ED 560: Professional Development in Curriculum and Instruction

Whether you're beginning your program or working on your Master's degree, there are a variety of resources and services to support your coursework.  You may need to find case studies as you analyze a classroom scenario, or very specific studies on a teaching method to inform your own action research plan.  Besides education databases, there are databases to support your minor, and even some that give lesson plan and curricular ideas in the areas you teach or plan to teach.

What is ERIC?

Most of the research in Teacher Education is presented in the form of scholarly journal articles and conference papers​, found in databases such as ERIC, the Educational Resource Information Clearinghouse provided by the US Dept of Education.. You'll see that there are multiple versions of ERIC, and the one that you'll find most familiar is the one via Ebsco. This is an international database, and allows you to search by educational level, reading audience, and type of source.  In addition to peer reviewed journal articles, it contains a variety of grey literature,​  This infographic shows what's in ERIC.  This infographic shows how materials are added to ERIC.

Education Databases

Introduction and Useful Search Terms for case study analysis

Construct a search strategy

• Define your topic: Are you looking for classroom management techniques, improving reading proficiency in middle school students, or studies on teaching to multiple intelligences for elementary students?
• What question do you want to answer?
• Identify key words and phrases that describe your answer
• Brainstorm alternate spellings, related terms, broader concepts, and more specific concepts

Select a database

• Browse the Education databases
• Pick 1-3 databases that look most relevant to your search- most of the databases have international coverage, so you may need to limit your results by geography
• The Ebsco and Proquest ERIC interfaces allow you to search by educational level, audience, and type of resource
• If your topic is broader and encompasses social aspects, you might try SocIndex to find sociological research

Test and refine your search

• Test your keywords and phrases in each database
• If you don't find what you're looking for right away, try some of the alternate terms you brainstormed earlier
• Refine your search using the side menu options

Advanced search techniques

Phrase Searching

Place several words within quotes to search those exact words in that exact order.

• "classroom management"
• "second language acquisition"

Truncation and Wildcards

Use a symbol (usually * or ?) to search all words that start with entered letters.

• pedago* searches for pedagogy, pedagogies, pedagogical
• disab*  searches disabled, disability, disabilities
•  *assess* matches preassessment, post assessment

Boolean Operators

AND searches for both terms, OR searches for either term, NOT omits a term.

• "inquiry-based learning" AND "group work" NOT "science"
• "teaching techniques" OR "learning strategies"