Research Guides: Education Research

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This guide will assist you in finding sources of information about teaching and learning, as well as the social contexts of education and schooling. Educational issues include testing, curricular issues, special education, learning disorders, multicultural education, etc.

The field of Education is related to other disciplines such as Psychology, Sociology and Social Work, so resources in those areas may also be relevant to your research. Some topics in education are interdisciplinary, such as memory, ADHD, and tests and measurements and are also found in the literature of the field of Psychology. Reflecting this interdisciplinary nature between these fields, APA style is used for citation and writing guidelines in education.

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 5th edition. Commonly accepted guidelines for style and citation in the field of psychology and other disciplines in the social sciences. The manual is focused on the most commonly used types of resources in student papers and their recommended reference style.
REF BF76.7 .P83 2001. APA Style web site http://www.apastyle.org updates changes in referencing rules.

Finding Books

You can browse the shelves for books on education in both the Reference collection and the circulating collection with Library of Congress call numbers in the Ls (general education), LAs (history of education), LBs (theory and practice), or LCs (social aspects). Books on tests and measurement are in the BF 176s, and books on child psychology are in the BF 721-723s. The collection of juvenile literature and curriculum materials (grades K-12) are in the Curriculum Library at the end of the hallway on the first floor of the library and are included in the Catalog.

Books may contain a broad overview of a topic or an in-depth exploration of a topic.

Books on a broad topic, such as Reference books, may contain chapters or essays on your topic, so think both broadly and narrowly. Use the index in the back of the book to find your topic.

Bibliographies of books, chapters, and articles are a great place to find additional sources.

Use the Library Catalog to search for books. Ask at the Reference Desk for the subject encyclopedias most relevant for your research topic. Some examples are:

Encyclopedia of Special Education REF LC4007 .E53 2007

Educational Measurement REF LB3051 .E266 2006

Comprehensive Handbook of Multicultural School Psychology REF LB1027.55 .C65 2005

Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration REF LB2805 .E52 2006

Encyclopedia of School Psychology REF LB1027.55 .E52 2005

Finding Scholarly Articles

The best way to stay current with a discipline is to read the journal literature. And the best way to find articles is by searching indexes and databases. Using these resources you can search by title, author, or subject to find articles related to your research topic. Some of these resources provide, in addition to the citation information, the articles full text which can be printed or emailed.

On the main library homepage, http://www.whitworth.edu/library, select “Databases and Indexes”. Use the subject dropdown box to select “Education”. This should give you the list of databases and indexes that are available to search. Using a campus computer, click on the underlined title of the database.

Using a computer off-campus, select the button which brings up a login screen with the Whitworth logo in the top left corner. Use your Whitworth email username and password.
Note: If you have problems from a work computer, it may be the result of your business’ firewall.

ERIC – The premier index in education, with abstracts to published and unpublished sources on education topics. Indexes articles from over 980 journals as well as documents (reports, conference proceedings, etc.).

PSYCINFO – Citations to journal articles, chapters, books, dissertations and reports on psychology and related fields. Includes links to full text from 50 scholarly journals published by the American Psychological Association.

Professional Development Collection - A comprehensive collection of over 500 full text journals in the field of education designed for teachers and students of education.

Using the Internet to do Research

With discernment the Internet can provide good research possibilities. The most difficult part of using the Internet for research is determining what sites are worth looking at. You should always consider who is producing the site and why and when the site was last updated to determine its credibility and reliability.

On the same page of Education resources that you found by subject from the “Databases and Indexes” page, there is a list of reliable Internet sites relevant to the field of Education. Scroll down the page to “Free Internet Resources” to find them.

Updated 8/07