CHAPTER 4
USING SEARCH ENGINES IN A LITERATURE REVIEW
TEACHING ACTIVITIES FOR CHAPTER 4
Activity 1. Your university’s library resources.
We have found it helpful to have a university librarian explain the library resources available to students. The
librarian might wish you to bring your class to the library for this purpose. The librarian can show where hard-copy
reference books and journals are located. The librarian also can explain how students can log into the library’s
Activity 2. Using a search engine.
It is important for students to become comfortable using search engines. All of them are likely to have used
Google, Yahoo, or similar application, but few may realize that they are generic search engines with specific
features and limitations. We recommend that you emphasize, and introduce students to, ERIC, because it focuses on
education, includes citations to most of the education research literature, and provides a free online version that is
easy to use.
If students have laptops available, you can have them log into ERIC (http://www.eric.ed.gov) and ask them to
do a search in unison with you. You can conduct different searches using different search criteria, with them
searching along with you. If students do not have laptops, but you have a laptop connected to a projection screen,
Activity 3. Identifying relevant literature reviews.
Students need to know that literature reviews about educational topics and problems that interest them are likely
to be available. To help them reach this understanding, you can give students a homework assignment that requires
MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST ITEMS FOR CHAPTER 4
1. Bibliographic citations
a. typically list only the author, title, publication year, and publisher of a source
b. can be used to identify journal articles and books, but not conference proceedings.
c. provide various kinds of information about a publication.
d. can be found in bibliographic indexes, but not in search engines.
2. An example of fugitive literature would be a
a. research study that was published in a journal that primarily publishes opinion articles.
b. paper presented at a conference that did not publish its proceedings.
c. research study whose findings were refuted by subsequent research studies.
d. research study whose authors cannot be contacted for queries about its findings.
3. If you enter a keyword in a search engine, it will look for
a. definitions of that word.
b. any publication that has that word in its title.
c. any publication that has been classified by that word by bibliographic indexers.
d. any occurrence of that word in its database.
4. The search engine specifically designed for educators is
a. ERIC.
B. PsycInfo.
C. AltaVisa.
D. Bibliographic Index Plus.
5. A good search engine for obtaining information about the demographics and performance of American
schools is
a. National Center for Education Statistics.
b. Web of Science.
c. PsycInfo.
d. ERIC.
6. If one wishes to identify journal articles that cited a particular publication, one would use
a. Google Scholar.
b. Web of Science.
c. Library of Congress Online Catalog.
d. PsycInfo.
7. Search engines are available for
a. dissertations.
b. newspaper articles.
c. book reviews.
d. all of the above.
8. Citation managers are helpful for
a. keeping track of search criteria that were used for searches involving the same search engine.
b. keeping track of search criteria that were used for searches involving different search engines.
c. identifying which search engines will be most useful for a particular educational topic.
d. storing and retrieving bibliographic citations that one identifies during a literature search.
9. Online journals
a. are available on institutional databases, but not on the Internet.
b. also might be available in hard-copy format.
c. contain articles about professional practice, but not articles that report original research.
d. require at least a small fee to access them.
10. A DOI is
a. a website containing a database of fugitive literature.
b. an identifier used in the ERIC database.
c. an identifier used to link a publication to its location on the Internet.
d. a method for identifying search terms on the Internet.
11. Encyclopedias, handbooks, and NSSE Yearbooks are good sources of
a. research studies not found in professional journals.
b. literature reviews.
c. bibliographic indexes.
d. search engines for specific problems of practice.
12. The What Works Clearinghouse
a. is a comprehensive search engine for research on elementary school instruction.
b. is a service offered by the American Educational Research Association.
c. reviews the literature to identify school systems that have achieved a specified standard of
excellence.
d. reviews the literature for evidence about the effectiveness of various educational programs.
SHORT-ANSWER TEST ITEMS FOR CHAPTER 4
1. List three search engines and, for each of them, describe in one sentence how it can be used in a literature
search.
2. Why is it important to maintain a log of your use of search engines to locate publications on a particular topic?
3. State two criteria that can be used to judge the quality of a literature review.
CHAPTER 4
USING SEARCH ENGINES IN A LITERATURE REVIEW
Multiple-Choice Test Items
Short-Answer Test Items