SPED 5300: Intro to Special Education Guide
Overview
The resources listed here have been selected for the work you are doing in this class as well as for future research in your graduate program. This is by no means a complete list of resources you might need to consult. Please ask for assistance if you have any trouble locating information on your topic.
Note that you should keep track of key words and terms that retrieve relevant information. Keywords which work successfully in one source may or may not work well in another source. You may have to try multiple terms to find what you are looking for.
The sources on this list have some full text, but not everything is available in full text online. You will need to use the Interlibrary Loan or Document Delivery service to get materials not available in full text.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions. michele.behr@wmich.edu Phone:269-387-5611
Journal Articles
The Educational Resources Information Center indexes and abstracts over 2,000 journals and more than 450,000 reports in education and related fields. Some documents are available full text, the rest are on microfiche in the Education Library. Covers 1966-present. Updated monthly.
This is the FirstSearch version, Tutorial
This database is also available from ProQuest and from the US government.
Psychological Abstracts BF 1 .P65 (General Stacks)
Covers world-wide literature in psychology and related disciplines. Journal articles, technical reports, books, book chapters, and dissertations are included. Coverage: 1887-present. Updated weekly.
Use the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms for subject words: BF1 .P65x 2007 (Education Lib. and Waldo Ref.)
Indexes popular magazines, scholarly journals, newspapers and trade publications in a wide range of subject areas, including business, education, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Full-text available for over 2,500 journals. Coverage from 1971.
Librarian's Comment: A very good general purpose database. This is a good choice for topics that are more interdisciplinary.
Indexes over 600 periodicals in anthropology, economics, ethnic studies, feminist studies, geography, human services, international relations, law and criminology, police science, political science, population studies, psychology, public administration, public health, social work, sociology, urban studies, and related social science subjects. Coverage: indexing from 1983 and abstracts from 1994. Updated weekly.
DetailsLibrarian's Comment: A good source for topics related to sociology, and criminal justice.
Books/Electronic Books
Comprehensive catalog of books and other materials in libraries around the world. Contains millions of records in hundreds of languages. Non-book materials include (among other publication formats) the titles of journals and magazines, manuscripts, maps, electronic resources, websites, computer programs, music scores, films, slides, sound recordings, conference proceedings, and videotapes. Items located through WorldCat must be requested through Interlibrary Loan unless they are also listed in the WMU Libraries catalog.
Librarian's Comment: You may also use the "Libraries" icon to see if any local libraries have the book you are interested in.
In 2009 we added a new interface to our catalog. It still identifies books (including online books), journal titles, government documents, music, videos, maps, and other items in the University Libraries. It can still be searched by title, author, subject, but now you can choose the format and location in your first search. There are easy ways of narrowing your search in the left column, it offers "did you mean" spelling, favorite lists, and lets you tag items with your own labels.
Tests and Measurements
Contains overviews, descriptions and one or more reviews of many English-language standardized tests of educational skills, personality, psychological traits, and related areas. Entries also give references to the print edition (s).
This subscription is limited to eight simultaneous users. Please logout when finished.
Librarian's Comment: You can use this resource to help you locate tests, profiles, and other assessment tools. If you want to use one of the tests reviewed here you may have to purchase it.
Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan
Set up a username & password here to submit automated requests from online indexes. Allow up to 2 weeks for materials to arrive.
DetailsLibrarian's Comment: Use the same account to request materials WMU has in its collections. Articles will be scanned and sent electronically.
Citing Sources
A brief overview of how the most commonly used types of references should be cited using the APA (American Psychological Association) bibliographic style.
Librarian's Comment: I recommend the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)version of this database. This is the most comprehensive source for journal articles and a variety of reports and documents.