The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Search Tips

This guide provides resources to support research into teaching and learning in higher education.

Searching Multiple Databases

When you're searching for information related to teaching and learning, a simple trick can enable you to search multiple EBSCOhost databases at once, thereby maximizing your time spent searching. 

The simplest way to do this is to start at the database Education Research Complete. Just above the search box, click on "Choose Databases" (highlighted below). 

Image of how to choose databases

From the list, choose the type of databases you want to search. For the scholarship of teaching and learning, choose Education. Click "OK." 

Now, you'll be able to search all of these databases at the same time, with any duplicates automatically filtered out of your search results. 

Citation Chaining with Google Scholar

Once you've found one article that interests you, an easy way to find similar articles is to check out who has cited the original article. Google Scholar makes it really easy to find these other articles. 

Start at the Google Scholar homepage (scholar.google.com) and enter the name of the article in quotation marks (see below). 

From the results list, you should see the article you're looking for. To see which other articles have cited it since its publication, click on "Cited by ---" (highlighted below). 

Now you have a new results list of articles related to the original article. 

Searching by Journal

In addition to searching an entire database, you can also limit your search to a particular journal. To do this in any of the EBSCOhost databases listed under the "Resources" tab, simply enter your search terms in as many search boxes as necessary, and then add the name of the journal to the next search box. Putting quotation marks around the journal title will ensure that the database looks for those exact terms. Then, in the drop-down box, choose "SO Source" (see image below). 

Now you'll be searching only in that particular journal. 

Limiting to higher education

When you're searching in education-related databases, you'll quickly find that these databases cover education at all levels, not just higher education. If you're interested only in higher education research, you'll want to make sure you add search terms that help limit your search to higher education. Adding (higher education OR college OR university OR postsecondary) to a search box will help filter out any sources that are not related to college and university education.