Introduction to APA Style Research Papers
The American Psychological Association (APA) style guide is commonly used for writing research papers and manuscripts within the social sciences field. Students performing research within the social sciences area are often asked to write papers in APA style. This article provides an example APA style research paper, outlines general guidelines on APA style, and discusses how students and researchers can effectively format papers and reference sources in APA style.
Example APA Style Research Paper
Title: Procrastination and Its Effect on Academic Performance: A Study of College Undergraduate Students in the United States
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between procrastination habits and academic performance among college students. A survey study was conducted of 200 undergraduate students at a large private university. The survey collected data on procrastination behaviors, task avoidance, and self-regulation abilities. Students’ grade point averages were also collected from university records. Results indicate that higher levels of procrastination significantly correlated with lower GPAs. Implications regarding identifying and reducing procrastination are discussed.
Introduction: Procrastination, or the tendency to unnecessarily delay tasks, is a common issue among college students that may negatively impact academic performance. Researchers have found that approximately 20% of college students struggle with chronic and severe procrastination problems (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). While occasional procrastination is a normal human behavior experienced by most people, chronic procrastinators regularly and unnecessarily postpone tasks to the point that it interferes with their own goals and responsibilities. For students, procrastination has been linked to increased stress, frustration, suboptimal learning, and lower grades (Pychyl et al., 2000). Given that academic success is crucial for college students, it is important to better understand procrastination and how it relates to key outcomes like GPA. Thus, the current study aims to explore the relationship between self-reported procrastination behaviors and actual academic performance operationalized as students’ grades.
Method: Participants were 200 undergraduate students ranging in age from 18 to 25 years old (M = 20.3, SD = 1.8) recruited from a large private university in the Northeast United States. The sample included 76 male students and 124 female students across various academic disciplines. Participants completed an anonymous online survey consisting of self-report measures of procrastination, task avoidance, and self-regulation abilities. Procrastination was assessed using the Adult Inventory of Procrastination Scale (AIP; McCown & Johnson, 1989), which measures frequency and severity of procrastination across 15 different everyday tasks and situations. Task avoidance was measured using 13 items from the Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS; Kanter et al., 2007) regarding avoidance of both pleasurable and unpleasurable activities. Self-regulation abilities were assessed using the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ; Carey et al., 2004), which measures abilities to set goals, monitor progress, and adjust behaviors adaptively. Participants reported their gender and cumulative grade point average (GPA), which was then verified via records at the university registrar.
Results: Pearson correlations indicated significant associations among procrastination, task avoidance, and GPA. Higher scores on the AIP and BADS measures, reflecting greater procrastination and avoidance habits, significantly correlated with lower cumulative GPAs (r’s = -.26 to -.31, p < .001 for all). The SSRQ measure of self-regulation significantly correlated with higher GPA (r = .24, p < .001). A linear regression analysis was conducted to further examine relationships among variables. Results show that procrastination accounted for a significant 7.1% of the variance in students' GPA after controlling for self-regulation abilities, F(2, 197) = 7.64, p < .01. Neither gender nor academic year significantly predicted GPA in this analysis. Discussion: Results support previous research linking higher levels of procrastination to worse academic outcomes among college students. Students with greater procrastination tendencies and task avoidance behaviors earned significantly lower GPAs, despite having equal capabilities for self-regulation as measured. This relationship held even after accounting for other factors like gender or academic standing. Practically, these findings highlight the importance of reducing chronic procrastination through targeted interventions. College counseling centers and academic advisors could help students develop time management, planning, and organizational skills or connect struggling students to formal procrastination treatment programs. Reducing common procrastination patterns may help maximize students' academic success and minimize unnecessary stress in their studies. Additionally, requiring students to submit assignment drafts or manage projects in increments could reduce procrastination by breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. Future research should explore causal directionality and which individual students may be most prone to chronic procrastination problems.
Overall, this study provides evidence that chronic procrastination negatively impacts college students' academic performance as measured by cumulative GPA. By procrastinating consistently on daily tasks and school assignments, students lose opportunities to learn, practice, or improve their work. Skills to effectively manage time and avoid unnecessary delays could help strengthen self-regulation abilities. Minimizing chronic procrastination represents a promising approach for maximizing students' academic achievement in college. References: Carey, K. B., Neal, D. J., & Collins, S. E. (2004). A psychometric analysis of the self- regulation questionnaire. Addictive Behaviors, 29, 253-260. Kanter, J. W., Mulick, P. S., Busch, A. M., Berlin, K. S., & Martell, C. R. (2007). The Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS): Psychometric properties and factor structure. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 29, 191-202. McCown, W., & Johnson, J. (1989). Adult Inventory of Procrastination: Psychometric properties and normative data. Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA. Pychyl, T. A., Morin, R. W., & Salmon, B. R. (2000). Procrastination and the planning fallacy: An examination of the study habits of college students. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 15, 135–150. Solomon, L. J., & Rothblum, E. D. (1984). Academic procrastination: Frequency and cognitive-behavioral correlates. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 31(4), 503–509. This example APA style research paper covers basic guidelines and an overview of creating and formatting an APA style research paper. Key elements include a title page, abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, and references list. The central research paper explores how procrastination relates to college students' academic performance measured by GPA. Survey research methodology and correlational statistical analyses were used to assess this relationship. Overall, this fictitious yet plausible student research paper meets key APA formatting and style guidelines. General APA Style Guidelines Beyond providing a general example, it is also important to outline key formatting conventions and style guidelines for APA format: Use 12-point Times New Roman font, double spaced lines, and one-inch margins on all sides Include a title page with the paper title (centered), author's name, and institutional affiliation Add an abstract of 100-250 words that describes the paper's purpose, methods, findings, and conclusions Number all pages consecutively starting with the title page as page number 1 In-text citations include the author(s) last name(s) and year of publication References list appears at end of paper alphabetized by author's last name Use headings and subheadings to organize longer papers into clear sections Check APA Publication Manual for construction of tables, figures, citations, and references Include a running head label on title page and subsequent pages Consider ethical treatment of human or animal subjects in research design Apply grammatically correct sentence structure and formal academic style Proofread carefully before submission to check for errors or inadvertent plagiarism Formatting papers according to key APA style guidelines provides consistency and clarity for research readers. Checking the APA manual ensures proper formatting of title pages, section headers, citations, references, and other formatting details. Beyond a general paper structure, formatting papers uniformly per APA standards aids in presenting one's own original ideas and properly crediting source materials via in-text citations and references listings. Proper APA formatting also maintains ethical writing standards which are especially crucial in academic and scientific domains. Referencing Sources in APA Style Perhaps one of the most important aspects of APA style is effectively referencing outside sources of information used in a research paper. Citations allow authors to give proper credit to experts and data in their field. In APA format, there are two components required to properly cite sources: In-text citations: These appear in parentheses within the body of the paper and indicate the last name(s) of the author(s) and year of publication. For example: (Smith, 2020) or (Smith & Johnson, 2019). Direct quotations also require a page number. References list: This appears alphabetized at the end of the paper. Each in-text citation corresponds to a full reference citation listed here, which includes additional details like the source type (e.g. book, journal article), publication information, and publisher or database source. For journal articles, the reference should include (in order): authors' last names, first initial
Andrew Stroud