writing a psychology research report: the discussion

Previous posts:
> The abstract
> The introduction
> The method
> The results

The purpose of the discussion is to provide your interpretation of the results, the implications of your study, and to make suggestions for future research. Some find this the easiest section to write, some find it the most difficult. Personally, I'm in the latter category - I usually need some sort of checklist to keep prompting me about what to include. I find it can be quite helpful to jot down any ideas you might have as you go along so that you've got something to refer to if you do get stuck.

• Begin the discussion by going over your hypotheses and briefly outline your findings. You should be able to read the first paragraph or two of any discussion and understand what was found without having to go back to the results.
• You can then go on to discuss whether or not your results fall in line with your hypotheses, and also your background research. If your results were unexpected, you could explain why you think this is the case. Don't make any assumptions that you can't validate with research - the discussion is the counterpart to the introduction, so always relate your points back to what you've written about previously where possible. Introducing new studies at this point isn't generally done unless it can be avoided, but if your results can't be explained by anything you've already mentioned then it's usually acceptable to present new research.
• If you get stuck while writing this section, go back to your introduction and assess how well your results support or challenge each study. I wouldn't recommend writing a list-type format which ends up sounding like "the results support abc's paper, the results do not support xyz's paper" but sometimes going back and considering each study in a new light can lead to something good to write about!
• Next, think of some limitations of your research. The idea isn't to be critical - don't point out everything that you did wrong or make it sound like your study was a waste of time. I would stick to a couple of points to talk about but don't spend too long on this bit. Things to think about...
• Is your sample generalisable, and is that important in your study?
• Could gender or age have affected the results?
• Could you determine cause and effect with your design?
• Could your results have been affected by social desirability?
• Were there any other variables that could have influenced the results?
• Did the participants raise any issues they might have had with your study?
• Was your design qualitative or quantitative, and how might this have limited or influenced what you found?
• After this, mention some of the implications of your study. Why does your research stand out from the rest - why are your results important? Could your results affect people's lives?
• If someone wanted to follow up on your research, what questions have been raised by your findings which could be studied further and how might a researcher go about doing this?
• Finally, the conclusion: finalise the topics you've talked about in your discussion and summarise your overall interpretation of the study's findings.

While your introduction should be like an inverted triangle which starts off quite generally before leading up to your specific hypotheses, I would say that your discussion should be more like a kite shape - don't spend too long summarising your results and similarly don't dedicate a lot of time to the limitations. The bulk of your discussion should essentially just be you talking through possible explanations for your results. Again, if you do get stuck on this bit then just try to take some time away from your study so that you can go back to it with fresh eyes, and remember that if you're writing this bit then you're almost at the finishing line!

Next: references