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Key Resources
Authoritative database that covers over 4 million psychology and related behavioral science references world-wide
One of the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature covering a wide range of disciplines (geared to interdisciplinary topics)
Provides access to bibliographic, plus full text and multimedia of APA psychological tests from the early 1900s to the present
Getting background information willl help you better understand your topic and important concepts.
Handbooks
Our library subscribes to over 100 APA handbooks. These resources will provide you with a good overview of a specific area in psychology.
Some examples:
- Handbook of child psychology
- Handbook of community psychology
- APA Handbook of psychology and juvenile justice
To search for a handbook in a specific area, simply do a search in the library search tool Omni using the keywords "handbook" followed by the specific area in psychology such as for example: handbook and "social psychology"
Encyclopedias
- The Sage encyclopedia of theory in psychology
- The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology
- International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioural Sciences
- Encyclopedia of the history of psychological theories
Dictionaries
- APA college dictionary of psychology
- APA dictionary of psychology
- The Cambridge dictionary of psychology
E-book collections
A combination of the following databases may help you do a more comprehensive search of the literature relating to your topic.
Multidisciplinary databases offer you the opportunity to find a sample of journal articles related to your area of interest from various disciplinary perspectives .
Core databases
Related databases (some examples)*
- Child development and adolescent studies
- CINAHL (health)
- Criminal Justice Abstracts
- ERIC (education)
- Ergonomics abstracts
- Pubmed (medical)
- Sociological abstracts
- Studies on Women and gender abstracts
*for a more complete listing, see databases by subject webpage
Multidisciplinary databases
Search Strategies
There are various ways to build a search strategy. Click on the links below to move to the relevant section.
Boolean Operators
To combine search terms we use AND/OR/NOT, referred to as Boolean operators.
AND
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To find articles which contain all of your concepts:
- Combine them with AND
- Using AND narrows your search. The more words you combine with AND,the fewer results you will find.
- Examples:
children AND social behaviour
OR
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To find articles which contain any of your synonyms:
- Combine them with OR
- Using OR expands your search. The more words you combine with OR, the larger the number of results you will find.
- Examples:
media violence OR violence television
Parentheses
Use parentheses to isolate your concepts and gather together your synonyms
- (media violence OR violence television) AND children
Truncation
Truncation, also called stemming, is a technique that broadens your search to include various word endings.
- both the singular and plural forms of a word
- words that begin with the same word stem
- Truncation symbols vary by database; common symbols include: *, ?, #, $
- Examples:
child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood
Wildcards
Wildcards broaden your search to include words with different spellings.
- This is useful if a word is spelled in different ways, but still has the same meaning.
- Wildcard symbols vary by database; common symbols include: #, ?
- Examples:
wom#n = woman, women
colo?r = color, colour
Phrase Searching
To find an exact phrase use quotation marks.
- Examples:
"social behaviour"
The following are a few resources that may help you with your research:
Research methods
To find books on research in psychology, do a subject search in the library search tool Omni using one of the following subject headings:
psychology - research
psychology, experimental
human experimentation in psychology
SAGE Research Methods
Here are a few examples of current books in our collection that may be relevant:
Books
- Towards a more perfect psychology: improving trust, accuracy, and transparency in research (2017)
- A new narrative for psychology (2017)
- Analysing qualitative data in psychology (2016)
- Practicing research: Why you're are part of the research process even when you think you're not (2016)
- The qualitative vision for psychology (2016)
- Creating models in psychological research (2015)
- Online research methods for psychologists (2015)
- Research and evaluation in education and psychology (2015)
- Longitudinal analysis : modeling within-person fluctuation and change (2015)
- Oxford handbook of quantitative methods (2015)
- APA dictionary of statistics and research methods (2014)
- Nonparametric statistics for applied research (2014)
- Straightforward statistics: understanding the tools of research (2014)
- Research methods and statistics in psychology (2014)
- APA handbook for research methods in psychology (2012)
- Research methods in psychology : investigating human behavior (2012)
- Handbook of research methods for studying daily life (2012)
Videos
- Non-experimental research methods (2017)
- Behind the statistics (2017)
- Key issues in psychological research (2017)
- Ethics in psychological research (2013)
- Psychology research in context (2008)
- Experimental research methods in psychology (2008)
- Exploring qualitative methods (2006)
Psychological tests (guides)
This resource will allow you to find a test that is appropriate to your research application. Here is a description:
The Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) provides users with a comprehensive guide to contemporary testing instruments. MMY also contains descriptive information (e.g., test purpose, publisher, pricing) and edited review(s) written by leading content area experts. This resource also includes the complete Tests in Print database. Tests in Print (TIP) serves as a comprehensive bibliography to all known commercially available tests that are currently in print in the English language.
Data
Data Services (MacOdrum Library) provides quantitative research data from various disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and life sciences. Use this site to access a wide range of surveys conducted by Statistics Canada and other organizations, including some international. Read more ...
Statistics
The Department of Psychology provides statistical consulting to faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows (consulting is not available to undergraduates and members of other departments).
Consultants assist with tasks ranging from advice on study design, selecting appropriate analytic techniques, and troubleshooting data analyses to strategizing analysis plans for grant proposals and other large-scale projects. Read more ...
Writing in psychology
- Scientific writing for psychology (2015)
- Undergraduate writing in psychology: learning to tell the scientific story (2008)
- Making sense in psychology: A guide for research and writing (2015)
- Write it up : practical strategies for writing and publishing journal articles (2015)
- Writing in psychology (2014)
- Effective writing in psychology : papers, posters,and presentations (2012)
Citation Management tools
These tools help you save references you have found in your literature searches.
They also help format your paper in the citation style of your preferences.
Our library provides support for the following:
For more information about how to use these tools go to our Citation Management webpage.
Citing sources
- Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 6th Edition (2010)
- Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 7th Edition (2020)
- An easy guide to APA style (2017)
- Our Citing Your Sources webpage contains a number of links to resources to help you properbly cite your sources.
- Carleton University guide to APA style (tipsheet)
