Not all peer-reviewed articles are studies in which the author used a methodology. Make sure the ones you choose do have a section that discusses the research method. You can often tell from the abstract/summary of the article. The abstract will refer to the study, its variables, and/or its method of research.

One little search trick that can help, although it can unwittingly eliminate some excellent articles in the process, is to “and” in the term method* (yes, that is an asterisk that allows for any ending on the root of the word) along with the rest of your and-ed search. In addition, choose to search this term method* in TEXT, if citation/abstract doesn’t do anything. Please mind my caveat above: it is a lazy approach, but more so, it might mean some really good articles get left out of your search because not all articles have their TEXT in the database.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts can be a tough nut to crack. I think it’s worth it since it has so much on public policy. Regarding the general area of education policy here are some search tips.

The subject terms (“descriptors”) in WPSA are rather broad. But sometimes it helps to use them to browse through on a broad topic in search of policy articles.

To browse through publications in the area of education policy, I searched for the descriptor educational policy and ANDed it with the descriptor United States (to avoid getting policy from other countries).

I browsed some of the 200 articles and found articles on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, they tend to call it). This term does not appear in the subject field, so you must search it as a keyword/anyword to look at articles only on that.

Accountability and Educational Reform are descriptors/subect terms that get at the testing movement of students and of teachers. You can “or” them together I suppose. Search accountability along with (AND) educational policy as a descriptor/subject term. Along this same topic, I see that State Role is a descriptor that can get at that aspect of accountability. Otherwise, do a subject search using Federal government if you want to tackle the federal level involvement.

Higher Education and affirmative action as descriptors get you into both the hiring policies and also the college admissions programs and race-based admission procedures, if that is of interest to you. Educational policy and affirmative action brought in some different ones on same issues.

If you know about Grokker.com search interface for searching the Internet, you’ll recognize the “Visual Search” option (it is a tab near top of screen at the main page) in Academic Search Elite. At first, I thought it was a way of searching for images; not so. “Visual Search,” designed for visual learners, offers an alternative search option to the standard typing of words into the search box(es) or browsing through textual lists of topical headings. It lays out your choices for narrowing in on topic via diagrams. Try it to see what I mean if you are curious.

Keep in mind, however, that you are required to know how to do a Boolean search strategy using words along with “and” and “or.”

Proquest Research (both the social sciences module and the women’s studies module)

Academic Search Elite (try the new “VISUAL SEARCH” tab!!! It’s designed to help visual learners narrow their searches.)

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts is good also.