How to do your own experiments in psychology and education
2a(3). Identify where you can find each kind of information
The table here gives you some hints on where to find the information that you will need for your Lit Review. Some of these hints suggest that you focus on one specific section of an article – Task 3 will tell you more about what kinds of information you can get from each section of an article.
You need to find different kinds of information:
Find general, introductory information
If you are unfamiliar with the area of research that you want investigate, then it is useful to read around to get an idea of how the researchers in this area think and talk. Encyclopedias, the new APA Dictionary of Psychology, textbooks, and the internet (e.g., Wikipedia) can be valuable sources of information to get you started; many of them have references that you can lead you to other, more technical articles. Many general sources such as these are in the library’s Reference Collection. This kind of pre-reading will help you identify keywords that researchers use – you can use them later in your keyword searches – and will make it easier for you to read the research articles later on.
You may just start reading the research articles that you find and discover that you cannot understand them very well. One good strategy in this situation is to go back and find the general, introductory information that is described here. Read some introductory material and when that seems clear, return to the more technical research articles.
NOTE: Remember NOT to cite these general sources. They’re only mentioned as a way of helping you get used to a new field of research.
Information from web pages
As a general rule, avoid citing information that you find on web pages. Most of it is unreliable and you have no way of knowing which parts you can and which parts you cannot rely on. This does not mean that you should never use the internet for research. Some reliable sites are sponsored by organizations and government agencies. You definitely should use the internet to access research that was published in peer-reviewed journals, through library databases or through authors’ web pages.
Find Information about the importance of your research problem
A very important part of any research is explaining clearly to your readers why exactly it is important to investigate the problem that you have chosen. Not why it is important for you personally, but why it is important for researchers and for the general public. When you write a proposal to do research, you usually need to ask for funding and/or permission. The way you state why the problem is important frequently determines whether the proposal will be accepted or not.
There are at least four ways of thinking about the importance of your research problem: Theoretical contributions, empirical contributions, methodological contributions or practical contributions.
Potential practical contributions have to do with how the new knowledge (that you hope to gain from your research) may be useful in solving practical problems in the “real” world. A common way of phrasing practical importance is in terms of how many people are affected by the problem that you are studying, how much work or money is involved in getting around the problem, or how much effort is being invested in trying to solve it. These are all indicators that the problem is important. You can look for this kind of information in government documents, statistical reports, etc. using a general search engine like www.google.com/scholar or www.questia.com (but PsycINFO may not work as well). Try adding “statistics” to your other search terms, for example.
You should discuss theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions by comparing your proposed research with existing research: think about why your research is different and why the difference is useful or informative. Because it is based on existing research, this is something to think about after you have found the research literature.
Read this topic next: Find the publications that you need
You need to find different kinds of information:
- Find general, introductory information (see below)
- Find Information about the importance of your research problem (see below)
- Find Information about how your process works and what affects it (see here)
Find general, introductory information
If you are unfamiliar with the area of research that you want investigate, then it is useful to read around to get an idea of how the researchers in this area think and talk. Encyclopedias, the new APA Dictionary of Psychology, textbooks, and the internet (e.g., Wikipedia) can be valuable sources of information to get you started; many of them have references that you can lead you to other, more technical articles. Many general sources such as these are in the library’s Reference Collection. This kind of pre-reading will help you identify keywords that researchers use – you can use them later in your keyword searches – and will make it easier for you to read the research articles later on.
You may just start reading the research articles that you find and discover that you cannot understand them very well. One good strategy in this situation is to go back and find the general, introductory information that is described here. Read some introductory material and when that seems clear, return to the more technical research articles.
NOTE: Remember NOT to cite these general sources. They’re only mentioned as a way of helping you get used to a new field of research.
Information from web pages
As a general rule, avoid citing information that you find on web pages. Most of it is unreliable and you have no way of knowing which parts you can and which parts you cannot rely on. This does not mean that you should never use the internet for research. Some reliable sites are sponsored by organizations and government agencies. You definitely should use the internet to access research that was published in peer-reviewed journals, through library databases or through authors’ web pages.
Find Information about the importance of your research problem
A very important part of any research is explaining clearly to your readers why exactly it is important to investigate the problem that you have chosen. Not why it is important for you personally, but why it is important for researchers and for the general public. When you write a proposal to do research, you usually need to ask for funding and/or permission. The way you state why the problem is important frequently determines whether the proposal will be accepted or not.
There are at least four ways of thinking about the importance of your research problem: Theoretical contributions, empirical contributions, methodological contributions or practical contributions.
Potential practical contributions have to do with how the new knowledge (that you hope to gain from your research) may be useful in solving practical problems in the “real” world. A common way of phrasing practical importance is in terms of how many people are affected by the problem that you are studying, how much work or money is involved in getting around the problem, or how much effort is being invested in trying to solve it. These are all indicators that the problem is important. You can look for this kind of information in government documents, statistical reports, etc. using a general search engine like www.google.com/scholar or www.questia.com (but PsycINFO may not work as well). Try adding “statistics” to your other search terms, for example.
You should discuss theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions by comparing your proposed research with existing research: think about why your research is different and why the difference is useful or informative. Because it is based on existing research, this is something to think about after you have found the research literature.
Read this topic next: Find the publications that you need
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