Learning how to search an Electronic Database

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Learning how to search an Electronic Database
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Overview of Search Strategy

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Link terms with or to identify additional terms
  / concepts
• Repeat step 1-3 until all are defined
• Link groups of terms with and to find common
  results
• Evaluate results
• Debowski, S., Bandura, A., Wood, R. (2001)

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Selecting a topic

• Instructors Demonstration Topic
• Job satisfaction and organizational commitment
• Students Practice Topic
• Job turnover and stress

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After Selecting a concept

• Develop questions to clarify concept
• E.g., with instructors topic
• What is job satisfaction?
• What is organizational commitment?
• How are they related? (motivation? Pay? Awards?)
• E.g., w/student practice topic

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Generate Keywords to describe concept

• Organizational commitment
• Employees loyalty
• Turnover
• Absenteeism

• Job satisfaction
• Employee happiness
• Employee satisfaction
• Employee well-being
• Attitudes of employees

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Students Generate Key Words

• Generate a list of keywords relevant to your
  practice topic
• Use the PsycInfo worksheet to help organize your
  keywords

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Next Steps in Search Strategy

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Self-generated
• Database generated
• How to start database
• Debowski, S., Bandura, A., Wood, R. (2001)

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How to Access Database

• Go to library websitehttp//main.library.utoront
  o.ca/
• Option 1 Select PsycInfo under Frequently
  used article databases
• Option 2 Using e-resources
• Differences between on-campus vs. off- campus
  access

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Screen when you arrive at Library Website

• For Demo Select PsycInfo under Frequently
  used article databases

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Retrieving the Database on campus

• You will be connected to PsycInfo directly when
  you Select PsycInfo under Frequently used
  article databases in the library website

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Retrieving the database off campus

• If you are off campus, you will be brought to a
  screen like this

Step 1 Click on Connect to this resource
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Retrieving the database off campus

• Step 2 Enter your library bar code and the last
  4 digits of your student number

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How to Access Database

• Go to library websitehttp//main.library.utoront
  o.ca/
• Option 1 Select PsycInfo under Frequently
  used article databases
• Option 2 Using e-resources
• Differences between on-campus vs. off- campus
  access

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Screen when you have logged into Psycinfo
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Next steps in Search Strategy

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Self-generated
• Database generated
• How to start database?
• How to get keywords from database?

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Go to the Thesaurus by clicking on the
appropriate tab
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Screen when you arrive at the Thesaurus
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Getting Key Words by Using the Thesaurus

• First, select the best display option to display
  results
• HIERARCHICAL keywords organized by
  relationships
• Second, type in self generated key words (e.g.
  Job satisfaction) Press Go

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Screen after typing in a keyword in Thesaurus

• Click on the entries with to show more
  related keywords
• Note down useful keywords on practice sheet

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Exploring the results of your search in Thesaurus
to get more keywords

• E.g. click on attitude
• Scroll down and see Employee attitude and
  Employer attitude

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Other ways of identifying Useful Key Words with
Thesaurus

• Recall, we chose Hierarchical display option
  before
• This gives us related keywords organized by
  relationships
• Try using alternative display options" to
  display results in a different way.
• Alphabetical related keywords displayed
  alphabetically
• Rotated displays keywords that contain the
  search terms

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Students Practice using Thesaurus

• Use the thesaurus to identify useful keywords for
  your practice topic
• Familiarize yourself with the thesaurus option
• EXPLORE!!!

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Next steps of Search Strategy

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Link terms with or to identify additional terms
  / concepts
• Repeat step 1-3 until all are defined
• Link groups of terms with and to find common
  results
• Evaluate results
• Debowski, S., Bandura, A., Wood, R. (2001)

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Link keywords with or

• When?
• After you have a list of related keywords
• Why?
• To broaden our search results

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How to Link keywords with or

• Check the relevant keywords
• On the right hand frame, select use OR to
  broaden
• Click Search

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Examine preliminary results from or search to
identify new keywords

• Descriptors on the right hand side of a record
  help to identify new keywords

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Examine results from or search to identify
misleading keywords
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What have we learned so far?

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Self-generated
• Database generated
• Identify relevant key words using the thesaurus
• Connect key words with Or
• Search with Or
• But.

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Mis-identifying keywords

• E.g., for the concept of job satisfaction
  Search for employee happiness using the
  thesaurus

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Screen when you have mis-identified keywords

• The term employee happiness is not found in the
  thesaurus

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What to do if your search has no result?

• Dont panic if nothing matches with your search
  key, error is an excellent way to learn and
  discover new search terms (Van der linden et al.,
  2001)
• Look at the list of closest terms and check if
  there are relevant clues
• If not, try searching the thesaurus using a
  different search term
• e.g. employee satisfaction

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Back on trackSearch using Or

• E.g., Search for job satisfaction
• Use satisfaction or employee attitude

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Another way to Link Key Words with or

• Click on the Search History
• Enables you to refer back to your previous
  searches
• To link your searches Type 1 or 2
• E.g., to link Search 1 and search 2

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More Ideas on how to Link Key Words with or

• Pair different keywords with or during initial
  stages of searching
• Why? To broaden your search results help
  identify new concepts

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Interim Summary Linking key words with or

• Results in a large number of records
• Results are useful in helping you understand one
  concept
• E.g., job satisfaction
• Can learn about useful search terms by keeping an
  eye on the right hand column

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Students Practiceon Computer by Linking terms
with Or
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Next Steps of Search Strategy

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Link terms with or to identify additional terms
  / concepts
• Repeat step 1-3 until all terms defined
• Link groups of terms with and to find common
  results
• Evaluate results

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When to Link keywords with And

• After identifying all possible key words for your
  each of your main terms i.e., organizational
  commitment and job satisfaction
• Then, use AND to find out how organizational
  commitment and job satisfaction are related

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How to Link key words with and

• Go to Link Search History

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Screen in Search History

• Scroll down and you will see a list of terms that
  you have worked with under search history

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Link terms with and

• In the New search box, type in the search
  number and link them with and
• Press Enter

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Examining Results of Linking Keywords with and
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What we learned from examining Results of search
of Linking Keywords with and

• Results contain both keywords you selected
• Implication Pairing up different keywords can
  generate useful results
• Explore, test hypotheses, make informed
  generalizations
• Van der Linden et al., 2001 Debowski et al., 2001

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Students PracticeSearch with and

• Link terms with and to find out the
  relationship between the two concepts variables

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Next Steps of Search Stragey

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Link terms with or to identify additional terms
  / concepts
• Repeat step 1-3 until all terms defined
• Link groups of terms with and to find common
  results
• Evaluate understand results

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Understanding information in a record to evaluate
it
Source (name of journal, volume etc)
Title of the article
Author
Descriptors (list of search keys associated with
this article)
Link to full text version of the article if
online version available What will be displayed
if not online?
Abstract of article
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Display if article may not be online

• Click on Get it! U of T Libraries

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Retrieving an article that may not be online
through Get it! Option 1

• Click on the link that offers a full text version
  of the article

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Getting soft copy of article from library via
Get it link in Database

• Follow the link if an online version is available

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Retrieving an article that may not be online
through Get it! Option 2

• If full text version of the article is not
  available from other databases

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Search the library catalogue for print version of
article

• Click on search the library catalogue

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Retrieving hard copy of article in the library
Click here to find out info about the library
(e.g. location, opening hours etc)
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Next Steps of Search Stragey

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Link terms with or to identify additional terms
  / concepts
• Repeat step 1-3 until all terms defined
• Link groups of terms with and to find common
  results
• Evaluate understand results

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Exploring a record in detail

• Click on the title of the article to assess
  article
• The abstract,
• The reference list

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Evaluate Results

• Read the abstract on the results and determine
  the ones that are useful to you.
• Try to note the descriptors of each useful
  result
• If necessary, repeat step 1-4 with different
  keywords that you have jotted down to search for
  related articles

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Students Evaluate results

• Examine your results and make sure you understand
  the information as displayed
• Try emailing to yourself
• If results do not look relevant, repeat the
  search process to get better results

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Next Steps

• Identify keywords
• Using the thesaurus
• Linking terms with or
• Linking terms with and
• Understand search results
• Retrieve full text versions of articles
• Email results

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Emailing yourself the results Step 1
Click here to email the results
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Emailing yourself the results Step 2
Type in your email address and click the email
button
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Overview of Search Strategy

• Select a concept
• Identify correct terms to describe the concept
• Link terms with or to identify additional terms
  / concepts
• Repeat step 1-3 until all are defined
• Link groups of terms with and to find common
  results
• Evaluate results
• Debowski, S., Bandura, A., Wood, R. (2001)

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Aside Using Advanced Search

• Advanced search allows you to search for articles
  if you have specific information (such as
  specific descriptors that you want to search for)
• Good tool to search for a particular article

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Aside Advanced Search Screen
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Aside Advanced Search Options

• You can search using the common methods
• Keywords (KW)
• Author (AU)
• Title (TI)
• Descriptors (DE)

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Searching for a specific article

• If you want to search this article, you put in

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Searching for a specific article

• Or you can put in the title
• Try searching with different options to discover
  the most efficient method!!!

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How to find meta-analysis articles?

• Go to the advanced search screen
• Select Methodology and type in meta analysis
  as the search key
• You can use the same strategy for searching
  empirical studies, quantitative studies etc.

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Help Support

• If you run into troubles, there is always the
  Help Support section

Just click here!!!
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Help Support

• Click on the Content tab
• Select relevant topics on the right hand panel to
  get your answers

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Help Support

• Try developing different search statements using
  the different keywords and the Boolean operators
  (And, or etc)
• Dont panic if results do not seem useful / no
  results are retrieved
• Modify your search statement and try again
• We all learn from trying out different options
  and making errors