Recreating APA Manual Table 7.5 in R with apa7

Making tables in APA style (Part 5 of 24)

In this 24-part series, each of the tables in Chapter 7 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th Edition) is recreated with apa7, flextable, easystats, and tidyverse functions.

NoteHighlights

• Using width to make column widths consistent.

library(apa7)
library(flextable)
library(ftExtra)
library(tidyverse)
set_flextable_defaults(theme_fun = theme_apa, 
                       font.family = "Times New Roman")

Figure 1

Screenshot of the APA Manual’s Table 7.5

Reproducing APA Manual Table 7.5 shown in Figure 1 is mostly straightforward. The default column widths (provided by flextable’s dim_pretty) look good, but providing custom widths can give the table a sharper, more consistent appearance.

```{r}
#| label: tbl-75
#| tbl-cap: Summary of Designs of Experiments 1–4
#| apa-note: "A, X, Y, and B = tone, clicker, 
#|           steady light, and flashing light, respectively 
#|           (counterbalanced), with the constraint that 
#|           A and B are drawn from one modality and X and 
#|           Y from another (counterbalanced); plus
#|           sign (+) = shock to floor of rat
#|           chamber; minus sign (–) = absence
#|           of shock."
# Make data
d <- tibble(
     Experiment = paste("Experiment", rep(1:4, c(2,3,2,3))),
          Group = c("Compound","Compound novel",
                    "Compound A","Compound X","Compound novel",
                    "Compound","Element",
                    "Control","Element A","Element Y"),
     `Preexposure 1` = c(rep("A−X−Y−", 7), 
                         NA, 
                         rep("A−X−Y−", 2)), 
     `Preexposure 2` = c(rep("AX−BY−", 5), 
                         rep("AX−Y−", 2), 
                         NA, 
                         rep("A−X−Y−", 2)), 
   Conditioning = c("X+","Y+",
                    "A+","X+","Y+",
                    "X+","Y+",
                    "A+/Y+","A+","Y+"),
           Test = c("X−","Y−",
                    "A−","X−","Y−",
                    "X−","Y−",
                    "A−Y−","A−","Y−")
) 

# Make table
d |> 
  apa_flextable(row_title_column = Experiment, 
                line_spacing = 1.5) |> 
  align(j = 1, align = "left") |> 
  width(width = c(1.7, rep(1.2, 4)))
```

Table 1

Summary of Designs of Experiments 1–4

Group	Preexposure 1	Preexposure 2	Conditioning	Test
Experiment 1
Compound	A−X−Y−	AX−BY−	X+	X−
Compound novel	A−X−Y−	AX−BY−	Y+	Y−
Experiment 2
Compound A	A−X−Y−	AX−BY−	A+	A−
Compound X	A−X−Y−	AX−BY−	X+	X−
Compound novel	A−X−Y−	AX−BY−	Y+	Y−
Experiment 3
Compound	A−X−Y−	AX−Y−	X+	X−
Element	A−X−Y−	AX−Y−	Y+	Y−
Experiment 4
Control			A+/Y+	A−Y−
Element A	A−X−Y−	A−X−Y−	A+	A−
Element Y	A−X−Y−	A−X−Y−	Y+	Y−

Note. A, X, Y, and B = tone, clicker, steady light, and flashing light, respectively (counterbalanced), with the constraint that A and B are drawn from one modality and X and Y from another (counterbalanced); plus sign (+) = shock to floor of rat chamber; minus sign (–) = absence of shock.