PSY 4100 Adv. Research Methods: Social Psychology

MEDLINE is a research database that covers all areas of healthcare, including psychological healthcare.  Use this database to locate psychology articles from a medical perspective.

MeSH 2024 is similar to APA PsycInfo's Thesaurus.  Search for subject terms here to find articles all about that topic.  For example, to search on the subject of human experimentation, 

• Click on MeSH 2024 at the top of the screen.

• Type your search term into the box (e.g. human experimentation) and click Browse.

• Select a relevant term(s) if you see one (if not, go back to the main screen and search by keyword), and then select any relevant subheadings (e.g. Ethics).  Scope notes can provide more information about a term you're considering.

• Then search the database.

• In MEDLINE, you can limit by methodology by selecting Show More under the Limit To area: 

• Consider limiting to Review (literature reviews), Meta-Analysis, Controlled Clinical Trial, or Randomized Controlled Trial for your assignments for this course.

A keyword generally refers to a term that occurs anywhere in an article, including the title, author, subjects, or abstract.  To search this way in PsycINFO, use the Select a Field (Optional) designation rather than Keyword, since using Keyword from the search drop-down menu will only search specific keyword tags.

• Search by keyword if you're searching for a new concept, if you want to broaden your search, or if you don't know or can't find a subject term to use. 

*Tip: Using an asterisk to truncate the end of a word will yield both all variations of that word (e.g. experiment* will locate experiment, experimental, and experimentation)

A subject is a term assigned to a book or article to describe its content.  Using a database's Thesaurus or Subject Terms can help you find the specific term(s) that the database uses to describe your topic.  It can help you differentiate between similar terms, such as Conservation (Concept) vs. Conservation (Ecological Behavior).

• Search by subject and combine subject terms to immediately narrow your search to relevant articles. 

Step 1: Click on Thesaurus at the top of the search page.

Step 2: In the lower box, search for keywords related to your topic, such as experimental subjects.  Then choose Browse.

Step 3: Check the box for the subject term for which you'd like to search.  You can also click on the term for more information, such as a description of the term or broader, narrower, or related terms.

Step 4: Then Add the subject term to your search.  If you are searching for multiple terms (such as experimental ethics), repeat steps 1 and 2 and add multiple subject terms to a single search using AND (to narrow search by finding articles with all terms) or OR (to broaden search by finding any of the terms).

Step 5: Then click Search.

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