Case Study

Analyze the student's writing regarding the presentation of comparable statistical findings. Identify the primary writing error the student made and explain how this error affects the reader's ability to understand the overall pattern.

Case context: A psychology student writes the following results section: 'Participants in the medication condition reported lower anxiety scores (M=12.5M = 12.5, SD=3.1SD = 3.1). An average score of 24.2 was obtained by the therapy group (SD=4.5SD = 4.5). For the control group, they had the highest anxiety, with a mean of 30.1 and a standard deviation of 5.2.'

Question: Analyze the student's writing regarding the presentation of comparable statistical findings. Identify the primary writing error the student made and explain how this error affects the reader's ability to understand the overall pattern.

Sample answer: The primary error is the failure to use parallel construction. The student uses varying grammatical structures to report the comparable results for the three groups (active voice, passive voice, and a prepositional phrase). This lack of parallel phrasing makes it significantly harder for the reader to quickly contrast the numbers and understand the overall pattern, as the reader can get confused by the shifting sentence structures.

Key points:

  • Identifies the failure to use parallel construction.
  • Notes that comparable findings are formatted using varying grammatical structures.
  • Explains that this error makes it harder for the reader to quickly contrast the numbers.
  • Mentions that the changing grammatical structure can confuse the reader.

Rubric: The response should accurately identify the lack of parallel construction and explain that varying sentence structures make it difficult for readers to clearly and quickly contrast the statistical data.

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Updated 2026-05-27

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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