Library: EDEC 3003: Understanding and Supporting the Physical, Social, and Emotional Development of Young Children: Get Started

Choosing A Topic

Where to start?

Start by thinking about topics that have come up in class discussions, have been assigned as readings, or that interest you. You can also check popular journals in the discipline for ideas.

Education Database (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Education Journals gives users access to over 790 top educational publications, including more than 615 of the titles in full text.
Image articles include all the charts, tables, diagrams, and other graphical elements often used to enhance the editorial value of articles that focus on education topics.

ProQuest Education Journals covers not only the literature on primary, secondary, and higher education but also special education, home schooling, adult education, and hundreds of related topics.
Education Source This link opens in a new window
Education Source offers the largest and most complete collection of full-text education journals and encompasses an international array of English-language periodicals, monographs, yearbooks, and more to meet the needs of education students, professionals and policy makers. It covers all levels of education - from early childhood to higher education - as well as all educational specialties, such as multilingual education, health education, and testing. Education Source was developed from a merger of resources from EBSCO and H.W. Wilson and includes many unique sources that were not previously available.
Professional Development Collection (education) This link opens in a new window
Professional Development Collection is a specialized collection of journal articles and pamphlets especially for professional educators that includes abstract and index coverage for 800 professional development titles and searchable full text for over 500 journals covering the most current topics in the field of education. This database also provides full text for more than 160 education pamphlets. Although many of the titles are also included in Academic Search Complete, there are several titles unique to Professional Development Collection.
Coverage Dates: 1940 - present (full text); 1940 - present (abstracting and indexing)
Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection This link opens in a new window
Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection includes articles from 410 full-text journal covering information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational & experimental methods.

NARROW OR EXPAND A TOPIC

A topic that is too broad will lead to fragmented and incohesive research.

You can narrow a topic by limiting the scope to a specific:

Consumer topic (behavior, satisfaction, population)
Aspect of the marketing mix (price, product, placement, promotion)
Advertising type (social media, traditional media)

If you are having trouble narrowing the scope of your research topic, review background information about your topic using an encyclopedia, Wikipedia, or Google. These sources of background information are not considered scholarly sources, but they can be helpful to find ways to narrow your topic.

A topic that is too narrow will lead to frustration during the search phase when the "No results were found." message is the only result.

You can broaden your topic by expanding or eliminating limits like:

Consumer topic (behavior, satisfaction, population)
Aspect of the marketing mix (price, product, placement, promotion)
Advertising type (social media, traditional media)

If you are having trouble expanding the scope of your research topic, review background information about your topic using an encyclopedia, Wikipedia, or Google. These sources of background information are not considered scholarly sources, but they can be helpful to find ways to expand the scope of your topic.