Research paper: Which tense to use when describing well established tests? (APA)

Hi everybody,

I'm currently working on my master thesis in psychology and would appreciate a little help on which tenses should be used under which circumstances. As far as I were able to understand from APA style guides, it is common to use past tense in the introduction and in the methods paragraph unless describing well established facts (e.g. "subjects were instructed to press the button..." but "it has been known for decades that one plus one equals two"). I'm not sure though which tense to use when describing well known test procedures within the methods paragraph, i.e., procedures that have been used by many researchers over and over again and are rather well known among researchers in this field of research. By intuition I was inclined to use present tense for these descriptions, since the tests were used in the same way before and will be used in the same way later, and thus resemble established facts. But I'm not sure... Any advice?

regards,

PsychWriter

P.S.: I'm not a native english speaker, so please excuse any mistakes (you may laugh, though)

Okay, I'll tell you everything I know, and maybe it will answer your questions! :-)

1. When I write about articles or books, I use the present tense:
Hacker explains grammar as an important area of study.
We use the present tense whenever talking about literature, because it is timeless!

2. When you write your proposal, use the future tense to talk about what you will do:
"The researcher will use qualitative methods to explore teachers' ideas about special education."

3. When you write the actual dissertation, use the past tense to write abut what you did:
"The researcher used qualitative methods to explore teachers' ideas about special education."
That means you have to go back and change the tense of the first few chapters (the proposal stuff, including intro, lit review, and methods)

Most importantly, do what the school's guidelines say.
:-)

Hi Kevin,

first of all, many thanks for your advice! I'm sorry - of course I'm using present tense in the introduction when talking about literature - seemingly, I was somewhat scatterbrained when I started this thread (and I did not take a look at my introduction for too long :)

As you suggest, I use past tense (and passive voice) within the methods paragraph when describing what was done. I utilized some well known and frequently used test procedures, though, and it seems odd to me to also use past tense when describing e.g. which kind of value a specific test procedure or questionnaire yields, or which kind of actions are necessary to conduct the test, because these values or actions are the same each time the test is conducted.

For example: "Fagerstroem Test for Nicotine Dependence: Six items concerning nicotine consumption and craving for nicotine yield a score between 0 and 10 points to indicate the severity of nicotine dependence"

Regards,

PsychWriter

To clarifiy the distinction between the two aspects I'm talking about: While the above sentence specifies how the test works (in present tense), a preceding sentence tells the reader that I used the test (in past tense):

"The degree of nicotine dependence was assesed by means of the Fagerstroem Test for Nicotine Dependence. Six items concerning nicotine consumption and craving for nicotine yield a score between 0 and 10 points to indicate the severity of nicotine dependence"

Yes, the passive voice helps when we need to use the third person perspective, as most work (at least quantitative work) requires. However, instead of passive voice you can use this: "The researcher"

(i.e. "The researcher distributed surveys to 100 people.")


yes, in this kind of case, you can switch tenses right in the middle of a paragraph.
You can even switch tenses in the middle of a sentence:
"The researcher used a survey that enables respondents to rate their feelings about..."

You are right. It is okay to use the present tense in that situation.

This is correct, as far as I know:
"The degree of nicotine dependence was assesed by means of the Fagerstroem Test for Nicotine Dependence. Six items concerning nicotine consumption and craving for nicotine yield a score between 0 and 10 points to indicate the severity of nicotine dependence"

Hi Kevin,

thank you very much - that's what I wanted to hear ;)

regards,

PsychWriter