How to do your own experiments in psychology and education

2. Find relevant bibliography

Information

Members: 16
Latest Activity: Sep. 20, 2008

Overview

To continue work on your research project, you need to find, understand, and describe what other researchers have found about your research problem. The section where you describe this information is called the "Review of the Literature" (or "Lit Review). This task (#2) focuses only on finding the material that you will need for your Lit Review. Later Tasks will discuss how to read the materials and how to write up what you need to say.

Don’t start reading the articles yet.

Homework:
- Hand in your Literature Search Plan
- Hand in a list of references for each section of your lit review

What you need to do:
2a. Plan your literature search
("Literature" here means "published research".)

To plan your Literature Search, you need to:
2a(1): Start with your research problem
2a(2). Identify what kinds of information to look for:

general, introductory information to help you get familiar with the field that you’re studying;
information about why your problem is important to study;
general background information about how your process and sub-process work;
specific information about how your factors affect (or not) your sub-process;

2a(3). Identify where to find each kind of information

>Fill in your Literature Search Plan.

2b. Find the publications you need

2b(1). Find review articles, for example in the Annual Review of Psychology or Psychological Review;
2b(2). Search for specific journal titles in the library’s databases;
2b(3). Search for articles by specific authors in the library’s databases or on their homepages;
2b(4). Search for related articles
2b(5). Search by keyword if you still need to

2c. Choose the best publications from the ones that you found

>Hand in a list of references for each section of the Lit Review.
Use APA format for your references from the beginning to save time later. A reminder of what APA references look like is here.

How you should do it:

Follow the instructions in sections 2a, 2b, and 2c above. [Follow the links for more information.]
Ask as many questions (using this web site!) as you need to understand everything clearly.

Discussion Forum

2a(2). Identify what kinds of information to look for 5 Replies

Started by Mike Dillinger, PhD. Last reply by Mike Dillinger, PhD Sep. 20, 2008.

2b(1). Find review articles 3 Replies

Started by Mike Dillinger, PhD. Last reply by Mike Dillinger, PhD Sep. 19, 2008.

2b(4). Search for related articles

Started by Mike Dillinger, PhD Aug. 3, 2008.

What was easy/hard/interesting about this topic?

Add a Comment

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Comment by Eumi Nguyen ^.^ on September 20, 2008 at 4:21pm: general background outline.docx
Hi Dr. D,

This is my outline for general background first draft. Please let me know if I got it right or not. Thanks.

Eumi ^.^

Comment by Eumi Nguyen ^.^ on September 20, 2008 at 3:55pm: Revised Back ground information first draft.docx

Hi Dr. D,

Here is the revised of my general background first draft. Please let me know if I got it rite this time! or how I should improve it.

With Regards,

Eumi ^.^

Comment by Amy on September 18, 2008 at 8:05pm: Is it okay to include information from research articles that talk about animal studies? For instance, animals that are trained during their active phase have better memory for contextual, but not cued, fear conditioning compared to animals that are trained during their inactive phase.

Comment by Christina Keelan on September 16, 2008 at 8:31pm: Task 2 read ^_^ This site has been relatively easy to follow. As stated elsewhere on this site, I am just not used to social networks period.... Thanks!

Comment by Benjamin Su on September 15, 2008 at 7:10pm: learned quite a bit more in searching for relevant bibliography. this helps in getting started and expanding your knowledge. In my opinion, this page website is easy to navigate.