How do I search for  journal articles in Education databases?

• Go directly to Education Databases if you already know how to search. Otherwise, follow the steps below to get connected from home and get tips for doing a search.

1) Go to the Queen’s Library homepage: http://library.queensu.ca/

2) If you are off-campus go to the top right corner of the site and click
Connect from Off-Campus  (omit steps 2-4 if you are on-campus)

3) Enter your Queen’s Net ID and password and enter
  (You are now behind the proxy and able to access all of Queen’s databases as long as this window stays open. If you close this window you will lose your connection and have to sign in to the proxy again.)

4) Select Library homepage to access databases or if you have the URL to a specific article, then cut and paste it here.

5) Do a keyword search in Summon. This tool searches all books, multimedia, and the full text of all online articles at Queen's. Use the filters to narrow your topic as needed. You can limit to peer-reviewed articles, by date, and selecting additional subject headings also narrows results.

6) If you find it difficult to narrow your results in Summon, scroll down and click on Education Library under Research by Subject and then click on Recommended Education Databases. This lets you search in individual databases that specialize in education.

Recommended databases to begin your search:

Education Research Complete (via EBSCOhost):

1,730 journals with full text for more than 800 journals, 67 books, and numerous education-related conference papers.

Sample topic search in Education Research Complete: Identify teaching/learning strategies for ADHD students in an elementary classroom.

Search Tips:

• Limit search to Full text only if you need 1 or 2 articles. Otherwise, you will miss the links to other full text articles that are in other indexes.
• Put related concepts in a search box. Synonyms for strategies could include accommodation, techniques, teaching, learning, activities, etc.
• When you know a term is a subject heading, limit the search to that field to reduce results.
• Add level if appropriate.
• Check the subject headings assigned to specific articles to get more keyword ideas.

ERIC: Education Resources Information Center (via EBSCOhost):

Largest education database in the world. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. Two separate indexes: Current Index to Journals in Education (900 journals) and Resources in Education (.5 million teaching docs).

Sample search topic in ERIC: Identify teaching/learning strategies for ADHD students in a secondary classroom.

This link leads to an ERIC document.

This link leads to an ERIC article.

Canadian Education – CBCA  (via Proquest):
Indexes over 260 education-related journals and newsletters, with abstracts and article fulltext for a selection of these publications. The Canadian content in the database makes this the database of choice for periodical information on Canadian education issues.

Education Full-text – (via WilsonWeb):
Index to journals, books and yearbooks in the field of education, covering topics of interest to both educational researchers and teachers.

TIPS:
When starting your search try to limit to Full-text articles (look for a box to check off)

In the search boxes:

Try your most important term in the first search box, eg. Special Education

Your secondary term in the second search box, eg. Autism

The school level in the third box, eg. Elementary or Secondary

You don’t have to use all three boxes, if you are not getting many hits try leaving the third box blank.

When you get your search results click on the PDF fulltext or HTML fulltext icon to access the complete article.

Once you have opened your article your best options are to print a copy or save the article on a USB key. You can e-mail the article to yourself but some databases only e-mail the citation.

7) Try Google and Google Scholar but apply operators carefully!

• "quotation marks for phrases"
• +to force inclusion
• intitle:"genetically modified foods" Canada
• "global warming" site:.edu OR site:.ca
• ~in front of a word for synonyms

See How To Find … Web Resources on the Education Library homepage for a detailed web searching guide.