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EDPY 262 - Community-Based Research Methods: PsycInfo

Why APA PsycInfo is your friend

Why is PsycInfo worth getting to know?

  1. More psychology articles than any other database.
  2. Everything in it is relevant to psychology.
  3. Updated weekly. (JSTOR may not have latest 3-5 years.)
  4. It's the best way to search articles by method used (empirical, imaging, twin study, etc.).
  5. It's the best way to search studies by test or measure used (MMPI, Beck Depression Inventory, etc.).
  6. Find the first article published on a topic sorting by "Date Oldest." (Google Scholar can't be sorted by date.)
  7. Every article is classified by subject. That means you get every article on a subject.
  8. Created by the APA, it's the standard tool for psychologists.
  9. BatesLink can take you to the full text article, or to an interlibrary loan request.

See these video tutorials for demonstrations of some of PsycInfo's advanced search techniques.

Example Search

Let's try a PsycInfo search on the relationship between children's literature and children's development.

In the Advanced Search, we can put "children's literature" OR "picture books" OR "children's books" in the first line. The quotation marks will search for those exact phrases. The "OR" will give you results containing any one of those phrases.

On the second line, we can put development as a Subject Term to combine the two concepts.

What will you NOT find listed in PsycINFO?
Books: 5 votes (17.86%)
Articles published before 1950: 0 votes (0%)
Newspaper articles: 5 votes (17.86%)
Peer-reviewed journal articles: 1 votes (3.57%)
None of the above--they're all in PsycINFO: 17 votes (60.71%)
Total Votes: 28
What do you do if you find an article in PsycINFO and we don't have it online or in print?
Give up.: 0 votes (0%)
Buy it online.: 0 votes (0%)
Ask Christine to buy it.: 0 votes (0%)
Request it via interlibrary loan.: 25 votes (100%)
Total Votes: 25
Which is a PsycINFO subject term related to community engagement?
A: Community Engagement: 0 votes (0%)
B: Citizen Participation: 0 votes (0%)
C: Community Involvement: 4 votes (12.9%)
D: Service Learning: 0 votes (0%)
E: C and D: 15 votes (48.39%)
F: All of the above: 12 votes (38.71%)
Total Votes: 31
Say you find an article that is highly relevant to your research topic. Which technique(s) can help you find additional related articles in PsycINFO?
Click on "Cited References" to browse articles included in the bibliography.: 2 votes (9.52%)
Click on "Times Cited in This Database" to find articles that have cited this article.: 0 votes (0%)
Click on the author's name to see if she has written anything else related.: 0 votes (0%)
Click on a subject term to find other articles with the same topic.: 0 votes (0%)
All of the above.: 19 votes (90.48%)
Total Votes: 21
Which of the following is a database related to education and available to Bates students?
LISA: 0 votes (0%)
ERIC: 6 votes (20.69%)
Educational Studies Complete: 3 votes (10.34%)
Educational Psychology Abstracts: 0 votes (0%)
All of the above.: 20 votes (68.97%)
Total Votes: 29

What are some of the ways you can save citations and articles from PsycINFO for later?
Export to EndNote.: 1 votes (4.55%)
Email to yourself.: 0 votes (0%)
Bookmark a permalink.: 0 votes (0%)
Export to Google Drive.: 0 votes (0%)
All of the above.: 21 votes (95.45%)
Total Votes: 22
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Christine Murray
Contact:
Ladd Library 132
(207) 786-6268
cmurray2@bates.edu

I am usually at the Research Desk Mon. 10-1, Tues. 6-9, and Thurs. 1-4