Doing & Applying Research
Agenda
• What to research for the Assignment• A Good Research Database: PsycInfo
What to research for Assignment 1
Skill
MeasurementDefinition
leadership performance
Conflict resolution skills
Active listening Behaviors
Emotional Stability (anger sub-dimension)
Biological Factors (e.g., Hormonal shifts)
What to research for Assignment 2: Factors that affect your chosen skill
Conflict resolution skills
Active listening Behaviors
Emotional Stability (anger sub-dimension)
Biological Factors (e.g., Hormonal shifts)
• Find a changeable ‘factor’ that affects your skill• Find a program on how to “train” on that factor
Agenda
• What to research for the Assignment• PsycInfo – Using the option dropdown – Using the thesaurus– Using other search options
Screen when logged into PsycInfo
Using the Option Dropdown• For search by author, year, or subject heading
How to find the article with the measures you completed
Explore what’s in the Abstract
• ‘Abstract’ –– most efficient way to decide relevance of
article for your assignment• ‘Subject’ – useful to explore other potentially relevant
keywords • Identifier
Students experiment with search page
• Find an article given year and author information – Barling, Weber, Kelloway, 1996• Note: remember to specify as author in the option
setting
Open the Barling et al 1996 article
• What’s in the method section?• What’s in the result section?
Go back to exploring the abstract of the Barling et al 1996 article
• Who do THEY cite?– In the article
• Who cites them?– In the database
• What topics are related to their articles?– Useful to find ‘other’ factors affecting your skill
Who do THEY cite in the article?
Who cites them In the database?
What related articles overlap
Search for articles about training your skill
• Starting with articles you already found– Use the subject identifiers mentioned there
• Type your term in the search page– But use correct subject identifier • E.g., self-monitoring vs. self monitoring
• Using the thesaurus page to get correct subject identifier
Why use the Thesaurus• Useful to align your search words with
keywords that PsycINFO uses in the database
Options when using the Thesaurus• Contain word(s) - great if you’re not sure what the
terms used are (e.g., attitudes toward authority comes up with 0 hits)
• Begins with – beneficial if you are more certain about your search words
Screen after typing ”Training” in Thesaurus
• Click on the subject headings with [+] to show more related subject terms
• Click on the yellow sticky to see related terms• Explode • Major
Screen after typing ”conflict resolution” in Thesaurus
Exploring the results of your search in Thesaurus to get more Technical Terms
• click on “training (motivation)”to get more specific search terms
Check off all Relevant keywords to describe topic and use OR & click “add to search”
See what happens in the search window!
Students do the same for own topic
• Generate a list of technical terms relevant to your topic
– Use the PsycInfo worksheet to help organize your keywords/lay terms
Other ways of identifying Useful Technical Terms/Subject Headings with Thesaurus
• Recall, we chose the “Begins With” display option before– This gives us related subject headings organized
alphabetically• Try using alternative “display options" to display
results in a different way.– Contains – Any subject headings which contain the search
words
Students: Practice using Thesaurus
• Use the thesaurus to identify useful subject headings for your practice topic
• Familiarize yourself with the thesaurus option– EXPLORE!!!
Other Search Options – I
• Methodology:– Open to using any– ‘Literature review’ would probably be mostuseful both for understanding the research in the topic and for finding relevant articles (look at the citations list)
Other Search Options – II
• Feel free to play around with ‘age groups’, ‘target audience’ if you feel e.g. that studies on children can be applicable to your own personal growth
Other Tips
• Go back to the articles mentioned in the questionnaire– Look up the citations from the paper to find
relevant articles
Other tips & options
• ‘Cite’ button automatically cites articles for you in the citation style of your choice
Extra Help • Library guide for MGHC02:
http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/MGHC02• PsycInfo RA Help– Availability in the finance lab – Tuesdays 3-5pm on
the following days:• February 4th, 11th March 11th 18th 25th & April 1st
– Availability for Skype chat – Fridays by appointment• Skype ID: karen.young39• Email: [email protected]