Research Guides: Psychology: Get started

Getting started with psychology research

If you are new to conducting research:
Consider reviewing the Starting Your Research tutorial to learn the phases and processes of doing research.

For general library information: New to Using the Library

Start your Psychology research wth these key resources

PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
This is the main database for psychology research articles. It is owned by the American Psychological Association (APA).
One great feature is the ability to limit by methodology.
Language: English, German, French, Spanish
Keywords: APA Psyc Info
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Great for discovering scholarly research across a wide array of subject areas, primarily published in high-impact (highly cited) journals in the physical and life sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, conference proceedings, book chapters
Coverage dates: 1965-present
Easily explore an article bibliography, as well as sources that have cited the article since its publication, via the Citation Network feature. Create a free personal account to keep a comprehensive search history, create search alerts and citation alerts. Additional features related to author and journal profiles are available.
Language: English, Russian, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, etc.
Keywords: Social Science Citation Index Science Citation Index Arts and Humanities Citation Index Conference Proceedings Citation Index Emerging Sources Citation Index WoS Knowledge
Social Science Database This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Good for research articles across a wide range of social science fields, focusing primarily on sociology, interdisciplinary topics, political science, psychology, business, and economics.
Content type: Scholarly articles, trade journal articles, magazine articles, reports, dissertations and theses
Coverage dates: 1850-present
Language: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German
PsycTESTS This link opens in a new window
Why search here? The main database for discovering psychological assessments and measures, including some downloadable psychological tests, for use in social and behavioral science research.
Content type: Abstracts, psychological tests, psychological measures
Coverage dates: 1920-present
Some tests, although downloadable, have further documentation that should be obtained from the author or publisher.
Language: English
Keywords: APA Psyc Tests PsycNet Net
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Good for conducting wide reaching searches of the scholarly literature and exploring citation based connections between articles.
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, books, book chapters, patents
Start your search in Google Scholar from the library website to get access to open access materials and items only available through Library subscriptions.
Language: English

Background Sources

Mental Measurements Yearbook This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Search here for reviews of psychological testing instruments to help determine whether they are useful for your research.
Content type: Test descriptions, test reviews
Coverage dates: 1938-present
All entries include the test purpose, publisher, pricing, population, scores, and edited reviews, but they do not include the actual tests.
Language: English
Keywords: MMY
Sage Research Methods This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Good for finding resources that explain research methods and help guide the development the development of your own research project.
Content type: Books, reference materials, cases, datasets, podcasts, videos
This resource also includes a Methods Map, a Project Planner, Statistical Methods selection tool, and further reading lists.
Language: English

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5 by American Psychiatric Association Staff
Call Number: RC455.2.C4 D536 2013
ISBN: 9780890425541
Publication Date: 2013-05-22
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is used by clinicians and researchers to diagnose and classify mental disorders, is the product of more than 10 years of effort by hundreds of international experts in all aspects of mental health.

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Why search here? To access encyclopedia articles, biographies, dictionary entries, critical essays, and other reference sources across a wide range of subject areas.
Content type: Encyclopedia articles, reference materials, books
Includes collections in areas such as education, the environment, history, law, medicine, religion, social sciences, and more.
Language: English
Keywords: GVRL
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Find reference materials (encyclopedias, English and bilingual dictionaries, maps, and timelines) across a wide variety of subjects.
Content type: Books, reference materials
Bilingual dictionaries offer translations between English and French, German, Irish, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Welsh.
Language: English

Find Books and Papers in The Claremont Colleges Library and Beyond

Use the Library Search on the Library's Homepage to find books.

Library Search
Provides access to resources owned by the Claremont Colleges Library, and to millions of resources from libraries worldwide that we do not own. In addition to physical materials housed in the library, Library Search also provides access to online sources (e-books, articles, dissertations, and streaming video and audio).
We use the Library of Congress Classification System to organize physical books in the library. The classification system uses letters at the beginning of the call number to organize books by topic
- Psychology: BF - 3rd floor Honnold
- Social Psychology: HM1001-1281 - 1st floor Mudd

Finding Papers: use

SSRN (Social Science Research Network)

SSRN is a searchable online library that enables authors to post their papers and abstracts easily and free of charge. The vast majority of papers can be downloaded free of charge as well. The only exceptions are papers whose copyright is held by third parties that request a download fee. SSRN provides a space for a variety of content types to be accessed beyond the traditional research article, including gray literature, book reviews, multimedia files, and datasets.

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction (over 14,000 discrete studies/surveys with more than 65,000 datasets). Since 1963, ICPSR has offered training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use.