EXSC 3147: Sport Psychology (Fall 2024)

Empirical sources are articles which describe observations from an original research study (an experiment). Articles describing empirical research will include the following distinct sections: introduction (including a literature review), methodology, results (often including data), discussion, conclusion, and an extensive list of references.

Empirical sources are often published in peer-reviewed journals, but not everything published in a peer-review journal is an empirical source! Other types of sources that could be published by peer-reviewed journals but are NOT empirical sources include, review articles, book reviews, or letters to the editors, etc (USU Library, 2024). 

For further explanation of what is empirical research, see the following LibGuide and video by Utah State University Libraries which explains What is Empirical Research, shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License by Utah State University Libraries. 

For your upcoming assignment you will need to find empirical sources. To find empirical sources, you could:

• Use the source filters in specific databases. For example, PubMed allows for you to narrow by article type, including clinical trial or randomized control trial, while PsycINFO allows for you to filter by methodology for empirical sources. 
• Add search terms such as trial, analysis, data analysis, experiment, findings, or statistical analysis to your search string.
• Evaluate articles for the key characteristics and sections of an empirical article (as are outlined above).