DIALOG

About DIALOG:

DIALOG is a multidisciplinary database.  It “pioneered the online information industry in the early 1970s, delivering content from the world’s most authoritative sources.”¹ Currently, DIALOG is a part of ProQuest and it continues to offer its users access to full text journals covering a wide variety of industries.  Additionally, ProQuest Dialog provides three search functions, Basic, Advanced, and Command Line searches. 

Search Query:

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

Since, this is a multidisciplinary database I did not need to change my search query.  Nevertheless, I did have to select an appropriate industry for my query.  Thus, I began my search by selecting Education as my Industry.  Then I prepared and executed an advanced search based on the following concept analysis of my search query:         

	Facet 1	Facet 2
Concept	·         high school dropout rate ·         graduate rate	learning disability

I used the following Boolean search statement (natural language):

• Hits = (learning disabilities and high school dropout rate) or graduate rate)) 
• 530,656 hits were retrieved.

I then added the following limiters:

• Full text
• Peer reviewed
• Language – English
• Source type – scholarly journal
• Publication date – 2010- 2014
• Location – United States (US)

The number of hits was reduced to 482. 

I noticed that this search only considered my terms as keywords, thus the result list contained a lot of irrelevant items.  In order to find a relevant hit from this result list I would have to look at all 482 hits.  Consequently, I decided to conduct a second search limiting my search field to subject and using a new Boolean statement; Hits= SU: (learning disabilities) and (high school dropout rate).  I used the following limiters:

• Full text
• Language – English
• Date range - 2010-2014.

145 hits were retrieved.

   
Best Hit:

Command Line Search:
Another search interface that this database allows its users to employ is called a command line search.  A command line search allows an experienced user to create a precise search using operators to combine different fields that targets the users search terms.  Unlike the advanced search, the command line search does not provide the user with search boxes or search field drop down menus. 

After looking for a relevant hit in the first four pages of my first search, I noticed that this search had been skewed by the word “rate”.  Therefore, in the command line search I conducted a search using the following Boolean search statement:  hits = SU: (learning disabilities) and IF: (high school dropout).  28 hits were retrieved.  I then narrowed the search by date range 2000-2014, to 15 hits. 

 Best result:

 What I learned: Content

Liana Gonzalez is arguing that the effectiveness of special education programs is questionable given current dropout rates in special education.  Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the variables that contributed towards predicting graduation potential in special education, so that a solution can be found.  Gonzalez was able to identify which distinguishing factors promote the graduation potential of this population.  The results were made possible because this study investigated the largest sample of subjects (at the time of the study). 

This study’s strength lies in the fact that the hypothesis was tested by a quantitative component, as well as a qualitative component.  The mixed-methodology model was used to analyze the main themes yielded by the quantitative and qualitative components.  Gonzalez only offers a conclusion after analyzing both components as a whole.  Additionally, unlike prior research in this area, the quantitative component of this study looked at the school records of a large number of subjects, 573 students.  Although, the qualitative component only consisted of the responses of 15 students, Gonzalez noted that this amount was sufficient because saturation occurred after the fourth interview, for that reason generalization is acceptable.  

Conversely, one of the drawbacks of this study is Gonzalez’s apparent bias towards the implementation of inclusive settings over self-contained settings for students with SLD and EBD.  This study focused on educational setting as a main question.  Although, the study does not find a statistical significant difference between an inclusive and a self-contained setting, Gonzalez constantly refers to the benefits of an inclusive setting; while giving very little merit to the benefits of a self-contained setting.  This bias is further highlighted by Gonzalez’s own admission that as a veteran special education teacher she prefers when SLD and EBD students are placed in an inclusive setting.   She also noted that due in part to current laws which affect education; most of the students in this sample were in inclusive settings.  This may underestimate dropout rates in special education since generally students with disabilities placed in inclusive settings are more likely to be academically successful than those in self-contained settings.  Another challenge that Gonzalez noted was that the setting where the study took place (Miami Dade) employs the least accurate method used to calculate dropout rate.      

Ultimately, this study found that in order to promote the graduation potential of students with SLA or EBD, their academic success must be facilitated.  One way to enable their academic success is to place these students in inclusive settings because, this setting was found by this study to positively promote academic success, which is the only significant predictor of graduation within this population of students.  

What I learned: Searching

The first search in the advanced search interface yield a very high number of hits with very low precision, most of the hits were irrelevant to my query.  By limiting the field search to subject in the second search, I was able to reduce the number of hits and increase the precision of the search.  That said 145 hits is still a substantial amount of items to have to look through in order to find relevant information.  In contrast, the command line search initially yield 28 relevant hits which I was then able to further reduce to 15 hits.  Additionally, while in my previous searches I was able to evaluate the relevancy of the items by simply reading the titles, in the command line search I had to read the abstracts in order to determine which item was the best.  Moreover, the best hit found during the command line search is to date the most informative article that I have found about my query. 

Reflection:
I am highly satisfied with this database. I like that this database is straight forward. I found all the features easy to find and well defined.  If a user wants to limit the search he need only click on the available limiters, including limiting the number of database searched in each query.  Conversely, if a user wants to expand the search, then this database allows users to employ truncation operators.  This database also contains a user friendly help page that can help first time users to successfully navigate the database. 

Reference List:

1.  “SEARCH. FIND. SHARE.” ProQuest Dialog. Accessed October 13, 2014. http://media2.proquest.com/documents/dialog_overview_brochure.pdf

2. Gonzalez, Liana. 2010. "Class Placement and Academic and Behavioral Variables as Predictors of Graduation for Students with Disabilities." Order No. 3470218, Florida International University. Accessed October 13, 2014. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/docview/744522596?accountid=7102.

  

 

 

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
Concept	graduation rate	learning disability

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.  

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

      

 

PsycINFO

About PsycINFO:

PsycINFO provides a highly specialized collection of peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health.  It contains abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books and dissertations from the American Psychological Association.¹   Furthermore, since this database also contains international journals users can gain a world view of Psychology.   

Search Query:

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

• (Due to the content of this database I do not feel that I need to adjust my search query.)

Search 1- I created this concept analysis for my search using natural language: 

	Facet 1	Facet 2
Concept	high school dropout rate	learning disability

Boolean search statement using natural language:

Hits = (learning disabilities and high school dropout rate)

1 hit was recalled.   

This search result is not relevant to the original search query because the article is about identifying postsecondary interventions that postsecondary institutions can utilize to support this increasing population of students. 

Since this database did not support a natural language search, I searched the database thesaurus for relevant subject headings.  Using the terms in the concept analysis I searched for the best subject heading terms in the database thesaurus.

I found the following subject terms:

	Facet 1	Facet 2
Concept	high school dropout rate	learning disability
Subject Heading	*School Graduation  *High School Graduates	learning disorder

I then conducted a Specific Facet First search using the following strategy.

• Set 1 = school graduation or high school graduates
• Set 2 = learning disorder
• Hits = su: (school graduation or high school graduates) and su: (learning disorder)

This search did not yield any results.  This was a troubling finding since I tested both sets prior to conducting the specific facet search and found the following results:  learning disorder yield 2305 hits and school graduation or high school graduates yield 1184 hits. 

I conducted a third search using the Specific Facet First search strategy using the following term set:

• Set 1 = school graduation or high school graduates
• Set 2 = learning disabilities
• Hits = (school graduation or high school graduates) and (learning disabilities)

This search resulted in 51 hits. 

After examining the result list I came to the conclusion that many of the hits were irrelevant because the titles and partial abstract pertained to what happens to student who graduate from high school with a learning disability.  I want to know how learning disabilities impact the high school graduation rate.  Therefore, I added the age limiter of adolescents (13-17 yrs).  This limiter reduced the result list to 22 hits.  These articles appeared to be more relevant to my original query.  However, none of the articles directly examined the correlation between the high school dropout rate and learning disabilities.  

What I learned: Content

While these articles do not show a correlation between the graduation rate and learning disabilities, they do highlight how different the education of student with learning disabilities is from that of students without learning disabilities.  One article noted that because these students do not take the same college readiness courses as students without these diagnoses, they are not ready to make the transition and require additional assistance from the higher education institutes which they attend.     

What I learned: Searching

When a database uses controlled vocabulary, one of the ways to discover if the database is relevant to your query is to test for specificity and exhaustivity.   Specificity means the extent to which a concept or topic is identified by a precise term in the hierarchy of its genus/species relationship.  This database’s thesaurus produced the search term “learning disorder” for the term “learning disability”.  However, the term “learning disorder” did not produce any results.  Additionally, this database did not contain a search term for the phrase “high school dropout rate” in its thesaurus.  Exhaustivity, is the amount and extent to which an item has search terms attached to it, how comprehensively it is indexed, the extent to which concepts and topics are made retrievable by means of index terms.  This database failed to produce positive results for both these test.  Conducting the specificity and exhaustivity test are normally very reassuring.  Catalogers use controlled vocabulary to assign subject headings to bibliographic records in order to lead users to authorized or related term(s).  One of the advantages of controlled vocabulary is that it saves you time because it creates an artificial language in which all of the items of a particular subject are linked by a designated vocabulary.  The use of controlled vocabulary increases your chances of retrieving relevant items and makes the search more precise.  I believe that failing to find relevant search terms in the thesaurus would normally deter me from continuing a search in the database. That said I believe that had I stopped searching for relevant articles, I would have lost an opportunity to deepen my understanding of the effects of learning disabilities on student’s lives.  As an elementary teacher I saw firsthand how important it is to ensure that students with learning disabilities are identified and placed in the appropriate intervention programs, as early as possible.  However, I never thought that this “label” could later hinder the student’s ability to enroll in classes that will prepare them for college.  

Reflection:
I tested this database for specificity and exhaustivity because, I was surprised that my topic was not covered very well in this database.  I thought that a database that is maintained by the APA would have more information about my topic.  Thus, the results of this search have led me to believe that my topic fits better in the educational industry than the psychology industry.

 

Reference List:

1.    “Databases A-Z List.” Texas Woman’s University. Accessed September 19, 2014. http://www.twu.edu/library/databases-descriptions-a.asp

 

 

JSTOR

 

About JSTOR:

JSTOR is a multidisciplinary digital library that contains over 1500 full text academic journals, as well as books and primary sources.¹  JSTOR is also considered an online archiving database for academic journals.  It is currently a part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization.²   

Search Query:

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

Search 1- I created this concept analysis for my search using natural language: 

	Facet 1	Facet 2
Concept	high school dropout rate	learning disability

Boolean search statement using natural language:

Set 1 = (learning disabilities and high school dropout rate)

484,373 hits were recalled using the terms in set 1. 

I then added the following limiters:

• Item type – article
• Date Range – 2013-2014
• Languages – English
• Discipline – education

1,387 hits were recalled after applying the limiters. 

I found that the most relevant hit from this search was the article entitled “Equity or Marginalization? The high school course-taking of students labeled with a learning Disability.” This article addressed the original query because it focused on the impact of learning disability on students in high school.  The rest of the articles in the first two pages of the result list address the impact of learning disability on students in college or were completely irrelavant to my query.  

Search 2: Due to the number of generated hits I refined my second search by using the search strategy Successive Fractions Search.  

Boolean search statement using natural language:

• Set 1 = (learning disabilities)
• Set 2 = (graduation rate or high school dropouts)
• Hits = (learning disabilities) and (graduation rate or high school dropouts)

6071 hits were recalled using the terms in set 1.  

20 hits were recalled using the terms in set 1 and set 2. 

I started the search with the broadest term set, learning disabilities for the database JStor.  6071 hits were recalled using the terms in set 1. I also added the following limiters:

• Item type – article
• Languages – English
• Discipline – Education and Psychology

The articles recalled had a wide range of topics, such as reading disabilities, special education and reading intervention research.  20 hits were recalled using the terms in set 1 and 2. Set 1 and set 2 were also limited to item type – article, languages – English and Discipline - Education and Psychology.  This result list was more precise; almost all of the articles were relevant.  I believe that the article entitled “A Look at High School Programs as Perceived by Youth with Learning Disabilities” provided the most relevant information. 

 

 

What I learned: Content

I learned that students with identified learning disabilities are at a higher risk of dropping out of school early, than their general education peers.  As a result of dropping out of school these students face a number of negative outcomes in adulthood such as, higher rates of unemployment.  This study suggests that educators need to focus their intervention programs on services and educational settings that help students with learning disabilities become productive adults.  The students in this study defined productive adult-hood as “a better job, an adequate education, and a better life in general.”  Furthermore, they believe that how the teacher interacts with them is a key factor in creating an educational setting which will enable them to succeed.  They want “teachers who offer individual help, let students know they care about them, explain things on an individual basis if necessary, and include hands-on activities in their lessons.”  Therefore, educators must create intervention programs that allow the teachers the flexibilities that they need to meet the individual student’s needs, rather than try to conform the needs of the individual students to an aggregate identified need.       

 

What I learned: Searching

I learned that this database does not contain a thesaurus, thus it does not offer a safe and helpful entry point into an unfamiliar subject.³   That said, I found this database to be very user friendly especially for a naive searcher, because it provides fool proof drop down menus that shapes a naïve search into a more precise valuable search.

Reflection:

I conducted a Successive Fractions Search and it did produce a more precise results list. However, I believe that I could have arrived at the same result list by simply filling in the Advanced Search Menu fields. This finding has led me to believe that this database contains internal controls that are in place to help amateur users. In addition to being user-friendly to naïve users, it is a multidisciplinary database. Therefore, it is a good database in which to begin your research.

 

Reference List:

1.      “Databases A-Z List.” Texas Woman’s University. Accessed September 19, 2014. http://www.twu.edu/library/databases-descriptions-a.asp

2.      “JSTOR about.” JSTOR. Accessed September 19, 2014. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2072/about

3.      Bell, Suzanne.  2012.  Librarian’s guide to online searching.  3rd Ed. Santa Barbara CA: Libraries Unlimited. p.25