PSYC 226: Research Methods in Psychology

This short video discusses what it means for an article to be a peer reviewed empirical research study and gives tips for how you can identify these types of articles.

Empirical research articles (or empirical studies) report the results of original research.  Empirical study articles are usually broken down into categories similar to those listed below, although the exact wording of sections will vary:

• Abstract:  the abstract provides a concise summary of the article.            

• Introduction: this section introduces the study and often provides background information or context for the study.

• Literature Review: reviews other studies that are relevant (sometimes part of the introduction section instead of a separate section)

• Methods or Methodology:  this section explains how the authors conducted their study.

• Results:  this section details the results of the study, and may include data presented in charts or graphs.

• Discussion: this section will provide the authors' interpretation of their study as well as its implications.

• References: this section provides citations to all of the sources cited in the article.

To limit your results to empirical studies in PsycINFO, select EMPIRICAL STUDY from the Methodology limiter box in the Advanced Search menu.