Proquest Search Explained

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Middle reflection questionnaire

Questionnaire 2

1.     Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.

·       That inquiry learning in history is a natural way for students to enagage with historical knowledge and understandings rather than simply acquiring facts.

·       However in practice this is not what is always undertaken. Inquiry based learning as an approach is not often used by teachers in the classroom.

·       An emphasis on Inquiry is proposed by the new Australian History curriculum

·       There is minimal information about inquiry based learning in history or social studies for early years students

·       When inquiry is used with children it needs to be guided by the teacher to ensure that they are working towards a deeper level of understanding. Appropriate questioning can be one vehicle to help them move forward and teaching them relevant skills to search, collect, organise and understand information.

2. How interested are you in this topic?  Quite a bit

3. How much do you know about this topic?   Quite a bit

4. Thinking of your research so far - what did you find easy to do? Please list as many things as you like.

·       Once I started to research using the databases I became more confident. I started to build up lots of resources

·       I began to explore different ways of searching, using a variety of search terms and trying different approaches. Experimenting with the limiters and filters etc

·       The actual skills of using Boolean operators and managing each data base is getting easier

5.  Thinking of your research so far - what did you find difficult to do? Please list as many things as you like.

·       Sorting out what is really relevant to my search

·       Formulating a clear focus for my essay

·       The organisation of the information collected was difficult, especially as the amount grew!

·       It is difficult finding material that is specific to the lower primary situation and specifically to history. Elementary and primary are sometimes too broad.

·       I am not able to read everything thoroughly while I am searching so I am collecting more than I need. It seems a bit mountainous at the moment. I really don’t feel as though I am gaining a lot more knowledge about the topic as I have not had the time to really engage with the materials, I’ve been too consumed with collecting.

·       It was difficult to keep track of where all my information was coming from. I started to note down on the printed documents what database it came from, but this was probably a bit too late in the search process.

Starting to focus and link ideas

In an attempt to make sense of some of the articles that I have been collecting I have used the web2.0 tool, "Bubbl.us" to make notes of the key ideas, themes and sources that I kept encountering in my searching.

The colour coding, added in the following mind map has been an attempt to link like concepts and ideas.

This process was extremely helpful to me in trying to make sense of a huge array of information. It was the basis of the formulation of my focus. This technique would be a useful intervention tool to use with students when they are in that stage of information overload and they need some direction to make sense of all their information. Callison (2006) would support the use of tables, charts and mindmaps etc as a means of organising information and communicating your understanding of the relationships between ideas. This could also provide a valuable means of assessment of a student's level of inquiry and the evidence needed to guide the type of intervention needed to help students to move forward in their investigation.  

Focus! Focus! Focus!

Since my last post I have had a few more sessions of database searching. I have used A+ and Eric. Some of these search results will be elaborated on in future blogs. However, over the past couple of days since I have started to search the databases I have found that the following things have occurred:

1. I have become more confident in using search terms and Boolean operators. I have been more likely to deviate away from the step by step instructions of the demonstration videos to see if another way works or what it may bring up. In the process I have probably been taken off onto many tangents, spent way too much time there for only a few possible results and collected information that is not entirely useful. This can be over whelming at times.
2. Some common themes and ideas have started to occur more frequently in some of the information that I have found. For example, the idea of historical inquiry as a disciplined inquiry; the use of artifacts and object-based inquiry when undertaking historical inquiry; and the use of narratives and personal stories as a natural way into historical inquiry for elementary students. This has helped me to distinguish between articles in terms of their usefulness if there were common themes coming through in the key points or the titles.
3. I have started to form a focus for the context essay or a direction that I think it will take. I have moved on from the mere collection of information that I hope will be useful to a more purposeful collection with a vision to how it might shape my essay. This was not a straight forward process. I seemed to go backwards and forwards over the information drawing together the common themes and then returning to the outline for the essay and the elements that I thought it should contain contain. There were times when I thought it was starting to come together in my mind and then I'd come across other information that would throw my focus off course. This seemed to happen over and over again! All of this is a step forward as I try to make sense of the information and try to assimilate it with my existing knowledge and the demands of the task.  

Reflections..
Upon reflection I can see that at this point in the process, my search is mirroring the third and fourth phases of Kuhlthau's Model of the Information Search Process (2007). These stages are "exploration" and "formulation."I expected that once I started searching the databases that I would find the information and then everything would start to fall into place. However instead of it being easy, I found that the information challenged my previous thinking and presented me with new theories and ideas that I struggled to make sense of, in terms of my ILA with my Year 3 group. I was confused and overwhelmed with the amount of information and how it would fit neatly into an inquiry learning model for me to follow or adapt. It wasn't going to be that easy! My struggle was with the way that I was going to utilise the various sources of information in a new cohesive way to inform my learning activity. Kuhlthau asserts that this is the stage where the real learning begins because these uncertainties drive you to find meaning. I was really struggling as a result of my uncertainty as to how I was going to connect all my new found information. 
Once I identified that my focus would be to answer the question, "What are the theories, models and curriculum documents that have informed my Information Learning Activity?" I began to search more purposefully and I started to feel like I had regained some control over where I was heading.
I have also been able to identify with the early stages of Callison's model, "The Five Elements of Information Inquiry (2006). My information searching lead me to new information which in turn triggered questions and further exploration. As the trends in the information surfaced (as mentioned above) I was able to gather information that confirmed my initial ideas. This was starting to feel like the way forward and it felt safe. However when I came upon new information that identified the importance of narratives and stories as a way into historical inquiry I needed to construct new understandings for my ILA (Colby, 2008). Callison calls this element, "assimilation" where new knowledge is merged with previous understandings to form a new view or perspective. This involves reflective questioning and analysis each time new information is encountered and is thus a cyclical process encountered many times in the information search process. I feel that at this stage Callison's approach is a more accurate match for my experiences than the Kuhlthau ISP because I identify more strongly with that continuous cycle of questioning, exploring, assimilating, inferring and reflecting each time new information is encountered.  

Ready! Set! Search!

Image from Kara Allyson

Today's the day to get serious and start searching. I feel well supported in this because of the modelling provided in tutorials and online. The fact that the demonstrations are recorded means that I can keep referring to them as needed. They have provided me with the support and intervention that I needed to move forward from the first two phases (Initiation and Selection) of the Kuhlthau ISP mentioned in the previous post.

Google Scholar

Given all that information, I thought that I would start with familiar territory - Google! Although I used Google Scholar and not the regular Google open web page search.
Firstly I needed to identify the various synonyms that could be used for the various keywords in my topic.
So for Year 3 I identified: Year 3 - Grade 3-  Year Three - Grade Three
For Inquiry I identified: Inquiry-based learning - Inquiry learning - Inquiry
For History I identified: History - SOSE - Social Studies
I knew that I didn't need to use the Boolean operator AND in Google Scholar because it automatically added the next term with the previous one. I did use OR as a Boolean operator to try and ensure that I included the various terms that I had identified above. So my first search  was:
("Year 3" OR "Grade 3" OR "Year Three" OR "Grade Three") ("Inquiry-Based Learning" OR "Inquiry Learning" OR "Inquiry") (History OR "SOSE" OR "Social Studies")
A grand total of 16 300 hits! To commemorate the occasion I took a screenshot. (Clicking on the screenshot will enlarge it for viewing)

Obviously too broad and there are a lot of science related results. I know that the Boolean operator Not doesn't work in Google so I need to use -science instead. However I'm not sure of the bracket placement with the minus sign so I experiment with it. 
The first time I do it like this:
("Year 3" OR "Grade 3" OR "Year Three" OR "Grade Three") ("Inquiry-Based Learning" OR "Inquiry Learning" OR "Inquiry") (History OR "SOSE" OR "Social Studies") (- science)
But this still yields 15 900 results and science is still appearing.
So I try:
("Year 3" OR "Grade 3" OR "Year Three" OR "Grade Three") ("Inquiry-Based Learning" OR "Inquiry Learning" OR "Inquiry") (History OR "SOSE" OR "Social Studies" -science)
I'm encouraged with 7060 results. Still too many but halved from the initial attempt. Some useful looking articles but some dating from the 1980's. My next step is to place some limits on the age of the data. So I narrow it down by limiting the information to those articles since 2001:

That's better but the articles do seem to be all over the place, like for med students and women's groups. Perhaps Year 3 and Grade three is not just pertaining to schools. Perhaps I need to try primary and elementary as search terms instead. I had thought that those term would make it too broad. This is a real trial and error process:
("Primary" OR "elementary" ) ("Inquiry-Based Learning" OR "Inquiry Learning" OR "Inquiry") (History OR "SOSE" OR "Social Studies" -science) 
This yielded 35 700! I think that by adding the word school to primary and elementary and using the quotation marks so that the full phrase "Primary school" or "elementary school" is identified, will narrow it down. 

("Primary school" OR "elementary school" ) ("Inquiry-Based Learning" OR "Inquiry Learning" OR "Inquiry") (History OR "SOSE" OR "Social Studies"  -science)

That's better, 10, 800. But still seem to getting science related articles as well. I'm feeling more adventurous so I'll drop SOSE to see if that impacts on the science results. I also think I have an extra space before the -science which might be impacting. I'll change the word school to students as well. I feel I'm getting closer to the more useful articles! Here goes!
("Primary students" OR "elementary students" ) ("Inquiry-Based Learning" OR "Inquiry Learning" OR "Inquiry") (History OR "Social Studies" -science)
Bingo! 736 results! Much better and no science articles. This is encouraging and a few more useful articles have appeared. A little frustrating if you need to subscribe to get an article but some are available as a full text from QUT. I have even worked out how to access the back issues of Social Studies Research and Practice. This should be a source of useful readings for my area.
Another limiting feature I have discovered is that my Year 3 students are in between Early Childhood and Middle Primary/Elementary.  The elementary banding covers quite a few years and grade levels. It does seem more appropriate to align them with the elementary literature and make some adaptations as the Early Childhood materials often are too young or simplistic.


ENOUGH for one day. My head is spinning and the collection of useful materials is growing but I feel satisfied that I am moving in the right direction . . . . . . . . . . I THINK!