Reading Reports of Empirical Studies

The References section cites all the literature reported in the article. The reference citations are used to support statements made in the article. In psychology and the social sciences, there is a uniform procedure, called APA style, for citing and documenting references.

The general form for a journal article is:

Authors, (date of publication), title of the article, title of the journal, volume number of the journal, page numbers.

The general form for a book is:

Authors, (date of publication), title of the book, publication city: publisher.

The general form for a book chapter is:

Authors, (date of publication), title of the chapter (page numbers), editors, title of the book, publication city: publisher.

The information in each citation should help you locate the reference. While reading the article, you may also want to refer to the References section to find out more about the reference cited in the text - for example, was the information published in a reputable journals?

Rohlen, T.P. (1983). Japan's high schools. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Stevenson, H., W., Chen, C., & Lee, S.Y. (1993). Mathematics achievement of Chinese, Japanese, and American children: Ten years later. Science, 259, 53-58.

Formative Evaluation