Researching Topics in Education: A Tutorial
ERIC: An Introduction
The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a federally funded,
nationwide information system that provides access to education literature.
The ERIC database is the largest education database in the world, containing
almost one million bibliographic records of journal articles, research reports,
curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, and books. Each year approximately
33,000 new records are added. For additional information, see http://www.eric.ed.gov/.
Using the ERIC Thesaurus
Each of the abstracts in the ERIC database has been assigned subject indexing
terms called Descriptors. Like LC Subject Headings, these are controlled vocabulary
that reflect the topic of the article being abstracted. Most research libraries
have copies of the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors in Reference, and
some ERIC search interfaces (including ERIC via EBSCOHost) provide online
access to the Thesaurus while conducting a search. Before searching, it can
be helpful to use the Thesaurus to identify the ERIC descriptors that best
capture your topic. For example, articles and documents about the development
of children's social skills are likely to be indexed under the
ERIC descriptors interpersonal competence or social development.
The ERIC descriptor for children at risk is at risk persons.
When you search for information about high school students, you can
use the descriptor high school students, but you might miss a lot of
material if you did not also use the descriptor secondary education.
If you do not know the relevent Descriptors for your topic, you can do a
keyword search using terms with which you are familiar. Browse through the
documents you retrieve and select a document that seems to target your interest.
Use the descriptors that are assigned to that document (they will appear in
the search results) and re-enter your search using the appropriate descriptors.
Planning your search strategy
To plan your ERIC search, follow these steps:
- Write the topic in your own words.
- Divide the topic into major concepts and identify synonyms relating to
each concept.
- Use the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors to locate the appropriate
subject descriptors for each concept of the topic.
The database creates sets of information based on the way you tell it to
combine subject terms. For example, to find out about teachers' attitudes
toward multiage grouping of primary age students, you could use the
Thesaurus to find these subject descriptors:
teacher attitudes
mixed age grouping
primary education
If you want to find records that are indexed under all three of these concepts,
use the AND command (i.e. teacher attitudes and mixed
age grouping and primary education). If additional information
is needed, identify other relevant synonyms and descriptors and search using
the OR command. For example, you could look for primary education
OR early childhood education OR elementary education.
If you get too much information, you can limit your search by:
- Narrowing the dates of publication.
- Adding additional search terms using And.
- Specifying the publication or document type (i.e. search just for ERIC
Journal Articles [EJ]and not for ERIC Documents [ED]).
If you get too little information, you can expand your search by:
- Adding more descriptors for each concept (using Or). Look at the
records retrieved in your search to determine additional relevant descriptor
terms.
- Try searching for information on each concept separately, then synthesize
the information.
- Contact a reference librarian
for further assistance. Katherine
Dexter Willis is
the subject specialist for Management and Education. (919-513-0304).
Finding ERIC journal
articles and documents
The result of an ERIC search will be an annotated bibliography of Document
and scholarly Journal literature on your topic. With some exceptions, there
are no full-text articles or documents in the database.
ERIC Documents
[from Resources in Education (RIE)]consist primarily of research/technical
reports, conference papers/speeches, project/program descriptions, opinion
papers, or teaching guides. These documents, identified by their six-digit
ED number, are in the form of microfiche and can be found in the D. H. Hill
Library
Microforms Center. In addition, ERIC Documents
published from 1993-present are available online through the ERIC database.
ERIC Journal Articles
[from Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE)], are identified
by their six digit EJ number and refer to academic, scholarly journal literature
in the field of education. To access most journal articles you will need to
locate the desired journal in the library (refer to the information above
about searching the library catalog). For additional information, see the Guide to Finding Articles
.
ERIC interfaces
There are several ways to access the ERIC database. The basic abstract information
in the database is always the same, but the interfaces leading you into the
material will be different. You will be introduced in this tutorial to the
public ERIC interface as well as how to access ERIC through the NCSU Libraries.
Remember that you should never have to pay a fee to access an item -- either
it will be available through the NCSU Libraries or it can be acquired free
of charge through InterLibrary
Loan.
ERIC Search Engine
A public interface for
the ERIC Database is available because ERIC is a federally funded resource.
The benefit to this interface is that there are no access restrictions; the
downsides are that the searching options may not be as flexible as needed,
and there is no direct connection to the holdings of the NCSU Libraries.
Practice searches in the ERIC
Search Engine:
- Go to the Advanced Search screen and do a Keyword search
for vocational skills. Click on the 'detail' button for the first
item you found and read the descriptors. Since Vocational skills
is not a descriptor; look for synonyms in the descriptor field.
- Scroll down to the second search option (note this is case sensitive).
Do an ERIC Database Field search for Butler, Susan R. as an Author.
Look at one document (ED) and one journal (EJ) article which she has
written. Notice the descriptors and identifiers assigned to each record.
- One of the descriptors you may have found is vocational education.
Do another search combining vocational education as a Major
Descriptor and North Carolina as a Major Identifier.
How many items did you find? How many of the items are journal articles?
- Try revising the search, and sort results by Publication Date instead
of Relevance. Also, try changing the Record Type and limiting your search
to CIJE (ERIC Journal articles).
ERIC via EbscoHost
The NCSU Libraries provides access to ERIC via the vendor EBSCOHost. In
order to use this database from off-campus
you must log in using your Unity ID and password.
The primary benefits of using this interface are the searching flexibility
and the direct connection to the holdings of the NCSU Libraries that allows
quick identification of available journals and other materials. For more
information about using this interface, see the ERIC
Help Guide.
ERIC via EbscoHost uses the official Descriptors for categorizing articles
and documents, but the descriptors are accessed through the Subject field.
Note that through this interface you can access, in full-text PDF format,
nearly 80% of ERIC Documents (with ED numbers, not EJ numbers) published from
1993-present.
Practice Searches in ERIC via EbscoHost
Use *Advanced Search* Option
- Do a Default Fields (keyword) search for math anxiety. How
many records did you find? Look at a few of the records under math anxiety.
You will see that the correct Descriptor [Subject] is mathematics
anxiety. Do another search using mathematics anxiety as a
Descriptor. How many did you find?
- Do a search for community colleges (Subject) and dropout
programs (Subject). Print, save, or e-mail the most recent record
you find.
- Find a thesis (use the special limiters provided and limit to
publication type "Diss./Theses") published in 1998 with the title
Technostress. How long is the thesis?
- Locate a reference to a journal article about virtual reality
and chemistry. Use the limiting options to limit this search
to Journal Articles (no Documents). Does the D. H. Hill Library have
the journal containing the article you found?
Additional Resources
Gateway to Educational Materials
(GEM) -- Access to high quality lesson plans, curriculum units and
other education resources on the Internet.
Test and Measurement
Resources -- Information on locating assessment instruments.
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