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Psychology

This guide is to help students and faculty access credible resources related to the study of Psychology.

Science in the Media

The resources here are meant to support PSY 1010 students who are working on projects where they find a media source that describes a research study and compare the media source to the actual research study.

Samples: Finding research articles from media sources

Sample One: Covid changes the brain

  1.    Visited The New York Times website (Health Section)
  2.  . Scrolled the page until I saw something of interest
  3.  . Found the article, “Covid may cause changes in the brain, a new study finds”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/health/covid-may-cause-changes-in-the-brain-a-new-study-finds.html
  4.  . Hit a paywall! Looked it up in ProQuest Newsservice: https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/covid-may-cause-changes-brain-new-study-finds/docview/2637002470/se-2?accountid=28671
  5.  . Skimmed the article- it looked interesting and included information about the original study
  6. .  Collected facts about original study:

"The study, published Monday in the journal Nature…”  “The study’s lead author, Gwenaëlle Douaud, a professor in the department of clinical neurosciences at the University of Oxford…”

7. Found the Nature website

8. Searched for the author’s name

9. Found the research article: SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank

10. It’s not behind a paywall! (It is a pre-print and should be cited as such.) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5

11. Time to read both more thoroughly and decide how well the news article represented the actual study for the ePortfolio assignment!

Sample Two: Social media and stress

 1. Searched the internet using Google for social anxiety
 3. Located the research study information (very easy on this one!):
 Charmaraman L, Lynch AD, Richer AM, Zhai E. Examining early adolescent positive and negative social technology behaviors and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technol Mind Behav. 2022:3(1). doi:10.1037/tmb0000062
 4. Clicked on the link, and this article is available for free online!

Sample Three: Bacon causing cancer

 1. Someone on social media shared the article “Bacon Gives Kids Cancer” from the UK Mirror
 2. The article is very short and doesn’t give a lot of information about the research study it is summarizing
 3. This would be a great time to ask a librarian for help!
 (Jamie would search the internet for something like taiwan research article bacon cancer then use other articles to track this one down if possible)

A Recent Study Found... (Activity)

What to consider of the news source:

  • Author credentials/affiliations
  • Linking to original research article
  • Summary of research
  • Interview with researcher
  • Interview or inclusion of other experts/researchers in the same field

What to consider of the research article:

  • Author credentials/affiliations
  • Research funding
  • Participants (sample size, etc.)
  • Methodology (existing or new? Repeatable?)
  • Limitations

Compare the two sources:

  • How accurately did the news source reflect the research study?