated?8
25. Should we rephrase our hypotheses from the Tutorial 1 slides? ......................................9
26. Should we repeat information from the Method section? ...............................................9
27. Do you report exact p-values? ..........................................................................................9
28. How do I know if the p-value is significant or not? ...........................................................9
29. If we want to comment on figures/tables, should it be under the ‘results’ ......................9
30. Should I include a leading zero when reporting my results or not? ..................................9
Biological Psychology PSYC20006

31. Do we report the descriptive statistics that are already in the figure in words in the
results section? .............................................................................................................. 10
32. Do we report the sex split, or age of participants, in the results section? ..................... 10
33. Are there any resources you would recommend for someone who is struggling with
understanding/analysing what all of the outputs mean for the t-tests? I think I am
getting caught up on what outputs (df, t, p, mean difference etc.) that I should be
including in my results. .................................................................................................. 10
34. Do I need to include confidence intervals in my lab report? .......................................... 10
35. What statistics do I need to include in my lab report? ................................................... 10
36. Should I report statistics for baseline data in the lab report?........................................ 11
37. What should we define in tables and figures? ............................................................... 11
38. Should I alter the figure from what is presented at the end of tutorial 3? .................... 11
39. When we ‘compare and contrast’ studies are we comparing methodologies of ........... 11
40. What kind of interpretation can I make on the basis of my data in my discussion section?
12
41. How do I know if a limitation is relevant or not? ........................................................... 12
42. If a study has limitations can we interpret results? ........................................................ 12


Biological Psychology PSYC20006

1. Do we get the 10 percent leeway for Assignment 1?
Yes, as per the student manual, the leeway applies. Please note that for this assignment the
Abstract is included in the word count, but keywords are not. Please refer to the Student Manual,
for all other information about word count and penalties including the definition of the ten percent
leeway.

2. How do I apply for an extension?
Please be aware that late penalties in the School of Psychological Sciences are quite strict (see the
Student Manual for more information). Please also be aware that tutors (including the Senior Tutor)
are not in charge of approving extensions or special consideration requests, and these cannot be
approved via email. If you want to apply for an extension, or have any query relating to the
eligibility criteria, or not having handed an assignment in on time, please refer to the extensions and
student support modules on Canvas prior to emailing any staff member about this. Please see the
links for student support modules on Canvas, special consideration processes, and extension
processes here: Extension Information and Procedures: Biological Psychology
(PSYC20006_2025_SM1). Please refer to the Student Manual for more information about this.

3. I am struggling to keep within the word count for this assignment – what
advice can you give me?
This is a part of the challenge of this assignment! Remember that everyone is in the same boat here
and the best advice would be to just do your best. Please keep in mind the guidelines for balance of
word counts that the Introduction and Discussion sections should take up about one third of your
word each. This assignment is certainly doable within the word count if we are economical with
words and focused on our language and review of the literature! This is an understandable and
common struggle so just do your best.

4. Is there a minimum word count?
As with all assignments, and in line with the Student Manual, there are no penalties for writing too
few words – just ensure you have engaged in a thorough review of the literature and discussion of
your results! It would be very difficult to do this assignment if writing substantially under the word
limit so ensure you double check the assignment criteria, review the feedback from the
Biological Psychology PSYC20006

ALM, and thoroughly consider whether you have included enough.

5. Can you recommend a good website that checks for plagiarism? What if
Turnitin shows a high similarity rating but I don’t think I plagiarised?
There is no good recommendation for this and you should not need to check for plagiarism. It is
very difficult to plagiarise by accident. If you have not taken anything from elsewhere or other
articles without referencing, and if you have not copied work from another source and not
paraphrased, then it is very unlikely you have plagiarised. Some things to keep in mind when
thinking about this are to ensure that if you are working with another person on the report (this is
okay and collaboration is great in general), ensure that you don’t write the report together or you
will be risking a high level of similarity between reports. Ensure that you have written the sections
separately. Further, do not directly copy from previous lab reports that you have written as this is
still plagiarism even though it is your work (it is self-plagiarism as you cannot lift work from previous
assignments for this one). Please see more information about academic integrity and plagiarism
here: https://academicintegrity.unimelb.edu.au/.
If Turnitin shows a high similarity rating and you do not think you have plagiarised I would
not worry too much. There will be an elevated similarity rate due to you having been given the
Method section (all Methods will be the same) and due to references overlapping. If you are
extremely worried you can contact the Senior Tutor about this, however in general, as previously
mentioned, accidental plagiarism is extremely unlikely, if at all possible.

6. Should we include abbreviations in the title?
Abbreviations should not be included in titles, generally. If they were included, they would need to
be defined, however given that the title is meant to be very concise, it would be best not to include
abbreviations in the title for your lab report.

7. How do you write a good title?
Titles should include all variables (IV and DV), and give a good introduction to the general topic under
investigation. Where possible, it should also give some indication of the main findings/direction of
findings/relationship found between variables. It should be concise and not too lengthy or
convoluted. (See marking guide for more information.)
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8. What statistics should we report in our Abstract?
Please refer to the Assignment marking guide. It is important to include relevant sample
characteristics (e.g. number of participants, mean age, sex composition). It is also important to
include the main findings including effect sizes and significance levels (i.e. p-values) where
appropriate, particularly for findings pertaining to the hypotheses. Please note that a p-value can
never equal zero and should be reported as < .001 where rounding would place the number at zero.
Exact p-values should always be reported where possible (i.e. in all other cases).

9. If I define an abbreviation in the Abstract, can I then use the abbreviation in the lab
report or do I need to redefine it?
According to APA 7 guidelines, the Abstract is a stand-alone section of the report. Therefore, even
if you have defined an abbreviation in the Abstract, you will need to re-define it in the body of the
Lab Report. Please note that Tables and Figures should also make sense on their own without
having to be viewed in context with the report, so regardless of where else an abbreviation has
been defined, you will need to re-define any abbreviations in Tables titles or Figures captions (see
https://apastyle.apa.org/ for more information).

10. What format does the lab report have to be in? Where can I find information
about APA 7 format?
The Lab report has to be in APA 7 format. Please refer to the APA style guides online and in paper
form for more information on this as this FAQ document (and the subject in general) does not have
the scope to go into detail in describing every APA 7 formatting rule. You have been provided with a
paper template to assist with general formatting, however for more specific guidance please refer to
the APA 7 style guide. The following links may also be useful to you:
https://apastyle.apa.org/
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html

11. Should we ask rhetorical questions in lab reports?
It is generally not advisable to ask rhetorical questions in lab reports, as this is not usually a
component of formal scientific writing.

12. How do I choose what terms to define in a lab report?
All key terms which would not be understandable to an academic reader who is not knowledgeable
in the specific research area, should be defined in lab reports. For example, stress induction would
be important to define, whereas defining the term “environmental factors” is probably not
necessary given that an academic reader would probably know what it means. Keep in mind that
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some abbreviations can be defined quite quickly without using a lot of words, and should not go
into exhaustive detail (or repeat what belongs in the Methods section) given the scope and size of
your lab report.

13. In the Abstract, do we need to state what statistical tests we used?
It is not necessarily mandatory to have a separate place where statistical tests are outlined in an
Abstract, however it should be clear in some way how data were compared. For example, you can
choose to do this by reporting this separately, or implicitly through the language used (e.g. an
independent samples t-test revealed…). How much detail about the analysis used is up to you to
decide, but remember that as with all Abstracts, only enough information for the reader to
understand how the comparisons that led to the interpretation related to the hypotheses, were
made, is needed.

14. Do we need to include limitations or future directions in the Abstract?
No, you do not need to include limitations or future directions in your Abstract and this is not
usually something that is relevant to an Abstract (unless it is very relevant to interpretation, which is
not the ordinarily the case). Rather than focusing on future directions or limitations, the conclusion
section of the Abstract should focus on the interpretation and main conclusions drawn from results.
See the data-analysis tutorial (tutorial 3) slides for more information.

15. Can we use subheadings in the Abstract?
Please see APA 7 formatting guidelines. As per these guidelines, no subheadings should usually be
included in Abstracts, particularly for a report of this size.

16. Do we need to provide references in the Abstract?
No. As per other Abstracts and general APA formatting rules, references are not required and are
not included in Abstracts.

17. How long should the Abstract be?
Although this is up to you, for a report this size an Abstract of 100 – 150 words should be more than
sufficient, and generally it would not be advisable to write more than 250 words. (See marking guide
for more information.)

18. Do we need to include the aim and hypotheses in the Abstract?
A good Abstract should make clear the purpose of any given study. How you choose to do this is
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somewhat up to you. It can be done in many ways but usually includes providing at least either the
aims or the hypotheses, or both. While it is not necessary to provide both, at least one of the aims
or hypotheses would usually be included to make the study purpose clear in the Abstract
background.

19. Should we use pronouns for a lab report?
As with all assignments and formal writing, and according to APA format it is best to use direct, clear,
concise statements and active voice, which can include first-person pronouns. However, do consider
whether the use of first-person pronouns is professional and appropriate. See this link for more
information: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/active-passive-voice.

20. What tense should we write in for the lab report?
Usually, a lab report is written after conducting an experiment, so past tense should be used
throughout the report, with the exception of the hypotheses in the introduction section
which should be written prior to the experiment. See APA formatting guidelines for more
information (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/verb-tense).

21. Should we write a different rationale from what has been presented in Tutorial 1?
No, we are asking that you use the rationale that we have given you in Tutorial 1 in order to
demonstrate your capacity to write a sound Introduction section using this particular rationale. We
recognise that in other contexts you might write your own rationale, which may be different.
However, for this assignment, the task is about demonstrating your understanding of how to write a
high-quality Introduction section using the rationale you have been given. Sometimes if students
ask why they might lose marks if they write a completely different rationale, I make the comparison
that if we wanted to assess someone’s ability to cook apples, and they cooked oranges instead,
r egardless of how well they cooked those oranges, we would still know very little about their ability
to cook apples.

22. How much research do I need to include in my Introduction section/lab report?
This is somewhat up to you and there is no straightforward answer to this question – no number can
be specified on how many articles you need to read and include in your lab report. You should start
with all of the required reading for lectures and tutorials 1 and 3, and these articles are on Canvas.
It is also desirable to do more extensive research, however given the size of the report it is not
necessary to include an excessive number of references. Doing wider reading will give you a good
comprehensive understanding of the area under investigation, and then being selective with the
articles you include can be useful, while of course ensuring that an adequate review of the literature
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is included. We see lab reports all the time with not too many references used well that score just
as highly as a lab report with a more extensive number of references. I would say for a report this
size once you are getting towards 30 articles it is likely to be too many and may interrupt the flow of
your report, and if you are under 5, we would think about whether or not we have included a
thorough and sufficient review of the literature. (See marking criteria B2.) These are obviously
guidelines and not prescriptive, as there are many different ways to write a good Introduction
section!
23. How much detail do I include for each study reviewed in my Introduction
section?
This is also somewhat up to you and there is no straight forward answer to this question, however
this does logically depend on how relevant the study is to your rationale and the aim of your
particular study. For example, at the beginning of the introduction section, you may be very
generally introducing the area and providing references to substantiate definitions, and more
general findings so it makes sense to provide less detail, or even provide references in brackets in
these cases, rather than including lots of details about what the experiments did, etc. Some of
these might even be review studies because you are trying to make clear that a general finding has
been consistent across the literature for a long time (e.g. you might say something like, “See… for a
review”). However, as your literature review goes on, narrow down to review literature a lot more
proximal to your study/the aim of your study based on your rationale. So, at the end of the
literature review it makes sense to provide quite a bit of information about studies very proximal to
the current study’s rationale (e.g. the sample size, information about the methods, etc.). The key is
that the reader needs to have enough information about the study to understand if the
interpretation being made (as this will be relevant to the current rationale), is reasonable, and this
is more important for studies near the end of the introduction that will be quite proximal to the
specific rationale of the current study. There will be some areas in between the very general, and
very specific examples mentioned above in which you will need to make your own judgement call,
and in which an ‘in between’ level of detail may be called for. However, this is up to you and part of
the assignment to decide for yourself.

24. Is my literature review and rationale in the Introduction section separate or
integrated?
Although there are separate marking criteria for the “rationale” and “literature review” aspects of
your lab report, they should not appear as separate sections of the report. It is important that your
rationale is integrated into your literature review. It is useful to think of your literature as
substantiating points that logically lead to the formation of the rationale by the end of the
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introduction section.

25. Should we rephrase our hypotheses from the Tutorial 1 slides?
As per the tutorial 1 slides, you should rephrase the hypotheses from the slides. Always remember
that your hypotheses should be operationalised (i.e. including the operationalised independent and
dependent variables).
26. Should we repeat information from the Method section?
No, we do not need to repeat information from the Method section in the results section or
elsewhere in the report.

27. Do you report exact p-values?
Yes, always report exact p-values where possible in lab reports, unless the p-value is less than .001
(where you would then report p < .001). For more information on how many decimal places to
include in your results section, leading zeroes, and other reporting aspects, see APA guidelines.
Generally, it is two decimal places except in the case of p-values where it should be two or three
decimal places (try to be consistent).

28. How do I know if the p-value is significant or not?
For this subject, we are using standardised conventions for psychology for defining our alpha level.
Therefore, any value under .05 (i.e. p < .05) will be considered significant for the purposes of this lab
report. No other significance threshold will be accepted for this lab report, as this is something that
we are specifying for you.

29. If we want to comment on figures/tables, should it be under the ‘results’
section or its own section?
Figures should be included in the Results section and should be referred to in text prior to being
included as per APA guidelines. For all other rules relating to the presentation of Figures/Tables
please see APA 7 guidelines as per the question answered above.

30. Should I include a leading zero when reporting my results or not?
Generally, the rule with leading zeroes (i.e. a zero/’0’ before a decimal point where the number is
less than 1) as per APA format, is that if it is possible for the number to be above zero (e.g. Cohen’s d
effect size, t-values), then you would include a leading zero [e.g. t(29) = 0.456…]. If the number
cannot be above zero (e.g. p-values, r-squared effect sizes), then no leading zero should be included
(e.g. …, p= .005).

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31. Do we report the descriptive statistics that are already in the figure in words in the
results section?
No, you do not need to repeat these values in words as they are already in the figure, and this
would be considered repetitive in your lab report. It would be more important, and informative, to
report your mean difference and related standard errors (or standard deviations) in words, and of
course the figure should be introduced in text prior to being presented.

32. Do we report the sex split, or age of participants, in the results section?
Yes, you need to report this in your results section as this is not included in the Method, and
technically you would only know this information after running the experiment, which means it
should technically go in the results section. We acknowledge that different subjects and journal
article conventions may do this differently, however this is the convention we are using for this
assignment. You would also report this kind of information in the Abstract. (See above and the
marking criteria and guide for more information.)

33. Are there any resources you would recommend for someone who is struggling
with understanding/analysing what all of the outputs mean for the t-tests? I think I
am getting caught up on what outputs (df, t, p, mean difference etc.) that I should
be including in my results.
I would suggest using all of the resources on Canvas and asking questions in the relevant lecture and
discussions (e.g. Lab Report Results discussion forums). Please also refer to the Tutorial 3 – Data
analysis tutorial slides (both didactic and interactive) including the notes (posted after tutorials) as
there is a lot of information there about analysing results and interpreting the output.

34. Do I need to include confidence intervals in my lab report?
No, you don't need to include Confidence intervals for your lab report. You will not be penalized for
doing this if you wish to do so.

35. What statistics do I need to include in my lab report?
You should report the mean differences and standard errors of the mean differences when you
report the inferential statistics. The graphs will contain the descriptive statistics for heart rate (HR),
stress scores, and craving scores and these numbers don't need to be repeated in words. You would
also report your inferential statistics including t-statistic in proper APA format (e.g. t(df) = X.XX, p =
.XXX, r2 = .XX), including effect sizes (r squared or Cohen’s d) and effect size interpretations, and
directions of effects. See Tutorial 3 slides. Please note that Cohen (1988) developed conventions for
interpreting the magnitude of an effect as “small,” “moderate,” or “large.” This website
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(http://imaging.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/statswiki/FAQ/effectSize) provides a helpful summary of these
conventions as they pertain to various effect size measures. If you use these conventions in your lab
report, you should cite the book in which they were originally outlined:

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.

36. Should I report statistics for baseline data in the lab report?
You do not need to report the full t-statistics in your lab report as this was a cross check only. It
would be sufficient for you to have one line in an appropriate locating stating that there were no
differences between stress and no stress groups at baseline on stress, HR, or craving measures. You
will not be penalized if you wish to report full statistics.

37. What should we define in tables and figures?
As per APA 7 guidelines, please remember to define all abbreviations in any tables and figures, as
well as what error bars stand for (i.e. standard deviations) in either the Figure title/caption or note.
Please see APA 7 guidelines for more information as per above FAQs.

38. Should I alter the figure from what is presented at the end of tutorial 3?
You do not have to alter the figure from what you were guided to create in tutorial 3 (however
please ensure that you do not screen shot this from the slides, and you make your own version in
excel as per the instructions).

39. When we ‘compare and contrast’ studies are we comparing methodologies of
studies?
When we consider ‘comparing and contrasting’ in the discussion section, we are not really talking
about comparing methodologies, but more the findings. We should not be trying to ‘explain away’
differences between studies based on methodological differences unless it is highly likely that these
differences do in fact impact on the interpretation of findings or results (which is sometimes the
case). For example, it would not be sufficient to say that findings were different because the sample
was different. To say this, you would have to be clear about some systematic difference in the
participants and outline some empirically-supported theoretical reason for this particular
differences to have led to the specific difference in results. More often than not, when we talk
about comparing and contrasting, we are stating differences in findings in a theoretical sense and
trying to make theoretical sense of differences between findings rather than ‘explaining away’
differences. If making theoretical sense of differences involves having a look at different methods,
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it may be relevant to mention those differences, however often making theoretical sense of
differences in findings does not necessarily involve this. This would obviously somewhat depend on
the particular findings being compared and contrasted.

40. What kind of interpretation can I make on the basis of my data in my discussion
section?
This kind of question is really up to you, as it is your job to interpret the results. However, some
good guidance is to think about the background literature and what has been interpreted in the
past, as well as how your own research/findings differ from these, in order to guide differences in
interpretation. Be careful to include only interpretations which make sense based on your current
results, as well as the methodology used.

41. How do I know if a limitation is relevant or not?
When considering limitations, it is important to consider the limitations that are actually relevant to
our study and results, or a lab report can end up reading as if the author is trying to undermine their
own experiment which is not ideal. Try not to just state limitations that are just general and not
specifically connected to the interpretation of results, and our specific study. A reasonably good rule
of thumb for a short report such as this one, is that there is no ‘minimum number’ of limitations, and
one is sufficient if there are not really glaring ones. More than two probably risks using a few too
many words in criteria E3. Another good thing to remember is that limitations should logically be
connected to future directions. There are two broad types of limitations: methodological limitations
and scope limitations. One does not have to mention both types, and often students tend to focus
overly on methodological limitations at the expense of considering scope limitations. With
methodological limitations, we need to very carefully consider if the particular limitation being
referenced could have led to the particular results that have been found in the study. If not, then it
is not likely to be a relevant limitation. Scope variables (e.g. limitations in the scope of what an
experiment can could investigate) can more often be relevant as no experiment can investigate
everything. Both scope and methodological limitations, regardless, would lead to some comment
around future study that might address such limitations.

42. If a study has limitations can we interpret results?
Every study will have some limitations, so of course we can. Even if there are limitations, we should
be interpreting results in their own right. It is important to acknowledge limitations to put into
context the scope and strength of those results, however first and foremost, in the discussion
section it is important to interpret results as you would if there were no limitations, and then
acknowledge limitations and possible impacts on results later. The discussion of results in their
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own right should comprise the majority of your discussion section, and the limitations can be
acknowledged in one short paragraph along with future directions connected to this towards the
end of the discussion section just prior to your conclusion paragraph.



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