Psychology Journals and research: Original, Theoretical or Meta-analysis

Original research is considered a primary source.

An article is considered original research if...

• it is the report of a study written by the researchers who actually did the study.
• the researchers describe their hypothesis or research question and the purpose of the study.
• the researchers detail their research methods.
• the results of the research are reported.
• the researchers interpret their results and discuss possible implications.

Theoretical research is explanatory, and leads to the advancement of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake. This type of research attempts to gather knowledge about a phenomenon or idea whose conclusions may not have any immediate real-world application. It is sometimes referred to as "basic research."

There is no one way to easily tell if an article is a research article like there is for peer-reviewed articles in the Ulrich's database. The only way to be sure is to read the article to verify that it is written by the researchers and that they have explained all of their findings, in addition to listing their methodologies, results, and any conclusions based on the evidence collected. 

All that being said, there are a few key indicators that will help you to quickly decide whether or not your article is based on original research. 

• View the PDF version so you can plainly see the major subdivisions that should be present in a research article:
  • Literature Review or Background
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Conclusions
  • Discussion
• Read through the abstract (summary) before you attempt to find the full-text PDF. The abstract of the article usually contains those subdivision headings where each of the key sections are summarized individually. 
• Use the checkbox with CINAHL's advanced search to only see articles that have been tagged as research articles.   

Examples of Theoretical research in psychology might include:

• An investigation looking at whether stress levels influence how often students engage in academic cheating
• A study looking at how caffeine consumption impacts the brain
• A study assessing whether men or women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression
• A study looking at how attachment styles among children of divorced parents compare to those raised by married parents

Notice in all of these examples, the goal of the research is merely to increase the amount of knowledge on a topic, not to come up with a practical solution to a problem.

Meta Analysis refers to a research strategy where instead of conducting new research with participants, the researchers examine the results of several previous studies. This is done with the purpose of gaining greater confidence in the results because of the larger pool of participants, as long as steps are taken to avoid errors that may have existed in the original studies.

Opposing theories and disparate findings populate the field of psychology; scientists must interpret the results of any single study in the context of its limitations. A researcher might study the studies by assimilating data across studies identified through a literature review. Meta-analysis has many strengths. First, meta-analysis provides an organized approach for handling a large number of studies. Second, the process is systematic and documented in great detail, which allows readers to evaluate the researchers’ decisions and conclusions. Third, meta-analysis allows researchers to examine an effect within a collection of studies in a more sophisticated manner than a qualitative summary.