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Finding Relevant Academic Literature By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Friday, February 19, 2016 Post 212
“The first step in the research process is determining an area in need of exploration” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2016). No doubt that all of us teaching professionals get to be bewildered by phenomena (behaviors, test items yielding unexpected results, difficulty in the instructional design of learning tasks for students, etc.) that can be easily spotted within the four walls of our classrooms. Any of these areas linked to education are the ones “in need of exploration” to really know what the reasons underlying the “problem” can be and what informed actions can be taken to profit from it, to make corrective changes, and so on. “In academic research,” the exploration process “is often accomplished by reviewing the literature” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2016) connected to the areas in need of inspection for better comprehension. “However, locating literature that is relevant, scholarly, and current can be a challenging task” (Laureate Education, Inc.,
2016). The literature review can indeed start with trying to find trustful resources on the web, but usually a research project cannot only rely on these sources. The search for present articles dealing with one’s topic of research can become a bit of a problem if databases are not accessed and used in one’s project. “As a researcher, you must be able to know where to find information and how to examine sources for relevancy” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2016). “Research databases that are retrieved on the World Wide Web are generally non-fee based, lack in-depth indexing, and do not index proprietary resources” (Research Databases, 2015). An example for this kind of database is Google Scholar that, though is quite helpful to spot information on the Internet, it often leaves out articles, or books’ pages since the researcher is meant to access that information by means of a subscription. “Subscription or commercial database are more refined with various types of indexing features, searching capabilities, and help guides” (Research Databases, 2015). Understanding that “research databases are organized collections of computerized information or data such as periodical articles, books, graphics and multimedia that can be searched to retrieve information” (Research Databases, 2015), at Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, where I currently work, faculty members and university students have access to 16 different types. For the sake of research in my field of teaching, which is education and ELT (English Language Teaching), some of them are quite good, such as the ones highlighted in the following screenshot: The ones that stand out for us interested in education are eLibrary and EBSCO Host.
Due to the fact that “a Research Database contains reliable, accurate and authoritative information gathered together in one place, and provides convenient and quick access to the information� (Database FAQs - Why use a Research Datababase, n.d.), eLibrary and EBSCO Host are great choices for researchers in education. At this point of my academic, serving as an example of my current scholarly life, I am interested in finding a bit more regarding peer feedback. My research topic for my following project is what the perception of students is when it comes to peer feedback, its relevance to their language and public speaking development, and the comfortability of each learner to coach a partner instead of the instructor. All of these grounded on the fact that this feedback is provided to peers via the university Moodle platform after submitting their mini speeches previously video recorded. By means of EBSCO Host I found an article in the journal of Assessment &
Evaluation in Higher Education, 2014 Vol. 39, No. 1, 102/122 entitled Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective. And by means of eLibrary I was able to spot a book edited by Reitbauer, M., Campbell, N., & Mercer, S., whose name is Feedback Matters, Current Feedback Practices in the EFL
Classroom. In addition, the reason why these two pieces of data have been chosen is connected to “literature that is relevant, scholarly, and current.�
References Database FAQs - Why use a Research Datababase. (n.d.). Retrieved from Scituate Town Library: http://www.scituatetownlibrary.org/reference_db_faq.html Laureate Education, Inc. (2016). Academic Research. Retrieved from Faculty Development: https://lnps.elearning.laureate.net/
Research Databases. (2015, December 8). Retrieved from Prince George's Community College: http://pgcc.libguides.com/c.php?g=60038&p=385667