Sex on the brain
Methods and statistics

More sex please, we're psychologists

James Hartley argues that an all-too-common failure to report the sex of research participants can limit the usefulness of the findings.

18 February 2004

I have always been intrigued as to why some authors of articles in psychology journals do not tell the reader about the numbers of male and female participants in their studies. It seems to me if the participants are psychology students, for example, then it is likely that there will be a higher proportion of female participants. If this is the case, then the conclusions reached may misrepresent the true findings if the data from the two sexes are not reported separately.

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