Educational research homework

Strategies for Literature Reviews

Boolean searches are based on mathematics work of George Boole a couple of hundred years ago. As we will use it, math isn’t involved, so those of you with math anxiety can relax. This does involve some basic logic, however, and its use gives you a powerful search tool.

1. You can enter a single word or phrase, but in doing so you generally get so many “hits” or related journal articles that it would take months to sort through them for relevant works that you can use. Therefore, certain limiting strategies are necessary.

2. First, using parentheses to enclose a phrase tells the computer that you want to see articles which have the same precise word order.

A. attention deficit disorder will result in articles that deal with attention, many that address deficit, more that have disorder in their title, and even some that tell about research on ADD. The problem is that you get too much useless feedback.

B. “attention deficit disorder” will return a list of journal articles that ALL deal with attention deficit disorder (ADD), so this is a powerful limiter,

3. Second, AND placed between the words or phrases in parentheses is a common and powerful limiter. You will get only articles that include both. For example: “counseling techniques” and “controversy” will return articles that deal with both controversy and counseling techniques. You will NOT get articles that address only ‘controversy’ or only ‘counseling techniques’, but will rather get the desired combination. By the same token, “elementary school” and “high stakes testing” will limit your search two ways. You will not get articles on middle or high schools, but just middle schools…and only on high stakes testing in middle schools, not on reading, punishment, or anything else.

4. Third, and less frequently used, NOT placed between words or phrases is another limiter. For example, “special education” not “physical disabilities” will limit your return by omitting anything dealing with physical disabilities. Obviously, you’d still get an unmanageable number of ‘hits’ on special education.

5. Fourth, using OR between words or phrases isn’t a search limiter, but a broadener. Here’s an example: “ADHD” or “ADD” will give you articles with either acronym. “ADHD” and “ADD” should give you article with both. As with the third example, this is less frequently used.

6. You should concentrate on learning how to use the strategies outlined in #2 and #3 above. With practice, you’ll come to be a skilled user of Boolean logic in searching the related literature for articles pertinent to your particular research.