WorldCat
About WorldCat:
WorldCat is the
world's largest network of library content and services. It allows users to locate items, but it does
not grant users access to those items.
The user must get permission from the library which houses the item in order
to access the item.
Search Query:
- Is there a correlation between students that are identified as having a learning disability and the high school dropout rate?
After a Quick and Dirty search of the database using my original facets, I decided to change my concept analysis for this database.
Facet 1
|
Facet 2
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Concept
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graduation rate
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learning disability
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I conducted an advanced search using the following natural
language terms: graduation rate and learning disabilities. I placed both search terms in the keyword
field. Then I added a date range of 2012
– 2014 and farther narrowed my search to audience, non-juvenile and English
language.
The results yield 122 hits.
Since high recall means low precision, I tried to reduce the number of
hits by examining the limiters on the left side of the page. However, I did not see a limiter that would
be helpful. The most relevant item was
number 13 on the list, Comparison of high
school graduation rates of students with disabilities and their peers in twelve
southern states. This article can be
found in the Eric database.
What I learned: Content
This study also
indicated that the rate of graduation for students without disabilities is
higher than that of students with disabilities.
Once again students with emotional disabilities had the poorest
graduation rate. One of the interesting new
findings from this article is that students with disabilities exit school with
a diploma, followed by drop out, and then attainment of a certificate. This is the first time that I have seen data
about the various ways a student can exit high school. Before reading this article, I thought that the exit rate via attainment of a certificate was higher, than
that of the dropout rate, since so many schools steer students with
disabilities towards the certificate route rather than the diploma route.
Second Search:
Since WorldCat contains the world's largest network
of library content, I thought that I should look for a book relevant to my
topic. I conducted the same search; however, I limited the format to book. I did not find a book that directly addresses
my query. After examining the hits, I
found that the majority of the books about learning disabilities in this database
contain information about how to address various learning disabilities in the
classroom. My best hit for this search
was: Enhancing instructional problem solving: an efficient system for assisting
struggling learners.
Although, I was
unable to access its content; I was able to read the summary provided by
WorldCat. This book presents a problem-solving
model of instruction that is compatible with the response to intervention
model.
What I learned: Searching
World Cat is the
largest OPAC in the world and it is constantly changing, due to the number of
libraries from around the world that are constantly adding new records. Therefore, it is very difficult to replicate
a search from one day to the next without seeing some differences. For example, in this search I noticed that
the order in which the items appeared in the result list changed from one day
to the next. I also found the task of
obtaining my article to be difficult.
The site indicates which libraries have the article available. However if you can not borrow from that library,
then you will not be able to obtain the article. Luckily, the article is in the ERIC database and
I was able to obtain the article via Texas Woman’s University library.
Reflection:
I believe that
WorldCat.org is a great site for locating items and their bibliographic records. However, obtaining access to the items is
difficult. That said, one of the feature
of the catalog that I found interesting and helpful is the “add a tag”
feature. I tested the “add a tag”
feature on this site. First, I choose an
article from my result list that was retrieved only with the keyword phrase
graduation rate: Comparison of high
school graduation rates of students with disabilities and their peers in twelve
southern states (#13 in my result list).
Since, this article was not retrieved with the keyword phrase “high
school dropout rate” I added the tag “high school dropout rate” to the article. Finally,
I searched for the article using my tag.
The article came up as item # 12 in the result list. This feature allows the average user to add
tags to their favorite items, so that future users can find the items using
more colloquial keywords, rather than the standardized subject headings created
under the RDA and AACR2 standards. I
think this is a great feature that will enable WorldCat to become more user-friendly in the future.
