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       Education Resources

                         McFarlin Library

This is a selected guide to resources on Education in the McFarlin Library collection. It is not a comprehensive list. It is intended to serve as a starting point for your research.

Approaches to Research

For information on how to do research in general, check Constructing a Research Paper.

Bibliographies

A well-organized, carefully selected and annotated bibliography can lead you to the best and most relevant sources on your topic.  The following are available at  McFarlin Library:

Dictionaries/Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias and dictionaries are a good place to start when you need an overview of a subject or when you want a quick summary of basic ideas. They can also be used to  familiarize yourself with the vocabulary of the discipline. Encyclopedia articles are often followed by selected bibliographies or lists of references to other works. The following are available in McFarlin Library:

Dictionaries can help you to define unfamiliar terms as well as specialized usage within the professional literature.

 Directories

 

American School Directory

This "is a fully developed Web site for each of America's 106,000 K-12 schools. Each site is loaded with pages of information, including number of students, number of homerooms, grades, phone and fax numbers, URLs, school calendars, administrators, and even a local street map."

 Finding Articles

Journal articles are important in your research. You should use periodical indexes to identify current journal and newspaper articles published in the professional and scholarly literature on topics relevant to your research project.  Indexes can be subject-specific for in-depth research or can be more general in nature.

Some indexes are in electronic format and others are in print format. All indexes provide a citation, many provide an abstract, and a few provide the full text of the article.  If the article is not available in full text, you must use the the Library Catalog to find out if McFarlin Library subscribes to the journal that publishes the article you need.

To find out if McFarlin Library has a specific journal click on the Journals and Online Sources  link on the Libraries' Home Page and choose Journal Portal. Type the journal title in the Search box. If McFarlin subscribes to the journal, note the location and format of the periodical.  Back issues of periodicals might be found as a hard copy, on microfilm, or through an electronic format.   If McFarlin Library does not subscribe to the journal you need, you may request it through interlibrary loan.   

To find articles in education, search the following electronic indexes:

ERIC via EBSCOhost

ERIC, the U.S. Department of Education’s Educational Resource Information Center database, contains  citations and abstracts for published articles from over 980 educational and education-related journals.  In addition, ERIC collects and distributes a huge variety of print material (much of it unpublished) that relates to education.  These "ERIC Documents" include research reports, program descriptions, surveys, curriculum guides and other instructional materials, conference papers, and much more.  Documents are available on the Lower Level of McFarlin Library in the ERIC Document microfiche collection.

ECAR - EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research

 

"The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) provides timely research and analysis to help higher education leaders make better decisions about information technology. ECAR assembles leading scholars, practitioners, researchers, and analysts to focus on issues of critical importance to higher education, many of which carry increasingly complicated and consequential implications. ECAR provides educational leaders with high-quality, well-researched, timely information to support institutional decision-making.

 

 

Educational Administration Abstracts

               

Educational Administration Abstracts focuses on topics related to the management of educational institutions. It provides access primarily to journal articles, although some books are also included. Educational Administration Abstracts covers the following broad subject areas: administrative structure and process; certified and classified personnel; student personnel; curriculum; teaching, learning, and testing; student assessment and guidance; professional preparation and certification; professional and staff development; performance and program evaluation; community, society, and the school; government and law; educational facilities, equipment, and materials; special needs and programs; school business and finance; and theory, research, and practice.

 

 

Academic Search Complete via EBSCOhost

 

Academic Search Complete, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,500 journals and a total of nearly 10,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for nearly 1,000 journals.

 

MEDLINE via EBSCOhost

Medline covers international biomedical literature published in all languages. It contains citations and abstracts of articles from more than 3,700 international journals, as well as chapters and books from selected monographs. It is an excellent source for citations in neuro-psychology and behavioral medicine.

Professional Development Collection

The Professional Development Collection provides a highly specialized collection of electronic information especially for professional educators. This collection offers information on everything from children’s health and development to cutting-edge pedagogical theory and practice. The Professional Development Collection includes abstract and index coverage for nearly 530 well-known professional development titles, and searchable full text for nearly 440 journals covering the most current topics in the field of education.

PsycARTICLES via EBSCOhost

PsycARTICLES is a database featuring the full text of articles published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association and Hogrefe & Huber.

 

 

 

PsychINFO via EBSCOhost

PsychINFO is an international index to journal articles, book chapters, dissertations and reports in psychology and related disciplines. It indexes over 1,300 journals in such fields as applied, educational, developmental, human and animal psychology, physical and psychological disorders and psychometrics. There are more than 1.5 million references to psychological literature from 45 countries.

 

 

 

SocINDEX with Full Text via EBSCOhost

SocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 1,918,000 records with subject headings from a 19,300+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers. SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for 428 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1908, and 136 "priority" coverage journals. This database also includes full text for more than 720 books and monographs, and full text for 6,785 conference papers.

To find articles in education, search the following print indexes:

 Finding Books

To find books located in McFarlin Library, use the library's online catalog.   In addition to books, the Library Catalog allows you to search for periodicals, government documents, audiovisual material, and Special Collections.

Call number classifications for Education are:

Library materials for Education are listed on the Library Catalog  under these suggested subject headings:

Broad Terms:

• Education
• Education, Elementary
• Schools
• Education, Higher
• Teaching
• Education, Periodicals

See also the subheading "--Education" under major subject headings:
e.g. United States--Education

Narrow terms:

• Adult education
• Competency based education
• Curriculum evaluation
• Learning, Psychology of
• Role playing
• Socialization
• Women in education

Check the Library of Congress Subject Headings  for other more specific terms to search on the Library Catalog.

 Internet Resources

The Internet provides a great amount of information of interest to educators.  Listed below are some of the most well-established collections:

 

American Federation of Teachers

"The AFT is an 830,000-member union of public and professional employees, including public and private school teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel (PSRPs), higher education faculty and professionals, employees of state and local governments, nurses and health professionals."

 

American School Directory

This "is a fully developed Web site for each of America's 106,000 K-12 schools. Each site is loaded with pages of information, including number of students, number of homerooms, grades, phone and fax numbers, URLs, school calendars, administrators, and even a local street map."

 

 

Education Links from Yahoo

Perhaps the most comprehensive collection of pointers to education resources available. Organized by subject.

 

 

Electronic Journals and Other Full Text Resources (from Arizona State University)

Electronic journals of interest to educators.

 

 

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

"On April 18, 1997, President Clinton asked Federal agencies to determine what 'resources you can make available that would enrich the Internet as a tool for teaching and learning.' In response, more than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group to make hundreds of federally supported education resources available at this web site."

 

National Education Association

"America's oldest and largest organization committed to advancing the cause of public education."

 

 Tests and Measurements

For a complete description of resources for Tests and Measurements found in McFarlin Library, check out  Tests and Measurements.

Citing Sources

For information on style manuals and guides found in McFarlin Library, check out  How to Cite Sources.