Author Question: How can you reduce the number of irrelevant citations in a PsycINFO search? What will be an ideal ... (Read 74 times)

jasdeep_brar · **on:** Jul 13, 2018

How can you reduce the number of irrelevant citations in a PsycINFO search?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Why do open-ended questions provide more information to survey researchers than closed-ended questions? What drawbacks are associated with open-ended questions?

What will be an ideal response?

SAUXC · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 13, 2018

Answer to Question 1

a. search by Subject rather than simply by a word
b. set limits (e.g., by year, publication type, population, type of publication, etc.) in the search
c. use the PsycINFO thesaurus to identify narrow terms

Answer to Question 2

Open-ended questions allows a respondent to provide the best answer to a question, whereas closed-ended questions force the respondent to choose from a selected set. The open-ended questions may lead to answers that the researcher doesn't anticipate, which could be positive, leading to more valid answers; such answers could be problematic, though, because they are hard to code and summarize when respondents take very different paths to their answers.