Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods

I. Pre-Research
Find a topic that interests you. Look through various resources for ideas on topics to
research: scientific magazines, psychology handbooks/encyclopedias, textbooks,
etc. Once you settle on a topic, develop your research question. Brainstorm
keywords related to your research topic. Learn about your topic and find other
keywords by doing some pre-research. Once you identify keywords to start off your
search, your goal should be to find an article that will lead you to other keywords,
subject headings, and references. If you find a term and do not know what it means,
look it up before you use it in another search. Get a sense of how your topic is
covered in the literature.

Resources:

• To find online reference books relating to psychology, go to the A to Z List of

Databases on the library homepage, and select Credo Reference. Conduct a
keyword search. Here are some e-reference books relating to psychology:
Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine, The Cambridge
Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology.
• Psychology books on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?
q=Psychology&as_brr=3&rview=1&source=gbs_hplp_bisac . Scan the online
books and look through the snippets of information (if book is not available
full-text). If you find a good resource and it is not completely online, request
the book through the library catalog or interlibrary loan.
• Search for books through our library catalog. Extend your search to “all
locations”.
• To learn how your topic might be indexed within PsycInfo, go to the A to Z list
of Databases, select the “Thesaurus” within PsycInfo. You can find related
keywords and subject headings.

I. Mini-Tour of Library
First floor:
• Circulation desk and reserves (near the entrance): get your library card,
check out books and check out articles/books your professor places on
reserve.
• Reference room and Reference Foyer (side of building): contains
encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries that provide context to your research
topic. Always staffed by a reference librarian.
• Computers: 14 PCs throughout the library. The two PCs in front of the
reference desk have Microsoft Office installed. Print to Pharos stations
located in the lower level, the first and second floors.
• Index Area (back of the building): Find book reviews and indexes of articles
published. Four PC’s have Microsoft Office installed.
• Study Carrels: Towards the back of the first floor; quiet study areas located
throughout library.
• Archives and Special Collections: Houses historical documents and artifacts of
the college.
Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.
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 Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods
• Photocopier: 2 copiers located on each side of the library; one copier in
Periodicals area.
• Bathrooms: women’s room 1st floor, men’s room lower mezzanine.

Lower Mezzanine Levels:

• Book stacks level 1 (floor underneath the “Pit”); bound journal articles;
Archives Room; vending machine
• Book stack level 2
• Book stack level 3

Upper Mezzanine:
• Periodicals Area: magazines, newspapers, microfilm, microfiche
• Curriculum Library: library materials for education students
• Smart market: coffee, tea and snacks

I. Search for encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries in the Reference

Room at the library
The Reference Room’s books are organized by subject categories. To determine the
category where a reference book would be classified under, look at the list posted
on the door of room 118 labeled “Library of Congress Classification Schedules.”
Reference books relating to psychology would be classified under BF and RC.

The library also provides encyclopedias, handbooks and dictionaries online through
the database called Credo Reference. You can access Credo Reference under the
A to Z List of Databases on the library homepage.

II. Access the library’s resources when you are off campus:
You will be prompted for your Blackboard username and password when you select
a link to any of our subscribed online resources.

III. Search for a book in the catalog from the Minuteman Library Network

Go to the library homepage and select the link “Books”. Enter a phrase or a
keyword in the search box and select “subject” or “keyword” and “Framingham
State College” in the drop down menus. To search for books in other libraries, select
“All locations” in the drop down menus. Here is a simple search for “cyberbullying”:

Once you find a book, write down the call number to help you find the book in the
library.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

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 Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods

If the book is available through the Minuteman Library Network but not available at
the college, you can request the book with your library card and have it sent to the
library (it should take 3 business days to arrive).

All full-time and part-time Framingham State College students can borrow books
from the Whittemore Library, as well as other libraries within the Minuteman Library
Network. Day and evening students must register with the library to
activate the student ID barcode or student ID number. It just takes 3
minutes to get your library card.

With your library card, you are able to request books and articles from libraries
outside of Minuteman Library Network through interlibrary loan (ILL). You can
request a book or an article through interlibrary loan at
http://www.framingham.edu/henry-whittemore-library/borrowing-and-interlibrary-
loan/interlibrary-loan-request-form.html . Your request can take up to two weeks to
process. Please contact Neil Conrad at 508.626.4690 for questions on ILL.

IV. Conduct keyword searches to locate articles from popular magazines

and scholarly peer-reviewed journals:

For a listing of all of our research databases, select the A to Z List of Databases link
on the library webpage. Start your search with a general search then refine your
search with keywords and subject terms.

I recommend searching the following databases: PsycInfo, PsycArticles, Psychology

and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Psychology Collection, SocIndex and/or
PsycCRIQUES (for reviews of books).

Scholarly journals and popular magazines: Scholarly journals are published by

a professional society or association. In order for articles to be included in some
scholarly journals, they must be reviewed and accepted by an editorial board. These
journals are known as juried, refereed or peer reviewed journals. Popular, news, or
opinion magazines provide an “average person’s view of an issue”. These
magazines do not report results of research projects, have a peer review process or
include annotated bibliographies.

Use Boolean operators and truncation:

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

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 Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods
• cyberbullying OR cyber-bullying – will search either term
• bullying AND Internet – will combine the two search terms
• (Facebook OR MySpace) AND bullying – will search for Facebook and bullying
& MySpace and bullying
• (adolescent* OR teenager*) AND bull* - will search for (adolescent,
adolescents OR teenager, teenagers) and (bully, bullied, bullying)

An example of a search in EbscoHOST’s PsycARTICLES:

Skim the search results for any relevant articles. When you find a good article, look
at the “Cited References” link and the “Times Cited in this Database” link.
These links will lead you to other articles for your review.

If an article is not available full text in the database, select the link “Article Linker”
to check if any other library database has the article full text. If an article is not
available full text online in any of our databases, check to see if we have the journal
in print by looking in the print holdings list (found in the red binders). If the article is
not available online or in print, place an interlibrary loan request.

I. Save and organize your research within EbscoHost databases:

The vendor EbscoHost provides the ability for researchers to save their EbscoHost
articles into their own personal accounts.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/henry-whittemore-library/ Page 4
 Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods
Before you start your search, create a “MyEbscoHost” account. I recommend using
your Blackboard username and password to make it easier to remember your
account. After you create an account, begin your search. Save articles into your
account by selecting the link “Add to Folder”.

To view the saved article, go to “Folder” at the top of the page to access your
“MyEbscoHost” account. Below is a screenshot of my account where I created a
folder for research methods by selecting “New”. I organized my research by
moving the articles for RM into the RM folder.

II. Search for scholarly articles in Google Scholar:

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/henry-whittemore-library/ Page 5
 Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods
Go to the library homepage and select the link A to Z List of Databases. Go to the
Google Scholar link. On the Google Scholar page, go to the link Scholar Preferences
and make sure that Framingham State College is listed as a preferred library.

When creating a search in Google Scholar, you do not need to link terms by “AND”.
Place quotation marks around phrases. Use nesting and OR to expand the search.
For example: (“social networking” OR "Facebook"). Select “Find It @Framingham” to
locate the article full text. Google Scholar also indexes Google Books. Further
instructions on using Google Scholar: http://library.fscmedia.com/2008/02/16/try-
google-scholar/

III. Look up a journal to find out if the journal is available full text:

If you have a citation and would like to view any of the articles online, check to see
if the journal is available full-text online by entering the name of the journal in the
Full Text Journal Finder. (http://pj8tr3fm5l.search.serialssolutions.com/)

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/henry-whittemore-library/ Page 6
 Library Resources for Psychology Research Methods

If the journal is available online, the results will list the research databases that
contain full text articles of the journal.

If an article is not available full-text, you can check to see if the library carries the
journal in print by looking up the title of the journal in the library catalog. For
questions on our print journals, please contact Debbie Hogan, periodicals
supervisor, at dhogan@framingham.edu.

IV. Citation Resources:

APA Style Guide (sixth edition):

http://www.apastyle.org/

Duke University’s Citing Sources:

http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/

APA Formatting and Style Guide: The Owl at Purdue

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

The EBSCO and InfoTrac databases also have a feature where you can view how an
article is cited by several citation styles.

Questions? Contact reference librarians at 508.626.4654 or reference@framingham.edu.

Library homepage: http://www.framingham.edu/henry-whittemore-library/ Page 7