Doing Research in Education?--Where to Start!: Search Strategy & Tips

Feeling lost and don't know where to start your research?  Help is right here. 

These short (<5 minute) videos can help you get going with library research. These videos have soundtracks. Captioning is available--just click the CC button at the bottom of the viewer.

Videos are still being added--check this page for updates!  (This content is from U-Mass)

In the internet age, people easily accept 125,000,000 hits when they search Google or other search engine.  Library databases don't work the same way Google does.  It is easy to get too many, or too few, results when you are searching a database. This guide will offer some suggestions for focusing your search and 'thinking like a database'.

First of all, start with a strategy, such as:

• write the topic down in the form of a sentence or question
• identify the key concepts of the question
• try to think of at least one or two synonyms for each of these concepts
• if the database you are going to use has a thesaurus (index of subject headings), go there and search for the concepts and synonyms you have thought of.  If related terms are suggested, review these, and possibly select and search a few.
• search each of your concepts separately (you can have 2 or more related terms in a concept)
• use the Boolean operators (and, or, not) to combine the results that you get in the previous step

If you are having trouble thinking of search terms, the table below may help by providing a focus.  It is an example, and is arranged in a way that identifies groups of people, activities or actions, places or locations, and disciplines or subject areas.  These concepts are only suggestions; you may have other words that will also work as part of your search strategy.  You can choose any combination from the columns, but usually you need at least two concepts. Another way to look at it is to think of the questions: who, what, where.  Who are you studying, what are they doing, where are they doing it?

 Use Good Search Terms

If you are not finding good search results, you may want to take a closer look at the terms you are using.

A keyword search should cover only the essential concepts in your research question, and should not include words like "strategies", "effects", "benefits", "pros and cons". These words are generally not used as subject headings. That leaves you the option of searching them as keywords. but if they do not appear in the title or abstract, they won't appear in your results. In ERIC and other databases, the articles you find will probably discuss strategies or effects or benefits; without you having to actively search for them.

For example, if your question is: What are some strategies for using manipulatives with third grade math students? Your keywords could be: manipulatives, third grade or elementary school, and mathematics or arithmetic. Notice that 'strategies' is not included.  You will still find articles that discuss strategies without that term in the search.

Use the AND and OR operators effectively

AND and OR are connectors we use in databases to combine ideas.

Using AND

Using AND between two or more search terms (or result sets) requires that all of the search terms appear in your results.  Use AND when you are combining different concepts.  In this example, AND retrieves only the dark blue part where the sets for Bart AND Lisa intersect.

Using OR

Using OR between two or more search terms (or result sets) increases the number of results that you get because it retrieve items that have any of your search terms.  You should use OR between synonyms or related terms, because this helps you find more results that are related to your topic than a single term would.   In the example, OR retrieves anything that is inside either the Bart or Lisa sets as well as those that include both.

Combining AND and OR

It is possible to construct very targeted searches. Here is an example: (mathematics OR arithmetic) AND (third grade OR elementary students).  However, we recommend that you start by searching each concept separtately.  First, search the math concept.  Second, search the age concept.  Then use AND to combine them. It may take a minute longer, but you will have greater flexibility in manipulating concepts as you go along.

Avoid acronyms

Acronyms generally, are poor search terms.  For example, if you type EBD in a search box, the database will only look for those letters in that sequence.  It doesn't understand that you are probably looking for emotional behavioral disorders, and bring you articles about that topic.

Use truncation and wildcards

Every database has tools to help you. These include symbols that you can use to truncate a search term.  When you put this symbol at the end of a letter string, it will look for any ending of that word.  A wild card symbol can be used in the middle a word to find alternate spellings.  Look at the"help" area of the  database for information about these tools.  Some common truncation and wildcard symbols used in databases are: *, ?, !, +.

ERIC, for example, uses an asterisk (*) as a truncation symbol.  Searching for 'curricul*' will retrieve 'curricula', 'curricular', 'curriculum' and 'curriculums'.

Wildcards can help with alternate spellings. For example, searching for 'wom?n' will retrieve 'women' and 'woman'.  Again, be sure to check the 'help' information for the database your are searching to see what symbols it uses.