Psychology Research Guide

• PsycINFO
  Core index to articles in psychology.
  
• PubMed
  Indexes journals in medicine, psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience.
  
• ProQuest Social Sciences
  Is your topic interdisciplinary? This searches core indexes in the social sciences such as sociology, political science, and education in addition to psychology.
  
• Academic Search Complete
  Another interdisciplinary database, but strong in psychology and its related fields.
  
• PsychiatryOnline
  Contains the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and several full-text psychiatry journals and e-books.
  
• Web of Science
  Includes the Science and Social Sciences Citation Index. These let you find "forward citations" -- update your research by finding articles that cite an article.
  

Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and Annual Reviews in Psychology

• Handbook of Psychology
• Corsini Enclyclopedia of Psychology 
• Dictionary of Psychology from Oxford Reference Online
• DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
• Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning (Educational Psychology)
• International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences provides scholarly overviews on various topics in psychology.
• Annual Reviews in Psychology and Annual Reviews in Clinical Psychology are good starting places -- they provide literature reviews of important and emerging areas of research.
• Handbook of Social Psychology and Handbook of Adolescent Psychology

Writing and Research Guides

• Effective Writing in Psychology: Papers, Posters, and Presentations, 2nd Edition.
• APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology
  Vol. 1: Foundations, planning, measures and psychometrics
  Vol. 2: Research designs: quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological and biological
  Vol. 3: Data analysis and research publication
• Sage Handbooks of Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Psychology

Springer Electronic Book Package E-books in many fields including Social Work,  Social Policy and Psychology.

APA e-book collection Current e-books published by the American Psychological Association from 2009 to date.

ebrary Berkeley's largest e-book collection, with thousands of  titles on a wide range of subjects, including social work, education and psychology. Some advanced ebrary features require downloading reader software.

Wiley Online Library Ebook Collection Fulltext books in social welfare and psychology from 2011.

Oxford Scholarship Online: Psychology

MIT CogNet E-books in cognitive and brain sciences published by MIT.

 

Find Dissertations by searching Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts) Full Text, which indexes graduate dissertations from over 1,000 North American, and selected European, graduate schools and universities from 1861 to the present. Dissertations published since 1980 include brief abstracts written by the authors and some feature 24-page excerpts. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and some full text coverage for older graduate works.Also see Find Dissertations and Theses for other specialized sources.

Dissertations completed at UC Berkeley can be found in OskiCat, using the feature allowing you to limit to dissertations/theses.Older dissertations not available full text may be obtained through Interlibrary Loan or using the "Request" option in Melvyl.

UCB: Use OskiCat to find books related to your topic at UC Berkeley. Oskicat will show you where it's located, and will also show you the Library of Congress Subject Heading -- which can help you find material other relevant books.

UC: Not enough books  at Berkeley? Use Melvyl to find more books at other campuses in the UC system.  Clickon the REQUEST button (in the detailed view of a catalog record) to request the item through  Interlibrary Loan.

World: Still want more? You can search thousands of libraries through WorldCat on FirstSearch and then request the material through UC e-links or directly via Interlibrary Loan. 

Google Books: Library catalogs don't search inside of books. Google Books can help you identify the book you need, then click on "Find in a Library" to see if we have it.

Do you need funding for you research, your dissertation or thesis? Check out our page of funding resources for graduate students in the social sciences.

In a  literature review you explore research that has come before you and is relevant to your topic. It can help you identify:

• core research in the field
• experts in the subject area
• methodology you may want to use (or avoid)
• gaps in the literature -- or where your research would fit in

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Helpful approaches:

• see what literature reviews already exist on your topic (databases like Oxford Bibliographies Online: Social Work,  PubMed and PsycInfo -- they can help you get started, and save you a lot of time.) For PsycInfo, restrict by literature review, for PubMed by review.
• citation slogging (aka "snowballing") -- work your way back through citations (or footnotes) to key articles
• forward citation -- see who has cited key articles using Google Scholar and Web of Science Citation Indexes.
• see the American Psychological Association's Literature Review Guidelines or Purdue OWL: Social Work Literature Review for some helpful tips.

Using the PsycINFO Thesaurus is a poweful way to search. It finds related terms, and can clarify how the database defines a concept.

 

"Cheat Sheets" -- very handy guides showing examples of the different types of citations formatted according to APA 6th, from Purdue and Harvard.

The fulltext of APA 6th is not available online, but we do have print copies in the reference collection of the Social Welfare and EdPsych Libraries at BF76.7 P83 2010, and it's available at other libraries on campus as well.

APA Style & Format from Capella Writing Center, is designed to help you quickly understand the fundamentals you need to write a course paper that meets the APA guidelines. It also has a very helpful guide to how to handle those confusing DOIs.

Basics of APA Style -- tutorial from APA on how to how to structure and format your work, reduce bias in language, avoid charges of plagiarism, cite references in text and it  provides selected reference examples. The APA Style Blog --  is searchable by topic and contains weekly posts by APA experts . 

An easy, quick guide (with screen shots), on how to import references from PubMed to RefWorks. It takes a minute, can save you many! Brought to you by Berkeley's Bioscience and Natural Resources Library.

1. Search PsycINFO.
2. Select the desired references by checking the box to the left of each citation.
3. After all the desired citations have been selected, click on RefWorks
4. You will be asked if you want the records added, if so click on Export to RefWorks. (If you have a pop up blocker, it will then confirm that you do want to open RefWorks.)
5. RefWorks then displays the last citations you added, and you can choose to add them to a specific folder . Or you can just leave them in the Last Imported folder. (If you want to create a new folder, just click on Folder and the drop down arrow will let you select make a new one.

If you've never used Zotero before, use the QuickStart Guide to get started.

Change your preferences if you want  Zotero to

• set your default citation style
• search the full text of pdfs you save
• Automatically attach associated PDFs and other files when saving items

To use Zotero to find specific articles in our library's databases, set up the Open URL resolver with this link: http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_local? 

 

Search OskiCat. Once you have records you want to export, if you are:

A. Viewing a list of results, check the box to the left of each record you wish to add to RefWorks, then click Save Selected Records, or

B. Viewing an individual record, click the Save Records button near the top of the window and then:

1. Click the View Saved button near the top of the window
2. Click Export Saved
3. Select EndNote/RefWorks under Format of List
4. Select Screen under Send List To
5. Click Submit
6. Use your browser’s Select All function, then Copy
7. Open another browser window and access your RefWorks Account.
8. Click References from the drop-down menu and select Import
9. In the drop-down menu next to Import Filter/Data Source, choose Innovative Interfaces (EndNote/RefWorks Format)
10. For Database, choose University of California, Berkeley
11. In Import References into Folder, choose the desired folder, if you have already created a folder into which you want these references to import.  If not, make no selection here
12. Click Import
13. Select the radio button next to Import Data from the following Text.
14.  Put your cursor in the box below Import Data from the following Text and select Edit > Paste in your browser.
15. By default, all newly imported references appear in the Last Imported folder. Under View / Folders, select your folder to see the citations you just imported.  Note the UC-eLinks icon next to each reference.

Thanks to the Public Health Library for creating this guide!

Tests, Scales and Measurements

Finding complete instruments (tests or scales) can be challenging. Test publishers do not allow libraries to buy buy copyrighted tests and circulate them like we do books. In general, they want to sell them to researchers on an individual basis. Sometimes the full text of a test can be found in a journal or in the appendix of a dissertation, and a few instruments or tests are in the public domain and are easy to find in books or even on the internet.  PsycTESTS from the APA provides primarily unpublished tests, most (but not all) records include the actual test instrument.

Other tests can be identified (and sometimes found full text), by using research databases. PsycInfo has a particularly helpful search feature which allows you to find research based on a particular test or measure. Other helpful databases include Social Services Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts and Social Work Abstracts.  Online indexes, like Buros Mental Measurements,  identify instruments available for purchase.

For more on specific educational tests, see EDP Tests.

The library reference collection contains several print and a few digital book compilations of full-text tests available in the public domain. See Test Bibliographies for more information.

PsycTESTS from APA -- primarily unpublished tests, most (but not all) records include the actual test instrument. Also provides information about psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other assessments including descriptive information about the test and its development and administration. This can be a bit tricky to use, here's a quick guide on how to use it with Screenshots on searching PsycTESTS via SlideShare.

eBooks and books with full-text scales:

IQ and psychometric test workbook (ebook). Full-text tests for personality, aptitude and intelligence.

Measuring Race and Ethnicity (print and ebook). Measures racial attitudes.

Test Bibliographies with Full-text Tests. Identifies books containing full-text tests. Books are located within the EDP Library Reference Collection.

Online searchable sites with full-text scales:

Center for AIDS Prevention. UCSF. Full-text instruments by topic.

Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services. Full-text assessment instruments by topic.

Generalized Perceived Self-Efficacy Scale (Ralf Schwarzer). Full-text scale included.

Geriatric Depression Scale. Full-text scale included. Aging Clinical Research Center--Stanford.

Network for Research on Experimental Psychotherapies. Full-text instruments.

Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory with full-text scale. Richard Tolman--University of Michigan.

Relationship Questionnaires and Scales. Full-text scales included. Trent University.

 

Online indexes to find tests and measures in print:

Sites with test information:

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The Education Psychology Library reference desk is open for drop-in help Monday - Friday, 11-1 and 2-4. Please come by, we like working with students! If none of these times work for you, contact me (phone number and email in contact box to the left.)

• Library Subject Guides

• PSYCH 130: Clinical Psychology
• PSYCH 1: General Psychology
• PSYCH 1: General Psychology
• Library Course Guides

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