PsychINFO Tutorial

PsycINFO is the electronic version of Psychological Abstracts, an index which is published by the American Psychological Association. This index is the primary tool for students and professionals in the field of psychology or counseling. Unique in its depth of coverage, PsycINFO contains more than two million citations and summaries from a wide variety of sources in psychology and related disciplines. The index covers publications in psychology dating back to 1887, including nearly two thousand peer-reviewed journals.

PsycARTICLES provides more than 40,000 searchable full-text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles from 56 psychology journals. Forty-five of the journals are published by the American Psychological Association; eleven are published by allied organizations. Coverage spans from 1985 to the present.

When you access PsycINFO or PsycARTICLES in EBSCOhost, the interface is similar to other EBSCO databases that you may already be acquainted with. However, there are unique features in PsycINFO that are helpful in searching. This tutorial will guide you in using the options that are available to you. When you first enter the database, you will see the Basic Search screen as illustrated below. We will perform a Basic Search first. Later we will look at additional features that are available in Advanced Search.

To have an efficient, focused search, we will apply the information explained in the Research Strategy section, including:

We will also practice using the unique features of the database that can help you to search successfully.

Although PsycINFO is not a full-text database, EBSCO provides access to the text of some articles. If PsycArticles is searched simultaneously with PsycINFO, more full text is available. These items are identified by the following icon and link located at the end of the citation or abstract:

Linked Full Text

Note: For this tutorial, we will be searching only PsycINFO so that we can access the unique features that are part of the database. In the future, when you search, you may choose to search PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES simultaneously. However, you will not be able to access the thesaurus or the indexes.

Where else can I go for information in psychology?

If your research topic is related to more than one discipline, such as criminal psychology or business psychology, consult the appropriate discipline-specific databases, in addition to PsycINFO. You might also search comprehensive databases such as Academic Search Premier and Ingenta. Many of the searching techniques used in this section will apply to other databases as well. To see descriptions of all of the databases that are available through King's College Library, click here.

When you are using a new database, be sure to look for the Help or Search Tips link to learn how to use the various options, such as different ways of searching, truncating, using Boolean operators, limiting, expanding, and saving searches.

Now we are ready to learn about how to use PsycINFO. Please click on "Performing a Basic Search" below.

Introduction