LibGuides: Special Education Research: SPED Research: Core Resources

Recommended Resources

ESSENTIAL DATABASES

Education Source This link opens in a new window
Education journals
The collection includes full text for more than 1,700 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests. Coverage in Education Source spans all levels of education from early childhood to higher education and also includes educational specialties such as multilingual education, health education and testing.
ERIC: Education Resources Information Center This link opens in a new window
Education journals and gray literature
Updated monthly. Provides a digital library of education-related resources. Contains over 1.1 million citations covering research documents, journal articles, technical reports, program descriptions and evaluations, and curricular materials in the field of education.

Also includes more than 107,000 full text non-journal documents indexed by the ERIC database. Approximately one-half of the entries in the ERIC database are to ERIC documents. Microfiche copies of ERIC documents, including those prior to 1996, are in the Collections Deposit Library (CDL) Microforms Collection at MCFICHE 4913.
PsycINFO (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window
Psychology journals
Updated monthly. Indexes and abstracts over 1,700 sources, including international material selected from periodicals written in over 35 languages. Contains current chapter and book coverage with worldwide English-language material published from 1987 to the present, and adds over 60,000 references annually through monthly updates. Covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines.
Has over 1.8 million individual records, some dating back to 1887, and includes abstracts from Psychological Abstracts back to 1927, Psychological Bulletin from 1921-1926, and all APA journals and the American Journal of Psychology back to their first issues. Corresponds in part to the print index Psychological Abstracts.

ADDITIONAL DATABASES

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A large, interdisciplinary database
Updated daily. A comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database, with more than 5,300 full text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. Offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health) Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Nursing and allied health discipline journals
Updated monthly. The Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health (CINAHL) database provides authoritative coverage of the literature related to nursing and allied health disciplines. Includes indexing for more than 5,100 journals with coverage as far back as 1937 and full text coverage for more than 700 journals. In addition to journals, includes healthcare books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of professional practice, and educational software.
Communication & Mass Media Complete (CMMC) This link opens in a new window
1920 - present. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Provides indexing for some 400 periodicals, including full text for over 200 titles, in areas related to communication and mass media. CMMC incorporates CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University). CommSearch offered bibliographic and keyword references to 26 journals in communication studies, with coverage extending to the inaugural issue of each -- some from as far back 1915. It also included cover-to-cover indices of NCA's six journals (from their first editions to the present), and abstracts from their earliest appearance in NCA journals. Mass Media Articles Index provided citation coverage of over 40,000 articles related to mass media and published in over 60 research journals, as well as major journalism reviews, recent encyclopedias, and handbooks in the area of communications studies.
Embase This link opens in a new window
1974 - present. Unlimited users.
Embase provides coverage of the biomedical literature, with over 31 million records from over 8,500 currently published journals, including over 7 million records and more than 3,000 journals that are not covered by MEDLINE. Offers extensive coverage of searchable conference abstracts dating back to 2009. It currently indexes over 6,000 conferences covering ~350,000 conference abstracts each year. Embase uses Emtree, the Elsevier Life Science thesaurus: a hierarchically structured, controlled vocabulary for biomedicine and the related life sciences. It includes a range of terms for drugs, diseases, medical devices and essential life science concepts
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google's scholarly literature search tool
Google Scholar uses the popular Google search engine to enable searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. It includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar includes full text and citations.
Use this link to access Google Scholar, and see our Google Scholar Guide for information on using this resource.
If you encounter a warning about the security certificate when using the FindIt@UT tool in Google Scholar, you can learn more about that using this guide.
MEDLINE (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Medical and health journals
Updated monthly. Provides bibliographic indexing from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. Contains bibliographic citations (e.g., authors, title, and journal reference) and author abstracts from 4,500 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 foreign countries.
Journal articles are indexed for MEDLINE using NLM's controlled vocabulary, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Citations are created by the National Library of Medicine, International MEDLARS partners, and cooperating professional organizations.
MEDLINE has worldwide coverage, but 88% of the citations in current MEDLINE are to English-language sources and 76% have English abstracts.
NLM provides free access to MEDLINE through PubMed.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Medical and health journals
Updated weekly. Provides access to over 36 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, and other related databases. Links to the full text articles are provided when available, subject to UT subscription status.

Set up LibKey Nomad to find access through the UT Libraries subscriptions and purchases.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Sociology and social work journals
In addition to full-text journals, SocINDEX with Full Text contains informative abstracts for core coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. Includes indexing for books, monographs, conference papers and other non-periodical content sources.

Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Dissertations from universities around the U.S.
Updated monthly. Contains more than 2 million doctoral dissertations and master's theses. Provides full text for many dissertations and theses, including most done after 1997. All subject areas are covered. The database includes more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America with selective coverage for other parts of the world. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Only bibliographic citations are available for earlier years. More than 55,000 new citations are added to the database every year. Many dissertations from The University of Texas at Austin are included in the database, though theses from the University are only rarely included.

ProQuest recommends using Firefox, IE or Safari for your browser for this resource.
Texas ScholarWorks This link opens in a new window
UT Austin dissertations, treatises and theses. Follow the "Communities & Collections" link and choose "UT Electronic Theses and Dissertations."
Updated regularly. Holds digital works and provides related services that constitute an institutional repository for the University of Texas at Austin. Archives and provides persistent and reliable access to the digital works of faculty, staff, and students and aims to provide the greatest possible dissemination and recognition to these works as possible. Digital works include research and scholarship, as well as works that reflect the intellectual and service environment of the campus.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Find dissertations in Google Scholar by adding this phrase to your search terms: "degree of Doctor of Philosophy"
Google Scholar uses the popular Google search engine to enable searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. It includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar includes full text and citations.
Use this link to access Google Scholar, and see our Google Scholar Guide for information on using this resource.
If you encounter a warning about the security certificate when using the FindIt@UT tool in Google Scholar, you can learn more about that using this guide.
Google Book Search This link opens in a new window
Search the full text of books! Some may limit access due to copyright, so when you find a match, check our Library Catalog to see if we own a copy.
Updated daily. Searches complete text of books from selected library collections and publishers. Search works just like a regular Google search -- when book content contains a match for selected search terms, Google provides links to it in the search results. Depending on a few factors, Google displays everything from a few short excerpts to the entire book.

Each book includes an "About this book" page with basic bibliographic data like title, author, publication date, length and subject. For some books, additional information like key terms and phrases, references to the book from scholarly publications or other books, chapter titles and a list of related books.

UT Libraries Catalog
Check here to see if we have a print or electronic copy of the book you need.

SAGE Knowledge This link opens in a new window
A huge collection of social and behavior science encyclopedias, and great place to find more about theories or concepts that are new to you.
Platform for Sage book and reference content, including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, and more. Only select book titles purchased by the UT Libraries are fully accessible.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide

Some key encyclopedias that aren't all included in the database above...

Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders by Fred R. Volkmar (Editor)
Publication Date: 2020
Encyclopedia of Education and Human Development by Stephen J. Farenga; Daniel Ness
Publication Date: 2015
Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education by Steve Lerman (Editor)
Publication Date: 2014
Encyclopedia of Science Education by Richard Gunstone (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
Encyclopedia of Special Education by Cecil R. Reynolds, Kimberly J. Vannest and Elaine Fletcher-Janzen (Editors)
Publication Date: 2014
Handbook of Special Education by James M. Kauffman (Editor); Daniel P. Hallahan (Editor); Paige Cullen Pullen (Editor)
Publication Date: 2017
The Praeger International Handbook of Special Education [3 Volumes] by Michael L. Wehmeyer and James R. Patton (Editor)
Publication Date: 2017
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Intellectual and Developmental Disorders by Ellen Braaten (Editor)
ISBN: 1483392295
Publication Date: 2018

SAGE Research Methods This link opens in a new window
A large database of methodological resources. From book-length guidance for specific methods (network analysis, ethnography, etc) to encyclopedia descriptions, this is a great place to start if you need methodological support.
A research methods tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects. Contains content from over 720 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks, the entire “Little Green Book,” and ""Little Blue Book” series, two Major Works collating a selection of journal articles, and specially commissioned videos. Researchers can explore methods and concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since Sage Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.
For Tips and Tutorials, please see the Sage Research Methods Tutorials page and the Sage Research Methods LibGuide.

Below are some selected, recent books about special education research methods, and you'll find additional recent books about educational research methods in our Library Catalog.

Emancipatory and Participatory Research for Emerging Educational Researchers: Theory and Case Studies of Research in Disabled Communities by Joe Barton and Simon Hayhoe
Publication Date: 2022
Evaluating Educational Interventions: Single-Case Design for Measuring Response to Intervention by T. Chris Riley-Tillman, Matthew K. Burns and Stephen P. Kilgus
Publication Date: 2020
Evidence-Based Practice in Education: Functions of Evidence and Causal Presuppositions by Tone Kvernbekk
Publication Date: 2015
Foundations of Education Research: Understanding Theoretical Components by Joy Egbert and Sherry Sanden
Publication Date: 2019
The Meta-Analysis Research in Special Education by Kenneth A. Kavale (Editor)
Publication Date: 2021
Practical Research Methods in Education: An Early Researcher’s Critical Guide by Mike Lambert (Editor)
Publication Date: 2019
Research Methods in Special Education by Brittany Hott. Frederick Brigham and Corey Peltier
Publication Date: 2021
Systematic Reviews in Educational Research: Methodology, Perspectives and Application by Olaf Zawacki-Richter, Michael Kerres, Svenja Bedenlier, Melissa Bond and Katja Buntins (Editors)
Publication Date: 2019
Treatment Fidelity in Studies of Educational Intervention by Greg Roberts (Editor); Sharon Vaughn (Editor); S. Natasha Beretvas (Editor); Vivian Wong (Editor)
Publication Date: 2017

We buy lots of books to support you as a writer. You'll find recent examples below and additional books about academic writing in our Library Catalog.

Conducting Your Literature Review by Susanne Hempel
Publication Date: 2019
Demystifying Academic Writing by Zhihui Fang
Publication Date: 2021
Dissertation Solutions by Bradley N. Axelrod; James Windell
Publication Date: 2012
Literature Review and Research Design by Dave Harris
Publication Date: 2019
Mastering Academic Writing in the Sciences by Marialuisa Aliotta
Publication Date: 2018
Publishing Journal Articles by Zheng Yan and Catherine Snow
Publication Date: 2020
Successful Academic Writing by Anneliese A. Singh; Lauren Lukkarila
Publication Date: 2017
Writing Empirical Research Reports by Melisa C. Galvan and Fred Pyrczak
Publication Date: 2016
Writing Literature Reviews by Jose L. Galvan and Melisa C. Galvan
Publication Date: 2017
Writing Skills for Education Students
Publication Date: 2018

ERIC Updates

Due to the the DOGE's efforts to "reduce overall Federal spending," the number of records added to the ERIC collection will be reduced by approximately 45% starting April 24th, 2025. At this time, ERIC representatives stated that all records currently in ERIC will remain available. We always and still recommend searching Education Source in addition to ERIC. This should give you robust coverage of education literature. Emails from ERIC and a librarian-collected list of journals are linked in the Google Doc below. Also linked is a research article on selecting specialized education databases.

Education Librarian

Casey Ruegger

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Subjects: Curriculum and Instruction, Education, Educational Leadership & Policy, Special Education, Youth Literature

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