Course resource help for Psychology

Databases can help you to trace journal articles and other publications (including book reviews, reports and conference proceedings) in your subject area. Most databases provide abstracts (summaries) and a few are full-text (they contain complete articles). Importantly, databases provide high quality academic information, which is necessary for your assignments and research.

PsycInfo and Web of Science are listed first as they are the key databases for this subject.  The others are listed alphabetically, and cover different aspects of psychology. 

PsycInfo

A broad based Psychology database, coverage includes abstracts of books, journal articles and dissertations. Covers material published since 1887 Contains more than 1.5 million references.

Web of Science

Contains the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and two Conference Proceedings Citation Indices. It provides bibliographic information and abstracts from a wide range of key journals for all aspects of Psychology.

Academic Search Complete

A full-text database providing full articles, with their accompanying indexing and abstracts, across a wide range of subjects.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

An online archive giving you access to thousands of recorded radio and TV programmes including films. It allows users to record programmes which will then be stored on the database. Log in when prompted with your Brookes username and password.

British Education Index

Covers mostly British and European Education journals, as well as some research reports and conference papers. Lots of the articles (not all) have the full text available. EBSCO.

Child Development & Adolescent Studies

A key database for Early Childhood including development, behaviour, psychiatry, psychology.

CINAHL

Nursing, health care. The CINAHL Database covers the following allied health fields: Athletic Training, Audiology, Cardiopulmonary Technology, Dental Hygiene, Emergency Services, Health Information Management, Medical Assisting, Medical/Laboratory Technology, Nutrition and Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Physician's Assistant, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Therapy, Social Service in Health Care, Speech-Language Pathology, Surgical Technology. Covers material published since 1982. In total, more than 1200 serial publications are regularly reviewed and indexed. Since 1986 abstracts have been included and are now available for 600 journal titles. Full text for selected items is available.

ERIC

American based education database sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC includes coverage of journal articles, conferences, and books, mostly but not exclusively about American education and from American journals.

Factiva

International news database providing archive of over 12,000 sources from 152 countries in 22 languages. Leading national newspapers, trade and professional journals, the BBC Monitoring Service (transcripts of world radio broadcasts) are all included.

Medline

A subset of PubMed and a very large international Medical database. Includes Clinical Psychology, as well as therapies.

PTSDpubs

An international database focused on post-traumatic stress, acute stress and other psychiatric disorders related to traumatic events.

PubMed

A very large international Medical, biomedical and Healthcare database which includes Clinical Psychology, as well as therapies.

Science Direct

Contains around 2500 full text journals published by Elsevier, mainly in science, technology and medicine. Full text coverage for most journals in the collection is available from 2002 to present.

Sociological Abstracts

Covers a broad range of subjects including sociology, political theory, social anthropology. Covers material published since 1952. Also includes cited references for all journal articles indexed on the database since 2002. ProQuest.

Sport Discus

Considered by some to be the leading database in the field of Sport, Coaching and Physical Education, SPORTDiscus contains information on sports medicine, exercise physiology, physical fitness, sports science, sports psychology, biomechanics, training, teaching, programming and coaching material.

All our journals are listed on LibrarySearch on the Library home page so you can search for a specific journal there (choose the Journal titles tab and then enter your journal title, eg cognitive neuropsychology). 

To look for journal articles on a topic, rather than from a specific journal, you should use a database: see the section above for more information about searching databases.

 

Find all our books and electronic books using LibrarySearch (the search box on the Library homepage). Search and then select Book from the Search tools menu on the left. You can further limit your search to eBook if you only want electronic books.

Video guide to using LibrarySearch to find books

Finding a book when you know the author/title - PDF

Finding a book on a topic - PDF

 

Psychological tests are not available through Oxford Brookes Library. However, some academic libraries do hold tests. Search Library Hub Discover for information on their collections. (Library Hub Discover is the catalogue of research libraries from U.K. Universities and national institutions such as the British Library). You will need to contact the institution in question to find out access rights and you may require your tutor/supervisor's permission. (It is recommended that you talk to your tutor about psychological tests to ensure that you use the most relevant one and they may also be able to advise you on their location.) 

Other Sources:

• The British Psychological Society has a Psychological Testing Centre.

• There is also information about Psychological testing on the American Psychological Association website

• Commercial Test Suppliers:

  • The Buros Institute of Mental Measurements is an independent, non-profit organisation based in the USA.

  • Ericae.net - information about educational testing

  • ETS includes tests primarily submitted from the USA, but includes tests from the UK, Canada and Australia

• Once you have chosen your source of information (journal article, book, webpage etc) - you need to critically evaluate it to ensure it is appropriate to use. The Library Guide on Critically Evaluating Resources (Word and PDF versions available).

Subject Gateways - websites that gather information on psychological topics together

• Psych Central provides links to a wide range of sites dealing with Psychology and Mental Health and associated areas.

• Social Psychology Network links to a large range of relevant sites, search by subject or document type.

Podcasts - collections of audio on Psychology topics

• American Psychological Association list of podcasts from 2012.

• British Psychological Society list of podcasts updated 2017.

• Player FM list of podcasts from 2017

Vodcasts - video collections on Psychology topics

• Oxford University talks on Psychology topics

• TED Talks - prove short video clips of research from specialists. There are TED Talks on Psychology, Body Language, Cognitive Science, Language, and Memory as well as many others.

• Dissertations - MMU hosts a list of the best Dissertations from UK Psychology courses https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/

• Past Exam papers - The Library has very few past exam papers available for psychology modules. Some psychology modules do not use an exam as part of the assessment process. The psychology modules that do include an exam often use multiple choice questions as part of the exam paper and these are prohibited from publication. The psychology department usually has practice exam questions (often with answers) available for you to use. You can find these practice exam questions on the Psychology Resource webpages or Moodle for the respective modules.
• Additionally, you may find past exam papers on RADAR - the University Research Repository - within the Learning and Teaching Collection https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/hierarchy.do?topic=583dcf71-514e-4e5a-9b8f-a151cc481406&page=1