How to Write a Psychology Lab Report

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A psychology lab report is a paper that describes an experiment. A lab report is organized and written according to the format used in professional journal articles.

In your lab report, you will provide an overview of your findings, a background of the topic, your methods, and results. You'll also discuss your findings and your interpretations of the results.

At a Glance

A psychology lab report is structured in the same format as a professional journal article. It should include a:

• Title page
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method section
• Results section
• Discussion section
• Reference section
• Appendix and supplementary materials (if needed)

Title Page of a Psychology Lab Report

This will be the first page of your lab report. It should include important information such as the name of your paper, your name, and your academic affiliation.

Your title should be relatively brief and provide a good idea about what your paper is about. Avoid titles that are too general and don't provide a clear description of what your lab report contains.

For example, instead of something general like "An experiment on memory," your title should be more clear and focused, such as, "The effects of sleep deprivation on short-term memory in college students."

Abstract

Page two of your lab report will be an abstract. The abstract is a brief description of what you set out to find in your research, how you went about it, and a general statement describing your findings.

Think of the abstract of your psychology lab report as a succinct summary of your experiment. It should explain your study's objectives, how you conducted the experiments, and what you discovered.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA) style guide, for most lab reports, the abstract should be kept to 250 words. However, the specific word count and format of abstract could vary depending on your instructor or the academic journal in which you plan to publish.

Introduction

Your paper should begin with an introduction that describes previous findings regarding your topic of interest, explains the goals of your current research, and describes your hypothesis—what you expect to discover as a result of your research.

In this section, you essentially explain to your reader why you chose to do your experiment. If should give a good background on the topic, so that readers can get an idea about why your study will help fill a gap in our current understanding.

Your introduction will likely be several pages long to provide a thorough and sufficient overview of past research. You don't need to cover all of the research on the topic, but you should give readers a good overview of past research and findings.

The introduction of your psychology lab report should summarize the research and help readers understand why you are choosing to address new questions in your research. Be sure to cite all sources using proper APA format.

Method

The next section of your lab report will be the method section. In this portion of your report, you will describe the procedures you used in your research. You'll include specific information such as the number of participants in your study, the background of each individual, your independent and dependent variables, and the type of experimental design you used.

The method section of a psychology lab report should be broken down into several different sub-sections:

• Design: Describe the type of experimental design that you used
• Participants: Describe the participants in your study, including their age, sex, and other characteristics
• Apparatus: Describe any tools or resources that you used while conducting your experiment, such as equipment or questionnaires
• Procedure: Provide the exact procedures that you used while carrying out your experiment

Results

In the results section of your lab report, you'll describe the statistical data you gathered from your research. This section will likely be quite short; you don't need to include any interpretation of your results.

The goal of this part of your psychology lab report is to provide your results without trying to interpret what they might mean.

You should also include tables and figures to display statistical data and results. Be sure to only include tables and figures that you will talk about in the text.

The results section will likely be one of the shortest sections of your lab report. However, this might vary depending on how complex your experiment was and the type of statistical analyses you used.

Discussion

Next, your lab report should include a discussion section. Here you'll interpret the results of your experiment and state whether your findings support your hypothesis.

You should start this section by once again stating your main results and whether or not they support the hypothesis you stated in your introduction.

You can also discuss how the results of your experiment relate to previous findings. You also should offer possible explanations for your findings and what they might mean in terms of future research on the topic.

Conclude this section of your psychology lab report by summarizing the main conclusions that you have drawn from your study.

References

After your discussion section, your lab report should include a list of the references you used in your experiment and lab report. Some key points to remember include:

• All references cited in the text must be listed in the references section and vice versa
• All references should be in APA format
• Use a hanging indentation by indenting all lines of a reference after the first line by one-half inch
• Provide author names by last names first, followed by their initials
• Italicize journal and book titles
• Alphabetize your reference section by author's last name

Example of Basic APA Format

Author, F. I. (Year). Title of the journal article. Title of the Journal in Italics, with the volume number (and issue number), page numbers. https://doi.org/doinumber

Appendices and Supplemental Materials

Any tables or figures used to display your results should be included in the appendix of your lab report. For more detailed descriptions and examples of tables and figures, consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

What This Means For You

If you are a psychology student, you may need to write a psychology lab report at some point in your academic career. It can be a great way to get a better idea of how a professional journal article would be structured if you were to submit your work for publication. Knowing how to format a lab report can also help provide you with a better understanding of how psychology research is conducted and what these findings mean.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. American Psychological Association. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). 2020. doi:10.1037/0000165-000
2. Bavdekar SB, Chandak S. Results: Unraveling the findings. J Assoc Physicians India. 2015 Sep;63(9):44-6. PMID:27608866.
3. American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). The American Psychological Association, 2019.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd
Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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