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: karenyoung21@gmail.com