2. In this workshop we will look at...
• Resources available
• Accessing and obtaining information
• Effective searching
• Evaluating information
• Referencing
4. Assignment 3: Research proposal & ethics
Introduction and Literature Review
• Provide a rationale for the research topic area.
• Outline the key themes of the above title and
accompany literature
• Include a critical review of at least 10-15 key journal
articles in the area
• Highlight the gaps and inconsistencies in the
literature show how the research proposal was
reached.
Reference list
• A full list of all references included in the proposal
including background research completed.
40%
15%
5. Your literature review….
• Sets the scene
• Develops the rationale
• Key themes, gaps in knowledge, and limitations
Carry out a literature search to….
• Inform, underpin and shape
• What has already been written
• Find appropriate information
6. Search Strategies
• Look at the two search
strategies
• Think about the
strengths and
weaknesses
• Which one is better?
8. Does targeting
fundamental
movement skills in
PE improve
physical activity
levels in children
and adolescents?
PE
Children
Adolescents
Fundamental
movement
skills
Physical
activity levels
• Movement skills
• Skill acquisition
• Skill development
• Skill proficiency
• Motor skills/ability
• Child*
• Adolescent
• Youth
• Young people
• Teenage(rs)
• Physical education
• School sport
• Exercise
• Sports participation
• Active lifestyle
• Specific skills
• Gender
• Age groups
10. If you have too many results…
• Add more keywords
• Be more specific
• “Exact phrase”
• Add limits e.g. date
11. If you don’t have enough results…
• Use alternative keywords
• Be less specific
• Split the question into simple concepts
• Try variations of the same word
14. Library Search
MyUniHub > MyStudy > MyLibrary > Library Search
Click on ‘Sign-in’,
choose ‘Middlesex
University’ and use
your university email
address.
Sign-in to check your library
record, request items, create
lists, save searches and create
alerts.
17. Beyond Library Search
myUniHub > My Study > My Library > Databases
http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/SES/JournalDatabases
• Sports Discus
• Medline/PubMed
• PsycINFO
18. Search for
‘Keywords’
one at a
time.
Individual
keywords are
displayed and
can now be
combined using
AND/OR.
Journal database searching tips
http://bit.ly/Combining
19. Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.co.uk/
You may be
able to access
the full-text
here.
Refine your
search
results here.
Create an alert for your search,
so you can keep up-to-date
with new publications.
Link to MDX resources: > Settings > Library Links > Search for MDX and save.
20. Google Scholar: Useful features
Full text available
from Middlesex
Uni and/or other
sources.
Click on author’s name (if underlined)
to view profile and check for other
research by the author on the same
topic.
Click on ‘Cited by’
to see other articles
that have cited this
article.
‘All versions’: The same article
on other websites – sometimes
useful for getting full text if not
available from MDX.
Create a
Harvard
reference.
21. It’s not in the Library!
• MyUniHub > MyStudy > MyLibrary > Inter Library Loans
• Sconul Access http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access
28. Find out more
MyUniHub > MyStudy > MyLibrary > MySubject Library Guides > Sport and Exercise Science
http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/SES
29. Need further help?
Your Librarian is:
Vanessa Hill v.hill@mdx.ac.uk
http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/SES/Help
Notas do Editor
Students will have a rough idea of the area that they will be researching.
They need to submit a literature review and research proposal by 8th March ‘20.
This topic carries forward to their 3rd year dissertation.
In the session:
Resources available to help you find information for your literature review and research proposal that you will be submitting in march.
How you can access and obtain this information
How to search effectively by thinking about your keywords/search terms and refining your search
Evaluating information for relevance and quality
How to correctly cite and reference the information sources that you have used in your work.
Your finished piece of work is just the tip of the iceberg.
Below it is should be loads of research i.e. looking at theory and facts, being inspired, getting ideas, stimulating your imagination etc.
Why search for information for your academic work?
Solve problems
Underpins your practice (Does it work? Is it worth it?)
Overview of existing knowledge, theory etc
Identify gaps in knowledge
Gather ideas about possible methods etc. for a future study – how you can collect and analyse data.
Research at Uni of Huddersfield shows that students who use library resources get better degrees.
More on next slide……..
According to your assignment 3 brief your project proposal needs “to be evidenced based and be derived from extensive literature research”.
You can get 40% of your marks for the ‘Introduction and Literature review’ which requires you to critically review at least 10-15 key journal articles and highlight gaps and inconsistences in the literature.
Therefore you need to make use of library resources to find information especially from journal articles to provide a rationale for your research topic.
In addition you can get 15% of your marks for the presentation of your work and the referencing. Therefore important to make sure you reference correctly and that you make use of our academic writing experts in the Learning Enhancement Team if you need help with your academic writing.
Your literature review needs to….
Sets the scene for your chosen topic
Help develop the rationale for your proposed research
Outlines key themes, gaps in knowledge to justify your research, limitations of existing studies and the opportunities that the literature offers e.g. existing research has concentrated on elite athletes , but not on amateurs.
So you need to carry out a literature search in order to….
Find information available on the topic to inform, underpin and shape your research
Discover what has already been written on a subject
Find appropriate information: the information needs to be suitable for your need ie. right level, current if important, sufficient breadth or detail etc
In pairs or small groups.
***************Hand out search strategy and give them a few minutes to******************
Look at the two search strategies you have been given.
Think about the strengths and weaknesses of each strategy.
Which one do you think is better? Why?
Take feedback.
Strategy A:
Limited range of keywords although have identified the main concepts from the research question.
Inclusion criteria very broad (research in English in the last 20 years) – how could this be tightened up? (country, shorter timescale)
Not clear how they selected the articles for review (random selection).
Uses Library Search and Google Scholar, so not making use of the specialist journal databases.
Websites may be useful, but only one named.
Strategy B:
Use of synonyms
Use of truncation i.e. Stretch*
Wider range of scholarly resources
Transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Therefore thinking carefully about keywords, what you don’t and do want and the best resources to use is important and will reflect in the search results that you achieve.
Saves time in the long run.
We will start off thinking about the keywords that you are going to use in your search:
What is your topic i.e. what do you need to find out about/research?
What are the main concepts? Try and summarise your topic in 4 or less words. These are your keywords/search terms.
Think about alternative words that you can use to describe the topic:
Not everyone uses the same terminology
Common/lay terminology/scientific words/abbreviations/International etc.
Think of synonyms….different words that mean the same.
Acronyms
As you start to find articles, you will probably come up with other terminology that you can use.
Example on next slide.
Breaking down the topic into concepts, brainstorming similar terms and narrower terms. They may need to narrow a topic down further if there is a lot of research in that area.
********Hand out worksheet ‘Thinking about keywords’ and let them have a go************
They should know which dissertation supervisor they’ve been assigned as well as their rough area of research, if not the exact question.
Explain how they can broaden their search using an asterisk* e.g. given will find swim, swims, swimmers, swimming etc
Explain how they can refine their search using “quotation marks”.
These two refining tools work well on Library resources but can also be used on the Internet.
These and other search tips which can be used on the Internet are available on the link on the screen.
Add more keywords to narrow your search results
Be more specific e.g. sprinting vs running
“Exact phrase” e.g. “physical education”
Add limits e.g. date, gender, age, country etc
Use alternative keywords e.g. football or soccer
Be less specific
Split the question into simple concepts…….searching for all the concepts together might be making your search too complicated.
Try variations of the same word e.g. swim, swimmers, swimming or use swim*
You can find links to library resources and other services in MyLibrary.
These are the things that I will be referring to in this workshop:
Library Search: Use to search for information (books, journals etc) on your topic.
MySubject: Gives you access to our library subject guides. Use these to find what resources are available including websites on a particular subject.
Databases: Gives you access to specialist collections of journals and other resources in a particular subject area. You can access most of these through Summon, but searching a specialist resource might save you time.
Inter Library Loans: Not a resource, but a way of getting hold of material that the library doesn’t hold or provide access to.
We’re going to start off using Library Search.
Explain what it is. Good starting point for your research or looking up a reference you’ve found elsewhere.
Remember to sign-in.
Use Library Search to carry out a literature search:
Finding the information available on a subject
Finding information to inform, underpin and shape your research
Point out how to refine their search using:
Full text
Content type
Subject terms
Publication date
Language etc
Also how to create Harvard references.
**************Let students have a go at searching Library Search*******************
Help available here on using Library search.
Students can also search individual databases.
SportsDiscus: The most comprehensive bibliographic database covering all aspects of sport, fitness, exercise science and medicine. It includes over 1.7 million records covering journal and magazine articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings and dissertations.
Medline: Good for finding articles from the whole range of medical literature and covers more than 4800 journals.
PubMed: References to articles from biomedical journals – this covers the same content as Medline, plus some additional life science journals and articles which have not yet been included in Medline, books and documents.
PsychINFO: Contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books and dissertations. Over 80,000 references are added annually through weekly updates for the psychology subject discipline and related subjects including medicine, pharmacology etc.
The words you use are important – identify keywords (search terms) from things you read, as well as thinking about similar words (synonyms) e.g. exercise, physical activity or physical fitness. Also consider different spellings, international variations, and professional/common terminology etc.
On EBSCO databases - SPORTDiscus, Medline, PsycInfo and Education Research Complete – keywords can be combined using Boolean operators such as AND/OR.
Combining keywords enables you to take more control of your search. You can see more clearly what search terms work and don’t work…….this would not be obvious if all terms searched for in one go.
Use OR to combine similar terms (synonyms). The example here is football* OR soccer. Combining them together using OR increases the number of results because a broader range of keywords is searched.
Use AND to combine keywords. This will make your search more specific by narrowing down your search.
***********Let students have a go at searching the databases esp. Sports Discus**********
******Hand out ‘combining keywords’ guide - This will help them use the EBSCO databases i.e. Sport Discus, Medline and PsychInfo*****
*******Combining keywords guide can also be found at the link on the screen*********
For info:
Different types of articles can be found E.g. experimental research study (primary), literature review… Sport Discus does include some more ‘magazine’ articles, these can be filtered out using the peer reviewed limit.
Range of journals – there’s a Publications limit in EBSCO which shows how the results are distributed amongst journal titles and can be focused to the most relevant journals.
Find journal articles, theses, books, and more, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Search across many disciplines.
Locate the full-text document through your library or on the web: Change settings etc to link to MDX resources. You only need to do this once on your own laptop/device, but need to be logged on to MyUniHub.
Keep up with recent developments in any area of research .
Save items in a personal library.
Google Scholar is good, but limited ability to combine different keywords.
Older articles can appear first in results, so use the date limits on the left hand side of the screen.
************If time, let students have a go at searching Google Scholar******************
Inter Library Loan service: request copies of books and journals not held by MDX. £3 charge. Register as DL first. More info on our website.
SCONUL Access http://www.access.sconul.ac.uk/ The SCONUL Access Scheme provides reciprocal access and borrowing rights for staff and students to approximately 170 member institutions in the UK. Apply online.
With reference to information. What do these words mean?
Answers next slide.
Currency
How old: How old is the information? Does it need to be up-to-date?
Last updated: When was the information last updated?
What: Do you know what was updated. Think Wikipedia. There is often an explanation of what has been updated in new edition of a book.
Authority
Author: Do you know who the author is?
Qualifications: What is the author’s knowledge base?
Verifiable: Can the information be supported? Another witness or further info from a different source. Is there any peer review?
Divide class into groups.
Hand out pack of cards.
Students have two headings ‘Authority’ and ‘Currency’ (black cards).
Plus a double set of information sources. They should put the cards in order of which offer the most currency and authority.
Discuss.
Take feedback and discuss.
Authority : Who is the author? What is their knowledge base/qualifications? How have they carried out their research?
Relevance : Is this what I need? Will it answer my question? Is it at the right level?
Intent : What is the purpose of information e.g. financial gain, propaganda, academic etc?
Objectivity : Balanced view? Opposing views represented? Links to supporting information?
Currency: How old is this information? When was it last updated and by whom?
More information about the range of resources available on the Library Subject Guide plus lots of useful online guides eg. how to search for information for your project.
