Smith College Psychology Majors Research Skills

What Should Psychology Majors Know?

By the time they graduate all majors in Psychology should have a clear understanding of how to navigate the system of information resources available at Smith. At the very least they should graduate from Smith with the ability to recognize and evaluate high quality research. We want to provide majors with the skills to track down relevant information on any topic of interest to them. Ideally this should include (1) the ability to locate information from professional data bases that abstract knowledge in psychology (such as PSYCINFO), (2) the ability to evaluate the quality of this information, and (3) the ability to effectively use this information for answering questions that might pertain to their own life-long learning or their ability to initiate independent research.

Writing Intensive Classes

Students who have taken writing intensive classes should already have the learned the following skills:

• to define and articulate the need for information and identify a variety of
  types and formats of potential sources for information beyond the web search engine. [AT THE VERY LEAST – students will be able to identify and locate the two most appropriate types of information needed to complete their assignment.]
• to articulate and apply initial criteria for evaluating both the information and its sources. (AT THE VERY LEAST – students will be able to distinguish between popular and scholarly materials in a variety of formats such as books, periodical literature, and web sites.)
• to acknowledge and cite the sources used in conducting research for an assignment using an acceptable style guide. (AT THE VERY LEAST – students will be able to locate the appropriate style guide & emergency online help).
  These skills may be regarded by all students as a base for further study.

These skills may be regarded by all students as a base for further study. Help is available through the Neilson Library Reference Department's Ask a Librarian options.

Beginning Psychology Majors

First and second year psychology students would be introduced to basic information literacy skills.

• Beginning students will learn how information sources in psychology are intellectually accessed through standard psychological data bases (such as PSYCARTICLES and PSYCINFO), and including secondary data bases such as Education Abstracts);
• Beginning students will be taught how to evaluate the merits of the research they are citing as well as the credentials of the investigators;
• Beginning students need to understand that they belong to a specific discipline with many different types of professional organizations and identifiable bodies of literature;
• The importance of journals for advancing knowledge in psychology will be emphasized;
• The following journals cover a broad range of psychological research each year:

• The following represent important specialty journals for five research tracks in psychology:

Advanced Psychology Majors

• Advanced students should be able to apply their skills in an autonomous way to conduct a comprehensive literature search on a psychological topic of interest to them.
• Advanced students should be able to apply their skills in order to lay the groundwork for independent research with faculty guidance.

In Which Classes Should Students Learn These Skills?

The Psychology Department proposes to incorporate information literacy into Introduction to Psychology and into all of our laboratory courses.

In addition, as a scientific discipline, the psychology department works closely with students in conducting original empirical research. Students may work in faculty labs or, with faculty approval, initiate an independent research project. In both of these instances students are routinely asked to conduct literature searches in order to contribute to the research enterprise. Students who work with faculty on research often enroll in Psychology 400 (Special Studies) or Psychology 432d (Honors Thesis). In recent years approximately 70 psychology students a year work with faculty in their labs. Finally, many of our other introductory (200-level) courses require a review of some part of the psychology literature to complete written assignments (e.g., a scientific literature review on a topic relevant for each particular course).

Ethical Issues

Students must learn how to make clear distinctions between received knowledge and the production of new knowledge. The ethical use of information means that students must be able to acknowledge when they incorporate the work of others into their own work. Therefore, every written or oral production in the discipline must clearly state its sources. This ethical issue will be enforced in all psychology courses at Smith College.

June 10, 2006