PGS 290: Research Methods
You have been assigned to identify scholarly literature dealing with how juries reach a verdict and any important variables within that decision making process.
PsycINFO Options: Basic Keyword · Reviewing Results · Using the Thesaurus · Using Your Search History · Specifiying Limits
The PsycINFO Index
PsycINFO is the premier index/database for researching psychology. PsycINFO provides citations for published psychology research "and psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law." The database indexes 1,300 journals.
Beginning the Search Process: A Basic Keyword Search
| Search Type | Search Statement | # of Results |
| "Basic" tab: Keyword | jury decision making | 126 |
| "Basic" tab: Keyword (with AND) | jury and decision making | 362 |
| "Basic" tab: Keyword (with AND, truncation) | jur? and decision making | 368 |
Reviewing the Search Results
- PsycINFO will return all records that contain at least one occurence of your keywords (jury, decision, making)
- The results will be displayed in reverse chronological order, meaning that the most recently published items will appear first.
- Review the results - paying particular attention to the title and abstract fields.
- When you identify a record that seems "on-target," pay particular attention to the DE (descriptor) field.
- The descriptor field lists the terminology used by PsycINFO to represent the result's main subject matter.
- Descriptors are the key to constructing effective and efficient search strategies in library journal indexes/databases.
| Concept 1 Descriptors: | Concept 2 Descriptors: |
| Juries | Decision-Making |
| Adjudication | |
| Group Decision Making | |
| Judgment |
Using the "Thesaurus" Tab
After selecting the "Thesaurus" tab, you type in the word juries.
- Juries is listed in the thesaurus browsing results which confirms that the word juries is a descriptor in this database.
- The thesaurus information for juries includes when the database added the term as a descriptor (1985), and provides a brief definition: Bodies of persons sworn to give a verdict in a court of law. Also used for mock and simulated juries.
- When you click on the juries hyperlink, the database informs you that related terms are adjudication, jury selection and legal personnel.
- We can instruct PsycINFO to return all records dealing with JURIES by checkmarking the box to the left of the word juries and pressing the "Search Marked" button.
We have identified the preferred terminology for our first search concept and now will do the same for the second concept - decision making.
- We use the "thesaurs" tab and search for the phrase decision making
- Decision making is listed by the thesaurus and we are presented with a definition - Cognitive process involving evaluation of the incentives, goals, and outcomes of alternative actions. and a list of narrower, broader and related terms.
| Descriptor: JURIES | Descriptor: DECISION-MAKING |
| 1091 | 16,391 |
Using the "Search History" Tab
The "Search History" tab keeps track of all the various search statements we have tried during our PsycINFO search session.
You can use the "Search History" tab to direct the database to combine any of your previously executed searches. For example, we can direct PsycINFO to combine our different search concepts - JURIES and DECISION-MAKING. By using the AND search connector, we can require that PsycINFO only return those records that list both Juries and Decision Making in their descriptor (subject) field.
| Juries (1,091 records) AND Decision Making (16,391 records) | 224 results |
Using "Limits" to Specify What Sort of Information You Want
As the PsycINFO "Database Guide" states, "PsycINFO (R) contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports, as well as citations to dissertations..." It also includes information sources written in approximately 25 languages.
- In the upper-right corner of the WebSPIRS search interface, we note the statement "No search limits set."
- We can use the limit option to eliminate some of our 224 results; we can inform PsycINFO that we only want results that meet additional criteria.
- For example, we can limit our results by Language [English] and Document Type [Journal or perhaps Peer-Reviewed Journal(s)]
| Limited by Language (English) | Limited by Language (English) and Document Type (Peer-Reviewed Journal) |
| 212 results | 133 results |