Research Guides: Psychology: Finding Articles

Finding Articles

Start with this general database when looking for articles in this subject area. Databases are a collection of million of articles in a specific field of study and may provide links to the full-text of an article.

PsycINFO is a psychology database. It indexes over 1,300 professional journals in the field of psychology and related disciplines in more than 30 languages. It also includes references to book chapters, books, dissertations and technical reports.

Academic Search Complete
Covers research in the social sciences, humanities, general science, education, and multi-cultural journals. Results can limit to peer reviewed journals only. Access ranges from 1965 - present
PubMed
Provides access to over 30 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. Pubmed provides links to some full-text articles and related resources.

What are Empirical Studies?

Empirical studies are experimental studies that observe, measure, and collect data. They are the backbone for advancing scientific knowledge because they follow established and tested scientific rigor to ensure that their findings are credible, replicable, and applicable in the real-world.

Non-empirical research, in contrast, may speculate on theoretical and untested ideas without offering any measurable evidence.

Key characteristics: hypothesis testing, methods of their study, data collection, measurable outcomes, reproducibility, and objectivity.

Finding Empirical Studies

The PsycInfo database can limit results to empirical studies. Under the advanced search option for methodology, select Empirical Study.

How do I know if a journal is peer-reviewed?

Most article databases, including the library catalog, have an option to limit results to peer review. If there is not an option to limit, try adding "peer review" as a search term. Many databases like Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) indicate whether an article is peer reviewed.
The easiest way of determine whether a journal is peer reviewed is by using the library's catalog. Search the library's catalog for the title of the journal, and the results will indicate whether it is peer reviewed. If there is no indication, then it is not peer reviewed.
Visit the journal or publisher's website. Publishers will highlight whether a journal is peer reviewed in the description of the journal.

NOTE: Even thought a journal is deemed peer reviewed does not mean every article in the journal is peer reviewed. Book reviews, editorials, etc., do not qualify as peer reviewed. For more information, visit our guide about Peer-Review.

For more in-depth research

The full list of WU databases is available by alphabetic list, subject, or type of resource.

Communication and Mass Media Complete
Provides robust coverage of quality research in areas related to communication and mass media studies, linguistics, rhetoric and discourse.
ERIC
Covers journal and research literature in the field of education. Includes two files: Research in Education (RIE), which indexes and abstracts the miscellaneous education literature, and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE), which indexes and abstracts over 775 periodicals. 1966 - present.
Gale Academic Onefile
Provides millions of peer-reviewed, full-text articles from leading journals and reference sources. Extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects. 1980 - present
Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
PsycARTICLES
PsycARTICLES is a database of full-text articles from journals published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group.
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
Provides coverage of nearly 550 full text journals, including more than 500 peer-reviewed titles. It covers topics such as emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods.
Science
The world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news, reviews, short features, and commentary in all fields of science. 1997 - present
SpringerLink
Includes more than 600 peer-reviewed journals, comprising more than 600,000 individual documents. Most titles include complete back issues to 1996. 1996 - present.

ScienceDirect
Full-text. Access to Elsevier journals, including over 100 in Psychology and allied fields of research. Coverage runs from 1998 to the present.

Journals in the library collection

Search for a journal title or browse journals by category

Psychology

Willamette University Libraries