PubMed

About PubMed:

PubMed comprises more than 24 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.¹  It is considered the largest biomedical research and clinical health sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical and bioengineering database in over 30 languages, with full text scholarly peer-reviewed books, dissertations, and software.²  In addition to its scholarly content, it includes some limited popular information from over 5,600 journals.

Search Query:

• Is there a correlation between students that are identified as having a learning disability and the high school dropout rate?

I began my search in this database by searching for the best subject heading terms found in MeSH for the following terms:  high school dropout rate and learning disability.  Not surprisingly, I learned that MeSH does not contain a subject heading for high school dropout rate.  The term “dropout rate” in this database tends to focus on the number of test subjects who dropout of clinical studies before the end of the trial period.  I also learned from this exercise that the major subject heading for learning disability is learning disorder.  However, the term learning disability is index.  Due to my inexperience with this database, I used the database advanced search field to help guide my search.  I found my terms in PubMed advanced search builder > show index list.  After some trial and errors, I conducted my first search using the following facet sets:

• Set 1 = "learning disabilities research"[All Fields]
• Set 2 = "learning disordered students"[All Fields]
• Set 3 = "learning disabilities classroom"[All Fields]
• Hits = "learning disabilities research"[All Fields] OR "learning disordered students"[All Fields] OR "learning disabilities classroom"[All Fields]

 

 The results yield 10 hits.  However, only article 8 seemed relevant to my query.

I was unable to access this article because it is not available for free on this database. 

During my initial investigation of relevant subject terms I found that this database contains the following major subject heading: “learning disorder/therapy”.  I thought this search term would target articles that address; what is being done to help students with learning disabilities.  Therefore, I decided to modify my second search in this database to include this term.  I also learned to add the filter "free full text" so that I can access the articles.  Additionally, I applied the following filters to this search: date range (1/1/2012 – 12/31/2014) and Species (humans). 
Second Search:

• Set 1 = learning disorder/therapy
• Hits = "learning disorders/therapy"[Mesh Terms] AND ("loattrfree full text"[sb] AND ("2012/01/01"[PDAT] : "2014/12/31"[PDAT]) AND "humans"[MeSH Terms])

The results yield 52 hits.  This result list was very interesting.  Several of the articles addressed clinical trials of the positive effects that playing video games can have on dyslexia.  More importantly, several articles addressed how using two color filters in special glasses can help some children overcome reading problems that are often caused by visual disturbance.   

The most relevant article to my original query was about an assessment of Response To Intervention (RTI), which is the educational policy used to identify, monitor and help students with learning disabilities.   

 What I learned: Content

The greatest accomplishment of the Response to Intervention model (RTI) is the dramatic increase in relying on standardized screening to identify students at risk for reading and math difficulties, as well as, the improvements of these screening tests.  There has also been a noticeable improvement in the progress monitoring phase of the RTI model.  A second generation of reading passages has been developed and is being used to access student reading progress.  Ultimately, the success of the RTI model falls within the degree to which the teachers are able to successfully differentiate instruction in their classrooms. Effective implementation of differentiated instruction is challenging for even the most accomplished teacher.  Thus, it does not appear that the RTI model is addressing the special needs of this special population of students.  It is however, successfully meeting the needs of students in the general population who require some additional support in reading and math instruction.  This article concludes that teachers will need to receive specialized training to effectively address the needs of this population of students, and that this training will have to be continuous.

What I learned: Searching

The design of PubMed is unfamiliar; it does not mimic the look and feel of mainstream search engines.  Thus, this is not a database that is intended to be used by inexperienced searchers.  Its advanced search interface does effectively help a searcher to compose a Boolean statement, even if the searcher is already familiar with the implementation of the Boolean terms; AND, OR and NOT.  Additionally, the searcher has to be familiar with identifying relevant subject headings contained within its controlled vocabulary.      

That said like most databases the left column of the result page contains key features for refining the search results.  One of the most interesting filters is the species filter (humans vs. other animals).  This filter is clearly unique to medical research. 

Reflection: Clearly this database specializes in medical articles therefore to the degree to which my search topic is a medically relevant topic determines the degree to which this database is relevant to my research.  I learned that this database contains an interesting variety of articles on the causes and medical treatments of specific learning disabilities such as, dyslexia.  I believe that it is unlikely that I would have found the articles that talk about the effectiveness of two-colored filter systems for treating visual reading difficulties, outside of a medical journal.  These articles helped me to realize that some of the learning disabilities have physiological components that are medically treatable.  These treatments can help some students to overcome/manage their disabilities thus improving their chances of graduating from high school.     

Reference List:

1.    “PubMed.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. Accessed on October 7, 2014. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
 

2.    “Databases A-Z List.” Texas Woman’s University. Accessed October 8, 2014. http://www.twu.edu/library/databases-descriptions-a.asp