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CIT 0502 Research in Education: Process and Application

Step 1: Identifying Key Concepts and Synonyms or Alternative Terms in the Topic

Before you can search for appropriate articles for your bibliography, you need to identify the key concepts in your research topic, and identify any synonyms or alternative terms. Let's look at the first five topics in your syllabus:

Step 1: Identify the key concepts in your research topic.
Step 2: Identify any synonyms or alternative terms. You can look at the ERIC thesaurus for ideas.

Problem solving skills of kindergarten children

  Alternative terms or      
synonyms		 OR  Alternative terms or      
synonyms		 OR  Alternative terms or      
synonyms
Concept 1 problem solving OR critical thinking OR brainstorming
AND
Concept 2 skills OR skill OR ability
AND
Concept 3 kindergarten OR early childhood OR preschool

NOTE: Use ERIC descriptors to narrow your search results.

   

Step 2: Identifying ERIC Descriptors and Truncated Terms

You can have more focused results if you identify the ERIC descriptors. These are the subject headings or index terms used by ERIC to locate other resources on the same topic. You can use the ERIC Thesaurus to identify terms.

You can include more alternatives if you truncate words with various spellings. For example, you can use child* to find child, children, childhood, childless, childish, etc. In other words, you use the asterisk (For example,  child* ) to look for those letters as the root or stem in other word.

Problem solving skills of kindergarten children  -- ERIC Descriptors in Yellow

  Alternative terms or     
synonyms		 OR Alternative terms or     
synonyms		 OR Alternative terms or     
synonyms
Concept 1 problem solving OR critical thinking OR brainstorming
AND    
Concept 2 skill* OR abilit*
AND  
Concept 3 kindergarten OR early childhood OR preschool*

 

Step 3: Using the Concepts to Search in ERIC

Example 1 -- Keyword search in ERIC (CSA) using key concepts and synonyms:

 

Example 2: Using descriptors and truncated keywords to search in ERIC:

 

Research Synthesis Matrix

What is Peer Reviewed?

Peer Review Infographic

What is Peer Review (text)

The peer review process is a part of the research process. Remember! The research process is cyclical.

What does it mean when an article is peer reviewed?

  • First, scientists do some science. 
  • Then, they write up their findings.
  • They submit their article to a journal for peer review.
  • The journal sends the article to other experts in the same field to review before publishing.
  • If the article stands up to peer review (review by the scientists' peers) it can be published in the journal.
  • Other researchers can now use that research to do their own research.

And the process begins again. 

What is the Information Cycle?

The Information Cycle is the progression of media coverage of a newsworthy event. It refers to how information is produced and distributed over time. 

Understanding the Information Cycle will help you determine what types of sources may be available for your research topic. Information comes from different sources including: 

  • Social media (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.)
  • Mainstream Media (TV news, Internet news, etc)
  • Popular Magazines
  • Scholarly Journals
  • Books

When researching a topic, you need to investigate a variety of sources to gather enough information. 

The Information Cycle Infographic

Information Cycle Infographic