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Special Education, Counseling, and School Psychology

A resource guide for research in special education and counseling in education

ERIC - finding peer reviewed empirical studies on a topic

Here's an example of a search in ERIC to find peer reviewed empirical studies on a topic.

Screenshot of search options in ERIC. Under the fields where you have entered search terms there is a subheader "Search Options." Under this header you will find additional parameters to limit your results such as a tick box to only search for "Peer Reviewed" texts.

Limiting your search by publication type or method

In ERIC or PsycINFO, you can limit your search by publication type or method.

PsycINFO

Screen shot of how to limit by methodology in PsycInfo. Under subheader "Methodology" there are options you can select such as qualitative study, quantitative study, scientific simulation, or treatment outcome.

 

 

 

 

ERIC

Screenshot from ERIC. Under subheader "Publication Type" you can select from options such as Reports - Descriptive, Reports - Evaluative, Reports - General, Reports - Research.

Searching for research reports in a database that does not have a method or publication type filter

Publication types and methodologies in ERIC and PsycInfo

The ERIC Thesaurus

If you're not sure how a topic is described in ERIC, look up your keywords in the ERIC thesaurus.  Look at the scope note (description of a term's usage in ERIC), broader terms, narrower terms, and related terms to help you find other terms about your topic. Then add the descriptors (subject terms) you find to your search to make it more specific.

 

Google citation tracing

The Google Scholar Cited By feature will identify subsequent citations to articles that might be relevant to your research.

Screenshot from google scholar search result page. Below the excerpt from the article are various links with additional information about the article. One link reads "Cited by 8," meaning this article has been cited by 8 other articles. Clicking this will display such articles, which may be relevant to your research.

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