EDUCATION DATABASES: OVERVIEW

Primary Journal Databases Available for Education Education specific: ProQuest Education Journals Professional Development Collection ERIC Also databases that have education but a lot of other topics, too: GaleCengage OneFile EBSCO Academic Search Complete

First, lets talk about peer-reviewed or refereed journals Characteristics of peer reviewed: –Purpose is to publish research studies/results –Specific to a discipline or subset of the discipline, e.g. Journal of Special Education –Each article submitted is reviewed by an independent panel, committee, etc.

Peer-reviewed journals, cont. Characteristics of peer-reviewed: –The journals statement to authors tells how/if it is peer reviewed. –A database like Ulrichs, can identify journals if journals are peer-reviewed. (IWU has this available online) –Very little advertising included –Formal in format…technical reading

Peer-reviewed journals, cont. Characteristics of peer-reviewed: –Authors are scholars in the field and their credentials are listed. –Articles will include a bibliography/references list –Graphics usually are only charts, tables that illustrate the statistical nature of the article, few if any pictures

Examples of peer-reviewed journals Journal of Educational Research Journal of Special Education Journal of Learning Disabilities Elementary School Journal Elementary School Guidance & Counseling Reading & Writing Quarterly English Journal

Lets also look at the differences of subject searching and keyword searching. Keyword searching –Searches for word(s) in the database no matter where they occur, e.g. author, title, abstract, etc. –Flexible because it allows user to select own words to search –Less likely to get all relevant hits.

Lets also look at the differences of subject searching and keyword searching. Subject searching –A uniform word or group of words (controlled vocabulary) used to describe a subject and its synonyms. –Most databases give access to the list of uniform terms –Results in more relevant search results since the article/book should be about that subject when that uniform term is assigned. –Articles/books can have several subject headings.

Lets also look at the differences of subject searching and keyword searching. Let us get down to the basic difference! –Keyword searching = results that contain the term searched. –Subject searching = results that are about the term searched (higher potential of relevancy!)

This article, indexed in ERIC, has 8 subject (descriptors) headings. Subject searching looks at the Descriptors field. Someone has already determined that this article has significant content about those 8 topics.

Lets briefly look at each database and how each is best used… Be sure you have downloaded: Education Databases handout databases.pdf

Journal databases all available by: Click on: Education (under Article databases) Databases are listed under Education:

For all databases Click on the database you want to search Authenticate to gain access. Use your last name and your 14-digit library access # from student ID card.

ProQuest Education Journals

Contains over 790 journals with almost 615 available full text. Information on many educational topics Searchable by topic or by journal title. Full text articles can be ed, printed or saved.

The default search screen is a keyword search.

With a keyword search you usually get a lot of results, but not all may be relevant. You need to critically evaluate the citations to determine their relevancy to your research needs. This database gives some Suggested Topics.

To do a subject search, click on Browse Topics.

You can either search suggested topics, or use the thesaurus…

…click on the Thesaurus option from the far upper right of the screen. Using the thesaurus helps you to see other ways to search your topic or a related topic, i.e. reading disabilities Click on: Add to Search

When searching for reading comprehension as a subject, the results go down more than half from the previous keyword search. But the ones you dropped out probably were not nearly as relevant as these. You can further refine the search by using Boolean and limiting to a student grouping, e.g. primary education.

Lets summarize what we have already learned before we move on to learn some more databases Understand the significance of using peer-reviewed journals in education Understand the differences of subject and keyword searching and when it is appropriate to use each Introduced to ProQuest Education Journals and began some basic searching

Move on to the Education Databases, Part 2