What is Empirical Research?
- Empirical studies are those based on actual and objective observation or experimentation.
- Articles that describe empirical research studies are published in scholarly or academic journals.
- Many scholarly or academic journals are peer-reviewed or refereed, meaning that a panel of experts in the field selects and reviews the articles published in the journal. These articles are often, but not always, empirical studies.
- Empirical studies articles comprise the following parts (wording may vary):
- abstract
- introduction (and review of the literature)
- method
- results
- discussion (and/or Conclusion)
- references
(Thanks to the McIntyre Library Staff at University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire- created by: Jill Markgraf)
Where to Look
This is just a sampling of the many databases containing empirical studies.
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ERIC (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowERIC, the Educational Resource Information Center, contains more than a million records, some of which are available in full-text.
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Education Source This link opens in a new windowEducation Source provides full-text access to hundreds of journals, conference papers, which cover all topics related to education.
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PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowThe most complete listing of scholarly publications in psychology and related fields. Provides references to and summaries of scholarly journal articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations.
Finding Empirical Research Articles
Most databases will let you limit your search to articles that are:
- scholarly
- academic
- peer-reviewed
- refereed
Many, but not all, of these will be empirical studies.
To further focus your search, try adding one of the following terms to your search (try different combinations):
- study
- methodology (or method)
- empirical
- research
- findings
- results
- participants
- qualitative or quantitative
In addition, in the database ERIC you can limit "publication type" to Reports - Research to retrieve empirical studies.
(Thanks to the McIntyre Library Staff at University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire- created by: Jill Markgraf)
