Advanced Research Tutorial for Education
Concepts covered:
BOOKS
The education literature is equally distributed between books and journal
articles, and you will find that you will use both sources when researching your
essay topics. The Library has a large and growing number of excellent
books and videos on education topics, selected by your instructors and the
education librarian. Remember that good books will have bibliographies in
them which may direct you to other relevant material on your topic.
REFERENCE COLLECTION - The Library's reference collection contains hundreds of specialized
encyclopedias and handbooks on every discipline. Use these for background
reading on your topic, to help you choose keywords, and for assistance in
narrowing or broadening your topic. You will find the following reference
materials especially helpful:
The International Encyclopedia of Education, 12 volumes
Edited by T. Husen and T.N. Postlethwaite
REF LB 15 I569 1997 Nanaimo
Philosophy of Education
Edited by J.J. Chambliss
REF LB 17 P485 1996 Nanaimo
Dictionary of Multicultural Education
Edited by C. Grant and G. Ladson-Billings
REF LC 1099 D53 1997 Nanaimo
Encyclopedia of Special Education, 3 volumes
Edited by C.R. Reynolds and E. Fletcher-Janzen
REF LC 4007 E53 2000 Nanaimo
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OTHER CATALOGUES - If the Library does not own enough books on your topic, you might try broadening
your topic, with the help of the Library of Congress Subject Headings, in the
hope of finding books that may have relevant chapters on your topic.
These volumes are located behind the Information Desk in Nanaimo, and close to the online catalogue computers in the
Powell River and Cowichan Libraries. You might also search for your topic in the online catalogues at
the University of Victoria or the University of British Columbia, etc.
These are accessible from the "Other library catalogues" button from Malaspina
Library's online catalogue. The Library will borrow materials from other
libraries on your behalf using interlibrary loan
services. Return to top.
SUBJECT WEBLINKS
The more scholarly websites on many educational topics have been compiled by the
Education librarian, and can be accessed via hotlinks from any search on the
online catalogue. You will also find a listing of relevant education
websites from the Weblinks/Subject Weblinks buttons on the online catalogue under the
Education category. Your instructors have also compiled a listing of
On-Line
Resources, available from the Education
Department homepage.
A listing of Internet
search engines is available from the online catalogue by clicking Weblinks from
the Malaspina toolbar, then choose General Weblinks, and then click on the
choices under the Search/Meta Search Engines subcategory. Use one or more of these
to help you search the
web for additional education websites.
For additional information on searching the Internet, see the research tutorial Introduction
to Internet Search Engines.
If you feel that the Library should consider adding a website to its catalogue
or a book title to its collection, please suggest this to the reference
librarian on duty. Your suggestion will be passed to the librarian
responsible for that area for consideration. Return
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JOURNALS
To obtain maximum value from this research tutorial, you should firstly have read and
understood the concepts covered in the Introduction to
Journals and Article Indexes research tutorial.
In the Introduction to Journals and Article Indexes
research tutorial, you learned some
basics on journals and how to use a general journal index. A general
journal index, such as CBCA Complete, Academic Search Elite, and others,
provides index coverage for all subjects, although the number of journals
devoted to any one discipline covered by that general journal index may be quite
small. This research tutorial will focus on specific journal indexes of importance to
education.
Journal indexes that cover a single discipline do so as comprehensively as
possible. Usually they index more than just journal articles, and may
include speeches, chapters in books, books, theses, conference proceedings,
etc. The Library has several journal indexes for education topics.
ASK FOR ASSISTANCE WHEN
SEARCHING FOR JOURNAL ARTICLES
When you need to find journal articles on any topic, begin by asking the
reference librarian for help. The librarian will ask you some questions
about your topic so that he/she can identify the correct journal index to use
for that topic. The Library has access to several dozen journal indexes,
on a variety of topics and for several geographical areas, including
international coverage for certain disciplines. They come in a variety of
formats, just like the journals - in paper format, on microform, on CD-ROM from
one of two CD-ROM stations in the Nanaimo Library, and online from the Internet, etc. Once you know how
to use and decipher one journal index, you can usually handle another with only
minimal instruction. They all pretty much operate the same way. Return
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ACCESSING THE EDUCATION INDEXES
To get to the web-based article indexes from the Library's
homepage, click on Search
for Resources, and then Full Service MARLIN (Login). Log
in to Marlin using your student/faculty ID and Library PIN. Click on the button
called Articles and Databases from the blue banner. Choose the category EDUCATION.
WebCat
® Online Public Access Catalog © Sirsi Corporation
You will then see the available journal indexes for education.
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SELECT AN ERIC PLATFORM
Currently, Malaspina is licensed to provide access to three versions of the article index ERIC. The
first ERIC on the list accesses the ERIC Clearinghouse version.
The second is the OCLC version of the database.
The OCLC version scans over 2,000 titles, and except for the ERIC
Digests, it does not provide full text.
The third ERIC (includes CIJE - Cumulative Index to Journals in Education) accesses the EBSCOhost version.
This version provides indexing for approximately 900 journals. It provides
full text for the ERIC digests as well as full text for some of the
journals it indexes. You may want to sample all versions of ERIC to see which one you like
better.
This current tutorial will describe the EBSCOhost version of ERIC.
USING ERIC on the EBSCOhost PLATFORM
The EBSCOhost version of ERIC scans more than 900
international education journals, books and documents from 1966 to the
present. This index provides citations and abstracts to relevant
articles. In addition, it sometimes provides full text for some citations.
When
you click on the EBSCOhost version of ERIC, you will arrive at the Basic
Search command screen.
We wish to thank EBSCOhost and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Educational Research and
Improvement for their respective permissions to use screen captures from
the ERIC
database throughout this tutorial.
CHOOSING YOUR KEYWORDS
The topic you will use by way of example in ERIC will be "the
effects children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have on
classroom
disruption." The two key concepts here are:
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD
classroom disruption
ESTABLISHING SUBJECT HEADINGS
The first thing you need to do is verify the subject heading used
in ERIC for each of these concepts.
In many of the other article indexes, you are encouraged to search using your
keywords, scan the results, and perhaps redo your search using some subject
terms you located.
While this is fairly efficient in other journal indexes, it is inefficient in ERIC.
ERIC uses a structured vocabulary to index all aspects of
education. It is recommended that you search this index using the same
structured vocabulary that the index itself uses. This structured
vocabulary or thesaurus is accessed by using the Thesaurus button from
the EBSCOhost toolbar.
Type in "attention deficit" into the Browse for search line and
click on the gray Browse button.
The database responds with several subject headings that begin with
Attention, the first one of which is Attention Deficit Disorders. We now
know the subject heading for this concept. When we click on this concept,
we are provided with an overview of this topic, listing the broader and related
terms. You may want to
perform searches on one or more of these broader and related subject headings.
Let's also verify the classroom disruption concept by typing in
"classroom" as a Thesaurus search, and scanning through the subject
terms with the word "classroom" in them:
It looks like "Classroom Environment" may be the second subject
term we will want to use in our search. Return
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SEARCHING SUBJECT HEADINGS
Click on the Advanced Search tab
from the EBSCOhost toolbar to begin our new search. This search screen
permits us to specify subject searches for both of our concepts.
Type in the first line
the subject "attention deficit disorders" and change the search type from
Select a Field (optional) to SU Descriptors since we have already ascertained that this
the correct subject heading for this concept. You do this by clicking on
the little grey down arrow and selecting from the menu that will be
displayed. Likewise enter "classroom
environment" as an SU Descriptor in the second search line. To begin
the search, click on the grey Search button.
The index responds that there are 44 citations (at this writing) that have
these two concepts as subjects or descriptors, partially displayed below:
Notice the listing of subject headings in the left-hand frame. These
may help you narrow your topic. In addition, you can always see what
subject headings have been assigned to any article by clicking on the article
title. When we click on the article for the first citation, we get this
screen:
A good tip is to scan the subject headings assigned to any good article on your
topic. They may give you ideas for additional searches, or help you narrow
or broaden your topic.
In the list of 44 citations shown above, you will notice a folder icon to the right of each citation.
You can click on this icon to mark that record for further consideration.
When you do, the folder icon changes and the word Added appears in red
indicating that this citation has been added to the folder.
We will be looking at several of the 44 citations to illustrate the different
ways you can obtain the articles you need, namely, citations 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7. When you click on the words
"Folder has items," we see these citations neatly gathered onto one screen for further study.
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OBTAINING THE ARTICLES AND DOCUMENTS
CITED
(a) Article Not Available at Malaspina:
It turns out that when we click on the hyperlink Where can I get this item?
for Citation 1 (Responding to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking
Situations in Classrooms...) in our folder list, we learn that there are no holdings for this
article at Malaspina:
If you have at least two
weeks to wait for this article to arrive on interlibrary loan, then you
can initiate this ILL request by clicking on the hyperlinked words "Check
other library catalogues or request an Interlibrary Loan" and then clicking
on the words "Place an Interlibrary Loan Request" on the subsequent
screen. Lastly, you would
complete the online ILL request form.
Once you have filled out this online form, and clicked on the Send Request
button, and then clicked on the Accept button from the subsequent screen, Malaspina
library staff will ask another library in Canada to photocopy the pages you need and
to send the article to the campus you indicated in the ILL form.
Interlibrary loans can take from one to three weeks to arrive, so do
your library research as early as you can in the semester in order to take
advantage of all the resources available on your topic - even those that may
have to come from other libraries in Canada.
There are limits to the number of interlibrary loan requests you may make in an
academic year. First- and second-year students are permitted 20 ILL
requests per year; third- and fourth-year students are permitted 40 such
requests. Faculty and staff are permitted 50 ILL requests from July 1-June
30. With this in mind, you may want to explore those articles available
online or in the Malaspina collections before requesting interlibrary loans.
To learn more about interlibrary loan requests, click
here, or view the animated tutorial "How
to Request a Journal Article on Interlibrary Loan." Return
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(b) ERIC Documents:
Citation 2 in our folder list (15 Strategies for Managing Attention Problems) is
an ERIC document, denoted by the ED in the ERIC number. ERIC documents
comprise manuscripts, essays and reports written by experts in the educational
field that have been deposited at the ERIC organization for dissemination via
ERIC document services. You can access this online by clicking on the Full
text from ERIC icon.
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c) Article Linked Full Text to Another Database:
Citation 3 in the folder, entitled "Arranging the Classroom with an Eye
(and Ear) to Students with ADHD," has the icon PDF Full Text.
When you click on this icon, the database will take you into
another index (to which Malaspina subscribes) called Academic Search Elite
where the full text in PDF format will be found, partially displayed below.
A PDF file is a photoreproduction of the article as it actually appears in the
printed journal. Since Adobe Acrobat software is utilized in displaying
PDF files, you will need to remember to use the save, printer and email icons on the
Adobe toolbar when you want one of these functions. Do not use the
browser's File menu for these functions. Return
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(d) ERIC Digests:
Citation 4 from our folder list is an ERIC digest. When you click on the Full Text from ERIC icon for this citation, the document
will be displayed in PDF format. You may want to email, print or save it
by using the appropriate icons from the Adobe toolbar.
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(e) Article Available at Malaspina:
Clicking on the hyperlinked Where can I get this item? for Citation 5 from the folder, being
"Evaluating Assessment-based Intervention Strategies..." results in
the following screen being displayed:
It seems that there are holdings for this journal in the periodicals collection
at the Nanaimo Campus Library, from volume 7, issue 3, 1982 to November 2003,
at call number BF 721 B45 D58. If you are on the Nanaimo Campus, you would head to that Library
and photocopy the article yourself.
If you are not a Nanaimo Campus student, your
access to this article will be via the intercampus loan services. You would
fill in the normal "Check other library catalogues or request an Interlibrary
Loan" request, but make sure you note on
the request that you want the item sent to your regional campus library for pick
up there. Once this online form has been sent, Malaspina Library staff will
photocopy the pages you need and place the article for pick up at the campus you
specified in your request. There are no limits to the number of intercampus
loans you can request.
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Of course, you would continue browsing through all or most of the 44 citations
in our original search, ten at a time, gathering those which are held by Malaspina, requesting others on interlibrary
loan, and printing out the odd Digest, document or journal article available
full text from the database. Along the way, you will have
written down additional subject headings to search, in order to locate other relevant references. Return
to top.
PRINT, E-MAIL, SAVE and RefWorks
Any citation or several citations at a time may be marked for printing, emailing
or saving to diskette by clicking on the Add folder to the right of the needed
citation. Then click on the "Folder has items" icon, and use the appropriate
print, email, or save icon from the top of the ERIC
screen. You may also export your citations to RefWorks by using the Export
icon. Click
here to learn more about the
RefWorks citation
management software.
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TRUNCATION AND WILDCARD SYMBOLS
The truncation symbol, an asterisk (*) in this database, can substitute for any string of characters. For
example, a search for cat* would retrieve catatonic, category, etc. ERIC
also has a wildcard symbol (?). This can be used to substitute for one
character within a word, as in m?cdonald. This will retrieve both mcdonald
and macdonald.
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LIMITING SEARCH TO FULL TEXT ONLY
Sometimes you will want to limit your searches to only those articles that can
be found full text online, rather than scan through a long list of citations for
which no online full text is available. Below the search command line are
some limiter boxes for checking, including the Full Text limiter, which has been
ticked:
Once we click Search, the index tells us that there are only 24 articles and
documents that are available full text online from the original search of 44
records. While the full text limiter can be useful in a pinch, remember
that you will lose all the citations for which Malaspina holds print copies of
the journals.
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SEARCHING FOR SPECIFIC JOURNALS
Sometimes you may want to search for articles from a specific journal title without sifting through a lot
of other journals' citations. An advanced feature in the EBSCOhost ERIC
permits you to do just that.
Let's assume that you want an article on residential schools that has been
published in the American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research journal.
In Advance Search mode, type
"residential schools" as a Select a Field (optional) search in the first search
command line. You can restrict all citations to a specific journal by typing in
the journal's name in the second search line and clicking on the SO Journal Title
choice from the pull-down menu.
Once you click on the Search button, the database displays the one citation it
found on this topic that has been published in that journal. Return
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USING CBCA EDUCATION
While ERIC is an excellent journal index for educational topics, it is not the
only index you might consider. In fact, it is rare that you would use only
one journal index to find articles on a topic. The reference librarians
will help you by suggesting other indexes which would be useful to you so that
all aspects of your topic will be covered.
CBCA Education indexes over 150 Canadian education periodicals from 1976 to
the present date. It does not have an online thesaurus. You can experiment with
your keywords as a Words Anywhere search until you verify the correct subject
headings to use. In the case of our example search, this database uses the
same subject headings of "attention deficit disorders" and
"classroom environment." Return
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USING PSYCINFO
Lastly, PsycINFO (the online version of Psychological Abstracts) will be very useful for many
educational topics. See the Advanced Research
Skills for Psychology research tutorial for a full description on how to use this
index. Return
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USING GENERAL JOURNAL INDEXES
Don't forget about the general journal indexes, CBCA Complete, Academic Search
Elite, and Ingenta. Current articles on educational topics will be
available from each of the general indexes, many in full text. See the
description of general indexes in the Introduction to
Journals and Article Indexes research tutorial. Return
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HELP
Like all good electronic journal indexes, the Education indexes provide online Help, which can be
accessed at any time. Don't forget that the reference
librarian is also available to assist you in person when you visit the Library,
and by phone (250) 740-6151, Monday-Thursday 9:00am-6:00pm, and Friday
9:00am-5:00pm. In addition, you
can email your question to the reference librarians by using the Ask a Librarian!
button available from most MARLIN catalogue screens, or by emailing
reference@mala.bc.ca, and through the
instant chat service called AskAway at
http://www.askaway.org. Return
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SOME ARTICLES ARE NOT INDEXED
Not all journals are indexed, and sometimes an article you want has been so
recently published that the indexing companies have not had a chance to enter
the data into their indexes. For these times, you will need to browse
through recent issues of the journal looking for the article you need.
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HOW MUCH RESEARCH IS ENOUGH?
Be sure to discuss with your instructor how many references he or she is
expecting for the essay. In the absence of a specific number of references
from your instructor, you can use this rule of thumb: use one good
reference for each double-spaced typed page of essay. This is only a
guideline. You also need to be sure that you are informed enough on your
topic that you can discuss all of its major aspects. Return
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