Psychology Journals

Psychology journals (also known as periodicals or serials) report on new research or new developments in the field of psychology and are published regularly (monthly, bimonthly, quarterly). Some titles cover broad subject areas; others cover very specific subdivisions. Each issue contains a number of articles or papers.

These professional journals can be located at one or more of the M. M. Bennett Libraries. Not every title is at every library.

Adolescence
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
American Psychologist
Child Development
Childhood Education
Developmental Psychology
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
Journal of Applied Psychology
Journal of Counseling Psychology
Journal of Creative Behavior
Journal of General Psychology
Journal of Learning Disabilities
Journal of Psychology
Omega: Journal of Death and Dying
Psychological Review
Young Children

Electronic databases with full text also provide access to some psychology journals:

ACADEMIC SEARCH PREMIER searches over 1,250 journals (including several psychology titles) covering a variety of subjects. This index searches by KEYWORD.

Search Strategy

  1. Go to the library's homepage, www.spcollege.edu/central/libonline

  2. Click on Academic Search (Under Top Links)

  3. Log-in using the user name and password (both must be in lower case letters). The password changes each semester.  Get the password at the Reference Desk or via "AskALibrarian".

  4. Click on "Link to All EBSCO Databases" (the vendor for Academic Search)

  5. Now Click on ACADEMIC SEARCH Premier

    6.

  6. Scroll down to Search Options

  7. Check Peer Reviewed (if you search from Basic Search Screen). You can also check Full-Text, but you will miss out on journals that we carry in print here in the library like Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Child Development).

  8. Type in your keyword term

  9. If you want to limit your search to any of the journals listed above, type the exact name of the journal you would like to search in the box next to "Magazine".

  10. Click to SEARCH

Evaluating your results or hit list
 

  1. Look at the titles of the articles that you retrieve and look for one that sounds promising.
     

  2. Note if it is full-text. If it is, you have the entire article to read and decide if it is useful. If the article is not full-text, read the abstract and decide if the article is useful. Then check the list of psychology journals above to see if it is readily available to photocopy.
     

  3. Read your article noticing if there is an abstract, method, data given, charts, results, and a conclusion. Another thing to note is the length of the article.
     

  4. True research articles are usually 4 pages and longer.
     

  5. Also, look for a bibliography of references that the author used to consult when writing the research paper.