This week was a little frustrating at first in my research process, I was finding books that seemed like they were exactly what I was looking for in relation to diagnosing minorities in special education, but after skimming through I found that there was maybe one chapter that applied to my topic, and the rest were completely unrelated.
I found a few useful tools this week while searching for an appropriate book for my topic. I discovered one very helpful way to narrow down options and make sure a book is the right choice before I read too far into it. First of all, there are so many electronic resources, that I limited my advance search options to ebook only. That way I don’t waste time borrowing a print book that may not be as useful as it seems by the title and bibliography. I found there were a few titles that matched my research topic perfectly and seemed like they would be a good resource, but after I started reading them I realized there was only one chapter that actually focused on my topic. The next thing I did when I realized I was not finding exactly what I needed, I would look at the Table of Contents on Ebscohost after I clicked on a title and the Table of Contents can be a great way to find the specific piece of information you are researching. Then, you can click on the chapter in the Table of Contents and it will take you directly to that chapter instead of scrolling through the entire book to get to the chapter you want. I have been using this method for another class I am taking and it has helped me cover more information faster than I was able to before.
I m hoping that as I continue to research that I can find a clear cause between minorities being over diagnosed with learning disabilities for so many years, and now that there are laws in place to protect against over diagnosis, there is suddenly a drop of diagnosis' for minorities. I would also like to find the solution to this problem, whether the problem is in testing, classroom issues, or in the laws that were designed to help.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your research strategies. I will use what you shared moving forward because I did not know that you could search ebooks only and then click on the chapter in the table of contents. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I've wasted time flipping through an entire chapter on my ipad. I am new to the research part so I do not have any helpful tips to take your research further but I am sure some of our other classmates will. Thanks again for sharing.