If you’re referring to your own survey research (and its results), you don’t normally need to use a formal APA Style citation. What you do instead depends on which of the following is true:
Continue reading: How to cite a survey in APA Style (6th edition)
Web resources form a separate category in APA Style. They consist of four components: author, publication date, title and URL.
Unfortunately, some of these components are often missing. For instance, there may be no author or publication date. What should you do if this is the case?
Continue reading: How to cite a webpage with no author, date, or title in APA Style (6th edition)
After you’ve read our guides to defining a research problem and writing a problem statement, take a look at the full-length example to see how you can fit all the parts together.
Continue reading: Problem statement example
Some dissertations include a separate advisory report that is specifically designed for a company or organization that wants to act on the author’s advice.
An advisory report should be centered on opinions that are well substantiated – which means it’s more than just the list of recommendations that you include in the main body of your dissertation. You also need to weigh the recommendations against each other and elaborate the consequences that each will have for your “client.”
Continue reading: Purpose and structure of an advisory report
If you have done research for a client company or organization, you should include recommendations for action in relation to the problem you investigated. Based on the findings of your research, what specific solutions are possible and what measures should the client implement?
Recommendations are generally included at the very end of your conclusion chapter. If your client prefers, you can also present them in a separate advisory report.
Continue reading: Recommendations for a client
Once you’ve finished collecting and analyzing your data, you can begin writing up the results. This is where you report the main findings of your research.
All relevant results should be reported concisely and objectively in a logical order. You may use tables and graphs to illustrate specific findings.
Don’t include subjective interpretations of why you found these results or what they mean – your evaluation should be saved for the discussion.
Continue reading: Writing up your results in a thesis or dissertation
A control variable is a variable that is held constant to prevent it from influencing the outcome of a study.
When testing a cause-and-effect relationship, it is important to consider which variables might influence the relationship between your independent and dependent variables and control these so that your results are as accurate as possible.
Continue reading: Conceptual framework: Control variables
A mediating (or mediator) variable is an integral part of a cause-and-effect relationship. It makes it easier to understand how the independent variable is affecting the dependent variable and what is governing that relationship.
Continue reading: Conceptual framework: Mediating variables
When creating a conceptual framework to explore a cause-and-effect relationship, you often need to deal with moderating variables, also known as moderators.
Continue reading: Conceptual framework: Moderating variables
A conceptual framework illustrates what you expect to find through your research. It defines the relevant variables for your study and maps out how they might relate to each other.
You should construct a conceptual framework before you begin collecting data. It is often represented in a visual format.
Continue reading: Conceptual framework
