NU Library Research Guides: Education Research (ICA Program): Home

Library Home Page

https://library.niagara.edu/

Best Bets for Education Research

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search for scholarly literature within an easy to use Google interface.
To include Niagara University Library's journal holdings, do this after you reach Google Scholar:
1) Click the upper left hand corner menu and click "Settings" and then "Library Links."
2) Search for "Niagara University." Click the checkbox, then click Save.
Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is a multidisciplinary database that provides access to 5,795 active full-text journals, 6,773 active global OA journals, and more than 75,000 videos from the Associated Press.
ERIC: Education Resources Information Center (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) is an authoritative database of indexed and full-text education literature and resources. Sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, it is an essential tool for education researchers of all kinds.
PsycARTICLES & PsycINFO (via ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Over 25,000 full-text articles from 42 journals published by American Psychological Association and allied organizations and citations to journal articles, book chapters, books, technical reports and dissertations.

Citing Your Sources

Purdue OWL provides guidance and models for citing sources in APA Style:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html

Writing Center

If you ever need writing assistance, you can contact Jason Pratt in the Writing Center:

https://apps.niagara.edu/people/contact.php?pid=0704373

Just let him know that you are in the ICA program.

New York Public Library Research Databases

You have access to one of the best public libraries in the world. Many of its research databases are available remotely.

If you don't already have a library card, you can sign up here: https://www.nypl.org/library-card.

Tips

Contact Information

David Schoen

schoen@niagara.edu

Terminology

Citation: A citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source that you have used in your research. Citations serve several important purposes:

They give credit to authors for ideas and information that you have used in your work. This avoids plagiarism and upholds ethical standards in research.
They allow readers to locate the original sources you used so they can verify or further explore that material.
They support and substantiate the claims and conclusions you make in your writing by referring to credible sources.
They show that you have done appropriate research to inform your work.

Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185

DOI: A DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, is a unique alphanumeric string assigned to a digital object, such as a document, research paper, dataset, or any other type of intellectual property, to provide a permanent and unambiguous way to identify and access that content on the internet. DOIs are often used in the academic and publishing world to ensure the persistent identification of scholarly and research materials.

Full Text: Full text refers to the complete and original text of a work, as opposed to just a citation, abstract, summary, or excerpt.

Interlibrary Loan: Interlibrary loan (ILL) is a service that allows you obtain materials from libraries outside your own institution or library system. See here: https://1978.account.worldcat.org/account

Literature Review: A literature review is a critical and comprehensive summary of existing research and scholarly articles on a specific topic or research question. It is an essential component of academic research,

Peer Reviewed Journals: Peer-reviewed journals (also known as refereed, scholarly or research journals) are publications that require submitted articles or research papers to undergo a rigorous evaluation process by experts or peers in the field before they are accepted for publication. This process is designed to ensure the quality, validity, and reliability of the research and scholarship presented in the journal. It is important to note that not all journals go through the peer review process, and there are other types of publications, such as trade magazines or popular magazines, that do not adhere to the same level of scholarly scrutiny.

Periodical Index: A database that provides access to articles in thousands of journals, magazines, and newspapers by allowing you to search by keyword.

Database Searching Tips

1. Keep your search simple, creating a search string of only the main nouns.

Topic: How does eating breakfast contribute to the academic achievement of elementary school students?

Search: breakfast AND "academic achievement" AND elementary

Note that you can place a phrase in quote marks, but only if you are sure that it is always going to be a phrase. When in doubt, don't use quote marks.

2. Consider synonyms:

Search: breakfast AND "academic achievement" AND (elementary OR primary OR kindergarten)

Note how the search was created by separating synonyms with the word OR and putting the synonyms in parentheses.

3. Every database offers an advanced search where you can specify that your keywords have to appear in the title or other field. You have to be careful with this though not to eliminate relevant records.

4. Remember that you can limit results to peer reviewed articles.

5. You can also limit a search by date.

6. Your full text access to journal articles will be considerable. However, if there is an article in a journal not owned by the Library, you can request a copy via Interlibrary Loan: https://1978.account.worldcat.org/account