Basic Online Searching Term Paper:
Comprehensive Subject Search and Evaluation
(PDF version here)
Step A: Defining a loose query for “grade inflation”
The patron’s request has several “noise words” and fillers, which distract from the core information need: documents on “grade inflation.” An initial keyword search for <(”grade inflation”)> retrieves 291 results. While this is a substantial result set, it is also limiting since it only retrieves this exact phrase, in this word order. A search for <(grade AND inflation)> which unlocks the word order and does not search for exact phrase, retrieves 325 results. Yet without truncation this query does not find variants of the search terms. The search <(grade* AND inflat*)> generates 386 results. <(inflat*)> returns variants of the root word “inflate,” like inflating, inflated, inflates, and inflation. <(grade*)> finds variants of the root word “grade,” like grades, graded, and grader. One article retrieved by this search that would not have been found if truncation were not used is “Use of Part-Time Faculty in Higher Education” whose abstract states, “They may inflate student grades or pander to students in an effort to assure a continuing contract.” The truncation of <(grade*)> however, does not retrieve the variant “grading.” The most inclusive search for the core concept of “grade inflation” is <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*)> which returns 388 results.
Step B: Narrowing the initial query by adding “higher education” concept
The patron’s statement that he was a professor and is now a college administration consultant implies that he is interested in grade inflation in colleges and universities. To make the search more relevant to his interests, the search query must be narrowed to include information about this additional concept. The most obvious two-word compound term that describes college and university level education is “higher education.” Instead of using a NOT Boolean operator to exclude items about elementary and secondary school, a positive AND operator can be used to add the “higher education” concept. The search query <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”)> narrows the initial result set by about 40% to retrieve 234 results.
A quick scan of the results shows that several of the articles are highly relevant, and have the phrases “Grade Inflation” and “Higher Education” as descriptors.
However, 234 hits is an unwieldy and overwhelming number of results to give to a patron, so an even narrower query is appropriate.
Step C: Further narrowing the query by adding “faculty evaluation” concept
After further questioning, the patron reveals that he is interested in a specific aspect of higher education grade inflation—the relationship between grade inflation and students’ evaluation of faculty. The patron’s statement, again, contains several unnecessary filler words that distract from the important additional concept of “faculty evaluation.” The query <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”) AND (“faculty evaluation”)> narrows the result set considerably, but is too restrictive returning only 6 results. It is necessary to use truncation to find variants of the search terms “faculty” and “evaluate” and to use the Boolean AND to allow for any word order of the terms. The query <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”) AND (facult* AND evaluat*)> retrieves 43 results. Several of these are highly relevant and include descriptors related to the patron’s query: “Grade Inflation,” “Higher Education,” “College Faculty,” and “Evaluation Criteria.”
[Note: After submitting this paper I realized that I should not have used truncation for faculty. Although truncation may retrieve “faculties” and “facultative” neither is needed.]
However, to narrow the search even further to generate about 20 articles, proximity operators are used. The NEAR operator, when used between the truncated terms “facult*” and “evaluat*,” finds articles where these terms appear within 10 words of each other and in any order. The query <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”) AND (facult* NEAR (evaluat*)> retrieves 24 results.
Step D: Modifying the query to the patron’s preference for English-language journal articles
The patron indicates that he is interested in English-language journal articles. In the CSA version of ERIC, simply checking the appropriate boxes allows modification of a search by limiting by language and document type.
The query <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”) AND (facult* NEAR (evaluat*)> limited to English-language journal articles retrieves 9 results.
Step E: Broadening the “faculty” concept by including synonyms
To broaden the result set, synonyms and quasi-synonyms are added to the search query. Terms that are related in meaning to “faculty” are: teacher, professor, researcher and instructor. Truncating these synonyms to find their singular and plural forms helps to broaden the result set. The new query, <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”) AND (facult* OR teacher* OR professor* OR researcher* OR instructor*) NEAR (evaluat*)> still limited to English-language journal articles retrieves 19 results—a good, manageable number of items for the patron’s request.
Scanning the result list confirms that the items found by this query are both relevant and pertinent to the patron’s information need. Several records are included which have the highly relevant descriptors of “Grade Inflation,” “Higher Education,” and “Student Evaluation of Teacher Performance.”
Step F: Running the query in Sociological Abstracts
The patron’s additional request for articles with sociological and psychological emphasis of the issue is easily handled by running the same query in other, more appropriate databases. In CSA, switching between databases is achieved by selecting the “Change Specific Databases” link that appears at the bottom of the result screen. The link leads to a list of databases within CSA that are available for searching. As the screenshot below illustrates, Sociological Abstracts, PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES are all available in CSA.
The query from Step B, <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (“higher education”)> limited to English-language journal articles retrieves 8 results in Sociological Abstracts.
Only 1 of these items is relevant, “Grade Inflation in Higher Education: Its Causes and Consequences.”
Step G: Running the query in PsycINFO
Following the method mentioned above, switching to PsycINFO from Sociological Abstracts is a simple matter of clicking the link to “Change Specific Databases.” It is not necessary to log in again to CSA, and the previous search history remains intact. The same query from Step F retrieves 5 results in PsycINFO, including 2 highly relevant results: “Grade Inflation and Student Individual Differences as Systematic Bias in Faculty Evaluations,” and “Does Grade Inflation Affect the Reliability of Grades?”
Step H: Running the query in PsycARTICLES
Again, switching to PsycARTICLES without having to log in again is an easy process because this database is also available through CSA. The query from Step F produces zero results in PsycARTICLES. A simple change in the pull-down menu modifies the search so that the concept of “higher education” is searched in the Anywhere Index rather than in the Keyword Index.
The query <(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (Anywhere = “higher education”)> limited to English-language journal articles retrieves 1 relevant result.
Step I: Running the query in Web of Science
Web of Science is the only database searched for this term paper that is not included in CSA. Because of the different interface, it is necessary to modify the search query in order for it to work correctly with the Web of Science search syntax. In CSA, the Keyword Index was searched. In Web of Science, the Topic Index is the analogous field as indicated by the help file, which states that a query in the Topic Index “searches within article titles, keywords, or abstracts.” The help file also confirms that Web of Science treats the truncation symbol * in the same way as CSA, allowing that part of the search query to remain the same. In order to limit the results by language and document type, a selection must be made at the bottom of the search screen.
The adapted query from Step B <Topic= (grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") restricted to English-language journal articles retrieves 11 results, 5 of which are highly relevant.
Evaluation of Cited and Citing References
Each of the CSA databases—Sociological Abstracts, PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES—display in their results lists whether cited or citing references are available for the records. The display also indicates the number of citing articles. This saves the searcher the additional step of having to link to the full record to discover this information. However, not all records in the results list are enhanced by direct links to cited or citing references. In these instances the user does not know whether an article has been cited or how many times, and must link to the full text of the article to find the cited references. For example, it was necessary for me to follow the link to the full text of the relevant article in Sociological Abstracts in order to find the list of that article’s cited references. Web of Science’s result list shows the number of times each record is cited, with a direct link to a list of the citing articles. This is more informative than the CSA databases because even if an article has been cited zero times, that information is included in Web of Science, whereas uncertainty about times cited remains in CSA. Unlike the CSA databases, Web of Science does not include direct links to cited references in its result list. The user must open the full record to access that information.
The cited reference lists in PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES and Web of Science all display the basic bibliographic information of the cited works. In addition to this basic information, Web of Science provides direct links to the full records of some of the cited items. The reference lists in PsycINFO anf PsycARTICLES are enhanced by several powerful direct links. The user can access the full text of the cited articles (either as HTML or PDF) as well as their abstracts and citing references. The display also indicates at a glance, each reference’s number of citing articles.
The basic bibliographic information in the citing reference lists in Web of Science is enhanced by direct links to the citing reference’s full record, full text, and its own citing references. Again, the number of citing references is prominently displayed.
The citing reference lists in the CSA databases include the same enhancements as their cited reference lists—there are direct links to full text, abstracts, citing and cited references. In addition, the user can link to the Table of Contents of the source journal as well as the reference’s descriptors, both of which can lead to other possibly relevant articles.
Summary of Final Queries
Step |
Database |
Search Query |
# Results |
|
|
|
|
A |
ERIC |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) |
388 |
|
|
|
|
B |
ERIC |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") |
234 |
|
|
|
|
C |
ERIC |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") AND (facult* NEAR evaluat*) |
24 |
|
|
|
|
D |
ERIC |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") AND (facult* NEAR evaluat*) limited to English-only Journal Articles |
9 |
|
|
|
|
E |
ERIC |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") AND (facult* OR teacher* OR professor* OR researcher* OR instructor) NEAR (evaluat*) limited to English-only Journal Articles |
19 |
|
|
|
|
F |
Sociological Abstracts |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") limited to English-language Journal Articles |
8 |
|
|
|
|
G |
PsycINFO |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") limited to English-language Journal Articles |
5 |
|
|
|
|
H |
PsycARTICLES |
(grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND (Anywhere= "higher education") limited to English-language Journal Articles |
1 |
|
|
|
|
I |
Web of Science |
Topic= (grade* OR grading) AND (inflat*) AND ("higher education") restricted to English-language Journal Articles |
11 |
