How to do your own experiments in psychology and education
2a(2). Identify what kinds of information to look for
What kind(s) of information do you need to get out of a bibliographical search? What exactly are you looking for? That will depend on your goals at each point of your search. It’s most efficient to look for information separately for information about each part of the lit review.
Sections of a Lit Review
The outline for your Lit Review sketches how you will organize your information. The sample outline below shows representative parts of a literature review. (The section titles are just to indicate structure and should NOT be included as titles in your Lit Review.) Remember that this is just a start: your outline should go into more detail for each section: the more detail you put into the outline, the easier it will be to write everything.
Opening (The problem and the importance of studying this problem)
General background (The process and sub-process that you will study and their characteristics)
Specific background (The specific effects of the factors on the sub-process)
- Factor1 (how Factor1 affects your sub-process)
- Factor2 (how Factor2 affects your sub-process
- Joint effects of Factor1 and Factor2
Closing
Therefore, there are at least three main kinds of information that you need to find for the Lit Review:
• Information on the importance of your research problem (for the Opening)
• General information on how your process works (for the General Background section)
• Specific information about how your factors affect this process, separately and together (for the Specific Background sections)
While you are at the library, look for two additional kinds of information that do not go directly into the Lit Review but will also be very helpful:
• General, introductory information about your research problem (to help you understand the rest)
• Information about the methods that different researchers used in their studies (to help you plan your own methods later). This information does not go into the Lit Review, but it will be helpful when you develop your own experimental methods. The best way to get ideas about how to do an experiment is by looking at how other people have done studies of similar problems. That is also part of your bibliographical research. Remember that you should be able (later on) to describe the advantages of the methods that you chose. You can see how other people have justified their methodological choices in published studies. Ask yourself which methods seem interesting and doable. PsyINFO has an advanced search option (look under limiters) that allows you to find studies which use a particular type of research method.
You can even use the same exact materials and procedures that other researchers have used. When you try to reproduce published results of other researchers by following their methods as exactly as possible, you are doing what’s called a replication: you are replicating their experiment. That is acceptable practice because your replication will provide additional evidence that the original results should (or should not) be believed. There is more about Methods later, in Task 4.
Read this topic next: Information about your process and what affects it.
Sections of a Lit Review
The outline for your Lit Review sketches how you will organize your information. The sample outline below shows representative parts of a literature review. (The section titles are just to indicate structure and should NOT be included as titles in your Lit Review.) Remember that this is just a start: your outline should go into more detail for each section: the more detail you put into the outline, the easier it will be to write everything.
Opening (The problem and the importance of studying this problem)
General background (The process and sub-process that you will study and their characteristics)
Specific background (The specific effects of the factors on the sub-process)
- Factor1 (how Factor1 affects your sub-process)
- Factor2 (how Factor2 affects your sub-process
- Joint effects of Factor1 and Factor2
Closing
Therefore, there are at least three main kinds of information that you need to find for the Lit Review:
• Information on the importance of your research problem (for the Opening)
• General information on how your process works (for the General Background section)
• Specific information about how your factors affect this process, separately and together (for the Specific Background sections)
While you are at the library, look for two additional kinds of information that do not go directly into the Lit Review but will also be very helpful:
• General, introductory information about your research problem (to help you understand the rest)
• Information about the methods that different researchers used in their studies (to help you plan your own methods later). This information does not go into the Lit Review, but it will be helpful when you develop your own experimental methods. The best way to get ideas about how to do an experiment is by looking at how other people have done studies of similar problems. That is also part of your bibliographical research. Remember that you should be able (later on) to describe the advantages of the methods that you chose. You can see how other people have justified their methodological choices in published studies. Ask yourself which methods seem interesting and doable. PsyINFO has an advanced search option (look under limiters) that allows you to find studies which use a particular type of research method.
You can even use the same exact materials and procedures that other researchers have used. When you try to reproduce published results of other researchers by following their methods as exactly as possible, you are doing what’s called a replication: you are replicating their experiment. That is acceptable practice because your replication will provide additional evidence that the original results should (or should not) be believed. There is more about Methods later, in Task 4.
Read this topic next: Information about your process and what affects it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Krystle on -
So, when we're writing our General Background, should we be siting sources and using articles to get this information or is this just a summary about what we know right now?
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Permalink Reply by Mike Dillinger, PhD on -
You should definitely be citing (sp!) sources and using articles, chapters, theses, etc. to get this information.
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Permalink Reply by Jose Hernandez on -
This attachment is some of our Bibliography to help develop our general and specific background
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Bibliography.doc, 22 KB
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Permalink Reply by Mike Dillinger, PhD on
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These are all good for the sub-process : )
You'll need additional references to help you write about the process in general.
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