Kim Read
design of a research course
Connect Activity: Discussing Search Results
Students connect to their research topic and their search process by describing their experience, reflecting on it and asking questions. The discussion is also a formative assessment and feedback is provided in the discussion board giving all participants the opportunity to learn from each other.
This connect activity addresses the following two terminal objectives and all of their enabling objectives:
Given a research topic, create search phrases to be used in an article database.
Given a research topic, a search phrase and a list of search results, revise search phrases when necessary.
Here's the activity:
1) Briefly mention your topic. Tell us the most useful database for your particular topic. Is the database a general or subject specific database? What subject?
2) Search is an intricate process. Discussing our experiences of search can be helpful and insightful. Please share your process by answering the following:
a. What was the original search phrase you used? For example: "body image" AND teenagers AND media.
b. Describe both the quality and quantity of your results.
c. How did you change your search phrase and why, or, what other search phrase did you try? For example: I didn't get enough results so I changed my search to: "body image" AND (teen* OR girls) AND (media OR magazine*)
d. Tell us something you learned that might help someone else in their search OR ask a question about something you don't quite understand about search techniques/database results/etc.