Assignment Paper

Title Page
1. Put the title, your name, and your affiliation in the center of the page.
2. Refer to the APA Style lecture for how to format the running head.
Abstract
1. Approximately 250 words long. Make sure to include 1-2 sentences about each section of the
paper as well as keywords.
Introduction: should tell a story, going from general to specific
1. General introduction to the paper. Why is the topic important/interesting? Discuss the
worldwide prevalence of bilingualism and the demands of doing several things at once in our
modern world. Introduce and define executive function and cognitive flexibility in general, and
specifically multitasking.
2. Describe previous studies that are relevant. Say something about the method if important to
understanding the point the study makes (what type of executive function/multitasking task?); no
need to include minute detail (like number of participants). Say what the relevant results are (don’t
need to put statistics, just say the pattern of results). Say what these findings suggest about the
relationship between bilingualism and multitasking.
3. Aim and hypothesis
i. Aim is to better understand the relationship between bilingualism and multitasking.
ii. Say what the gaps in the literature are, and what this study will add to the field’s
understanding of the topic.
iii. State hypothesis (or hypotheses).

Method: should be detailed enough for someone to replicate what we did
1. Participants
i. Demographics: XXX College students, family, and friends of researchers (N); gender (f,
%) and age (range, M, SD). List all the languages represented in our sample. Explain how
we divided people into bilingual v monolingual groups, and say how many were in each (f,
%).
2. Materials
i. Explain the Multitasking Assessment (say it was adapted from creators – see slides for
cite)
i. This description should be as detailed as it needs to be for someone who never did
the task to understand what it was like.
ii. See Paper 2 intro slides for details about what you should explain (must
include timing of the task, block structure, number of trials, what information was
recorded to generate scores, etc).
iii. Explain how the Mixing Cost and Switch Cost variables were calculated,
what lower scores indicate, and what they mean in terms of multitasking success
ii. Explain the Language Fluency Questionnaire (developed by the researchers). Refer to
appendix, where you will attach the questionnaire.

Paper 2 Checklist

3. Procedure
i. Explain exactly what you did (as a group). Starting with informed consent and ending with
debriefing. For the task, don’t need to say website, just say it was an online task on the
computer. Be detailed enough so someone could replicate our study exactly.

Results: should include descriptive statistics and address both hypotheses
1. Descriptive statistics
i. Refer the reader to Table 1 for descriptive statistics.
ii. Explain the analysis used to test the hypothesis (or hypotheses). Make sure to explain the
variables that were tested.
iii. Describe the findings for each hypothesis individually. Report full stats (M, SD, t, df, p) for
each t-test conducted, refer to bar charts where appropriate, say if hypothesis was
supported or not.

Discussion: should summarize and interpret your results, address problems with the study, and
propose future directions for research
1. Restate your results in words – that is, summarize what the results section said without using
numbers or statistical terms (Group differences? For what variable(s)?). Were your hypotheses
supported?
2. “Unpack” your results for each hypothesis. What do your findings mean? What do they suggest
about the link between bilingualism and multitasking? Does flexibility in switching languages
generalize to flexibility in other cognitive domains?
3. How do your results compare with the results of other studies? Do they clarify or complicate
things? Why do you think they are the same or different from previous studies?
4. Discuss the limitations of the study. This doesn’t mean to say why the study is bad, but go over
some of the obvious limitations and how they can be overcome.
5. Propose future research possibilities (this is in addition to saying that you would fix any
limitations). Propose future research ideas to follow up on your study – what is the next step?
Discuss some ideas for what you would do to follow this up – don’t just say that you would do it
again with more participants.
6. End with a brief summary of your effects (1 sentence) – what is the “take-home” message? What
are the implications of your study?
References
1. On a separate page, list all cited works. Everything in the references must appear in the paper, and
vice versa. You should have a minimum of SIX references not including sources for tasks or
questionnaires.
Table, Figures, then Appendix.
1. Follow APA format. Do not include any SPSS output (besides figure images themselves)