Model Debrief Forms
Debrief forms are tailored to the audience, varying in length and details. Basically, the form tells the participants about the study in some detail--why certain tasks or questions were used, what the hypotheses are of the researchers, what the expectations are, and why. Because many projects in colleges are recruiting college students for educational purposes (e.g., extra credit in a course), it is suggested that a reference for reading about the subject matter be included in the Debrief Form. Finally, the debrief form provides the participant with contact information should they have questions later on about the study or they want to contact you a year from now to find out how the study turned out.
An example of a debrief for an experiment:
Grinnell CollegeJanet M. Gibson
Dept. of PsychologyFall 2002
Experiment Debriefing: Modality and Priming
This experiment was a partial replication of another experiment conducted by Bassili, Smith, and MacLeod (1989) who were interested in both priming and modality effects on word identification. One goal of the present experiment was to determine whether hearing or seeing a word in its entirety would "prime" or later facilitate the identification of that word when presented in a degraded fashion. "Cross modality priming" (that is, a visual, intact presentation facilitates identification of an auditory word fragment, or vice versa) was also investigated by presenting the word in its entirety either visually or auditorily and then testing the ability to recall the target word using the same or alternate modality.
The purpose of presenting the words and sentences in their entirety was to prime the target words; the task of rating (1-3) or noting S or G was to make sure that you attended to the words and sentences. These words were then tested in their degraded form along with others that were not primed. Identification for primed words should be better than those that weren't primed. For a given word, the initial presentation was either auditory or visual. The test presentation for the same word was either of the same modality or of the other modality. Of interest was whether priming would transfer across modalities. Bassili et al. (1989) found that words presented in one modality do facilitate identification in the other modality. Also examined was whether words inferred from a sentence context would show priming of identification. For example, some participants were presented with the sentence, "The boat traveled underwater" in which the inferred word is "submarine." We hypothesized that these inferred words (the words which we wanted you to come up with) would better enable you to identify the target word fragment presented than those that were not primed at all. We expect to find that the words which were actually presented, as well as those which were inferred would be better recognized when presented in their fragmented form.
The major issue this experiment addressees is the role of perception--or perceptual processing--in priming. In the past decade, researchers have investigated the degree of perceptual priming (implicit memory) that is needed to result in better identification of stimuli. If priming occurs across modalities or when the test word is inferred but not physically presented, then this provides evidence that conceptual processes influence priming in addition to the perceptual ones. The debate continues among theorists as to the role of perceptual and conceptual processes in priming. We hope to provide further evidence from this experiment on the role of conceptual processing to priming.
An additional group of participants were given the partial words as memory cues for the words in the initial lists. Bassili et al. found there was no difference in recall for inferred vs. perceived words. That is, when explicit memory is used no difference for presented and inferred words, but when implicit memory is used, there is, more facilitation for presented words. We expect to find the same results in our participants who were given explicit memory instructions.
If you have any questions about this study, please feel free to contact Prof. Gibson at x3168 or or the IRB at .
Reference
Bassili, J. N., Smith, M. C., and MacLeod, C. M. (1989). Auditory and visual word-stem completion: Separating data-driven and conceptually driven processes. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 41A, 439-453.
An example of a debrief form for a short survey:
Grinnell CollegeStew Dent and Ree Searcher
Psychology Dept.Spring, 2001
Framing Effects Debrief Form
The purpose of the present study was to study the effect of wording in questions in surveys. We used two surveys, one which emphasized the "positive" aspect of a dimension (e.g., How old do you think the president of the United States is?) and one which emphasized the "negative" (e.g., How young do you think the president of the UnitedState is?) to determine if the wording of the questions influenced your estimates.
Previous research has shown that framing does affect people's judgments, estimates, and decisions. We expect to find that quantitative answers are biased towards the wording of the questions.
Thanks for taking this questionnaire and providing us with data for our class project. If you are interested in framing effects, you can read about them in Chapter 6 of "The Psychology of Decision Making" by Scott Plous, 1993, McGraw Hill.