PSY-5101 V4: Foundations for Graduate Study in Psychology (4846699035)

Skills Builder 4.1: Understanding Information Literacy

Review the Northcentral Information Literacy Tutorial, located under your weekly resources, to become familiar with information literacy, and to test your information literacy skills. Keep notes on the important points you discover there; these will be useful both in preparing assignments in this course, and in your other coursework at Northcentral.

Skills Builder 4.2: Effective Searching

In this activity, you will begin to develop your online library search skills that will enable you to tap into the rich resources in the Northcentral Library. The Library’s collection includes extensive holdings in scholarly articles and book chapters–all the information you will need to do your coursework and research. While it may take some practice to get used to conducting online library searches, you will find that the results you get far surpass anything you could get from just searching the internet. Library resources tend to be more authoritative, current, reliable, and accurate than resources gleaned from an Internet search. With Library searches, you can set your search options to find full text articles (not just abstracts or summaries), limit your search to a certain timeframe, and with some databases you have the option of setting up a personal account where you may permanently save resources and searches for future sessions. You can also create an online database using RefWorks to store your research materials. For more information on RefWorks, view the Student Orientation page in the Library.

Therefore, carefully complete the tutorials, follow the directions for searching, and think positive thoughts! Start with the Northcentral Search like an Expert tutorial to learn out how to get started with Library searching.

Skills Builder 4.3: Selecting a Topic

It is time to determine the topic related to the profession of psychology that you might want to pursue for this assignment. You can find some ideas for topics here:

• American Psychological Association
• NCU Library – Psychology database resources

Additionally, you may want to view the library tutorials on finding a research topic and preparing to search.

Note: You will use the sources here for the Signature Assignment. So, please select a topic in which you are interested; or one that relates to why you chose to pursue your degree; or one that relates to your professional “passion.”

Some example topics include eyewitness testimony, competency evaluation, psychopathy, risk assessment, treatment in correctional facilities, or the development of juvenile delinquency.

Assignment

For this assignment, you will perform a search for resources published within the last 3-5 years (if available) in your chosen topic area of interest related to psychology. Be sure to start at the databases or Find an Article page in the Library for the scholarly articles and the Find a Book page for a book. Locate three peer-reviewed journal articles, one book, and one scholarly resource (website or other resource). Begin by creating a table (a general example has been provided below), and then list the resources you find. You can use a Word table, and then include it with the write-up described below so that you will submit one document to complete this assignment.

The columns of the chart are as follows:

• Column 1: Generate an appropriate citation (APA form) for the resource (article, book, other) you discovered in the library.
• Column 2:  Provide the name of the database you used and briefly describe the subject content, resource types, etc.
• Column 3: List the keywords you used in your search.
• Column 4: List any search limiters such as full text, date, peer-reviewed, etc. that you used.
• Column 5: Provide a note about issues that arose and how you can improve your searching skills.
• Identify a researcher conducting research in your area and questions you would ask him or her about his/her research based on what you have read about his/her work. The primary author’s contact information is often at the bottom of the first page of an article. Researchers love to talk about their research and answer questions. You are not required to contact the researcher, but should prepare the questions as though you might.
• Identify and set up a tool for managing the resources you collect from our Library or other sources. This might be OneNote, RefWorks, or a database you develop for yourself in MS Access, MS Excel, or a similar took (i.e.; setting up folders in DropBox). Explain why you made your selection, and then briefly explain how you set it up and how you plan to use it in conjunction with your use of scholarly sources.
• Reach out with a question to the NCU Librarian. Explain your question and the answer you received and how that facilitated your use of the NCU Library. 

Length: 2-3 pages (the chart on one page and 1-2 pages for the conclusion)

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts that are presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.