Searching the research literature

Outline Developing a comprehensive search Developing a comprehensive search filter Internal validation of the search filter by using the Boolean Subtraction Procedure Developing precision into the search External validation of a search filter Choosing databases to search Other uses of a Pearl Harvested search filter The Pearl Harvesting Search Thesaurus

Database search terms, filters and fields A search term (also called a keyword) is a set of characters (i.e., a word or phrase) which represents a topic and therefore can be used to retrieve citations on that topic A search filter is a set of search terms, all of which refer to the same topic, that is entered into a search box or search field There is usually a number of search terms which all represent the same topic. The database search engine looks for any occurrence of the letters that are in the terms of the filter.

Indexed fields Articles are coded by subject heading, author, abstract, title, date, journal title, etc. Subject headings are terms that are predefined as ones that are capable of retrieving citations on a topic These predefined terms are located in a database thesaurus

Increasing Comprehensiveness One important goal of searching the research literature is to find as many relevant citations as possible There are many purposes to being comprehensive, for example Systematic reviews Student theses Coursework or text development

Increasing Comprehensiveness One easy way to gather more citations is to use the truncation function * Any letters following a root word will be recognized by the search engine For example if you just enter the search term teacher, that is likely that the search engine will retrieve; no more no less It will miss citations with the plural teachers But if you enter teacher* it will retrieve both

Increasing Comprehensiveness There are usually many terms that can be used to represent the same topic Entering many unique and relevant topic related search terms will increase the number of topic related citations that are retrieved

Expanding the number of search terms Searching is an act of communication between the information seeker and the authors of articles in a field. Database indexers are also part of this conversation in that they provide subject headings to help people locate information

Expanding the number of search terms there are many terms to denote the same topic If the different terms used can be found then they can be harvested to be used in search filters. the largest collection of terms that provide unique and relevant citations comprise a search filter that is maximally comprehensive for a specific topic

How to Locate Search Terms Potentially relevant search terms can be found where there are conversations about the topic Therefore texts with conversations about the topic can be analyzed to potential terms Since it will be unmanageable to review all relevant texts, a purposive sampling of texts rich in the conversations can be used It is important to sample a wide variety of sources in order to identify the range of terms used to denote a topic

Possible sources of text rich in th use of language of the topic under investigation Relevant systematic reviews and meta-analyses (see the Pearl Harvesting Search Thesaurus for search filters on systematic reviews) the search terms used in the reviews are one source where potential terms might be found The language found in the title and abstract's of the original source references are another source to review

Possible sources of text rich in th use of language of the topic under investigation Edited text books Chapters in edited text books that relate to the use of terminology used to describe a topic can be reviewed The chapter itself and the references of the chapter are two sources of information

Possible sources of text rich in th use of language of the topic under investigation Crowd sourcing; a form of sampling Gather a group of individuals who are familiar with a topic Have individuals each enter keywords they know about the topic into a database No restrictions are place so that the sampling is down independently and therefore randomly Review relevant articles to locate potential search terms Gather the potential terms and develop one llist of potential search terms

Rendering the potential terms for searching Truncation ensures the variants of a term are accounted for Double quotations ensures precision

Double quotations Searching with phrases is prone to a problem of word adjacency E.g., special education -> special programs in higher education Easy solution is to use double parentheses “” “special education” and only words side by side will be retrieved Also helpful with names in Google, retrieves only exact spelling

Internal Validation of search terms How to determine which terms are essential to the search filter Boolean Subtraction Procedure

Boolean Subtraction Procedure The purpose of this procedure is to determine whether a search contributes to finding citations on a topic that no other search term will find If a search term fills this requirement it is deemed essential to the search filter

Boolean Subtraction Procedure Method: Potential search term A NOT (all other potential search terms, e.g. B OR C OR D OR etc) Review the results See if any citations exist ; if not the term is not necessary If citations exist check to see if any are relevant If unique and relevant then that term is necessary

The Pearl Harvesting Search Filter Combine all validated search terms using the Boolean OR function A OR B OR C OR D OR etc. Copy and paste the filter into the search engine

Using The Pearl Harvesting Search Filter Most search engines have various fields that can used to search, e.g., title, abstract, author, journal title There are also multiple field operators which allow for searching across multiple fields all at once The most powerful operator is one that searches all of the fields In the Proquest databases this is the default “everywhere” In MEDLINE it is all fields, or .af Often it is not recommended to use all fields however if the search filter has been developed to be precise then extra information will be gathered with minimal loss to precision

Developing Precision in the Search Filter 1. phrases entered with double quotations tells the search engine to only retrieve citations that contain the words in the phrase in the specific order specified Failure to use double quotes may result in the search engine looking for the words separately anywhere in the bibliographic information, i.e., that is very imprecise

Developing Precision in the Search Filter 2. Word sense disambiguation Some words have numerous more specific versions and therefore can be further specified to achieve better precision These are referred to as polysemic terms For example, review is very general including such meanings as “book review” Therefore it can be further developed to be “systematic review” OR “quantitative review” OR “evidence-based review”

How to disambiguate Enter the general term (polysemic term) into a search box and review the citations Note any more specific version phrases See if they meet the criteria of the search intent create a list of these more specific phrases Recursively enter the polysemic term NOT the list of specific phrases Review the outcome to see if there are any more specific phrases

Exhaust the possibilities of using a disambiguated polysemic term Repeat the search using the polysemic term ensuring that there are no citations that only can be found using the polysemic term If any citations do not have a more specific expression and only the polysemic term can locate it, see if there is something unique in the grammatical expression which can be used as a unique identifier For example, “search for a review” OR “conduct a review”

Validate the disambiguated search terms Use the Boolean Subtraction Procedure to see if each of the disambiguated search terms is necessary

Developing Precision in the Search Filter 3. Use of the Boolean operator NOT Acronyms in particular are prone to multiple meanings A way to eliminate non-relevant citations is to subtract the non-relevant ones out For example ASD refers to autism spectrum disorder but also many other conditions such as Alzheimer Dementia So use ASD NOT “Alzheimer Dementia”

Developing Precision in the Search Filter 4. enter a series of search filters multiple search filters are common in a real world search For example, in looking for systematic review articles on applied behavior analysis with children with autism a number of filters are used “ Autism Children Applied behavior analysis Systematic review These are all connected in a search with AND, i.e., autism AND Children AND “applied behavior analysis AND “systematic review”

Developing Precision in the Search Filter Each time a search filter is added to the list the search will become more focused, i.e., more precise according to the search intent

External Validation of the Pearl Harvested Search Filter It is important to see if the search does what it is supposed to – find as many relevant citations as possible Pearl Harvesting uses what is termed a quasi-gold standard reference base as a check to see if can locate a variety of relevant known citations

External Validation of the Pearl Harvested Search Filter Quasi-gold standard reference base Choose one or more systematic reviews or meta-analyses on the topic being investigated; preferably ones that have not been used in the search term development process 1. analyze the search terms and subject headings used to see if there are any terms not already used If so test these terms using the Boolean Subtraction Procedure

External Validation of the Pearl Harvested Search Filter Locate the original source studies of the systematic reviews in one of the databases being used for the investigation Check to see if the Pearl Harvesting Search Filter could locate each of these studies by analyzing their title, abstract and keywords/subject headings If unable to locate an article look for unique and relevant identifying linguistic markers in the bibliographic information Test those linguistic markers as to their capably to find unique and relevant citations using the Boolean Subtraction Procedure If the newly found linguistic marker locates unique and relevant citations add it to the search filter

Choosing databases to search It is well established that a comprehensive search requires searching in multiple databases - not just one However, there is no theory or systematic approach at the present time for determining which databases to use ju

Databases There are numerous databases and no theory as to which ones to choose in doing a comprehensive review. Some examples are: ERIC, PsycINFO , Web of Sceince, Google Scholar , Summan  

Choosing databases to search A Pearl Harvesting suggestion Locate systematic reviews in the area being investigated Review the journals used in the original source studies Locate the databases that these journals are indexed in Use these as the sources to search in

Choosing databases to search Note that each database will have some different journals therefore different articles The number of citations found for each term will therefore vary across databases Also note, different databases have different search engines so merely copying and pasting the Pearl Harvested search filter into various databases will not work efficiently

Other uses of Pearl Harvested search filters Creating an information map Polysemic searching The Pearl Harvesting Search Thesaurus

Using a Pearl Harvested search filter to create an information map of a topic Information maps provide an outline of what research areas are available on a research database for specific topics of interest For example, there are many areas of research related to the topic of giftedness For students, researchers and people using evidence-based knowledge it would be of interest to know what topics are available in the research

Using a Pearl Harvested search filter to create an information map of a topic Although it is time consuming the process is straightforward If there is a Pearl Harvested validated search filter available on a topic then using this to search a databases will retrieve many citations on the topic

Using a Pearl Harvested search filter to create an information map of a topic enter each term separately, after removing all other terms with the Boolean Subtraction Procedure, To a content analysis of the citations to discover thematic topics related to the search intent The collection of thematic topics therefore will comprise the information map of that topic

Using a Pearl Harvested search filter to create an information map of a topic For example there are 53 unique search terms for the topic giftedness A content analysis of what each term located indicated X topics covered in the ERIC database

Information map of giftedness Age of subjects Different areas of learning, e.g., math, sience, literature Different types of programs Social-cultural features specific teaching methods Social relationships Assessment

Polysemic searching Polysemic terms are general with many possible connotation For example, review, analysis, synthesis They are very genera and not precisel when used in a search Google and Google Scholar only allow a limited number of search terms in one search (32), so the full extent of a Pearl Harvested filter is not possible Polysemic terms if used in combination with a series of search filters may prove to be easier to implement without too much loss of precison in these databases

Pearl Harvesting Information Search Thesaurus Lists examples of search filters The search filter can be copied and pasted into appropriate databases Lists published articles on Pearl Harvesting Locate the thesaurus by typing into Google: Pearl Harvesting Search Thesaurus or use the URL below http://pearlharvestingsearchthesaurus.wikispaces.com/