Education Literature Guide
Contact Your Librarian
- Jill Woolums
- Office Hours: 9-5
- Office Location: Education Psychology Social Welfare Library, 2600 Tolman Hall
- Contact Info:
510-642-2475
About this Guide
Guide to searching educational literature in ERIC, Education Index, Education Research Abstracts.
Education Literature Intro
Top Three Databases.
The UC Libraries provide several index/databases for searching literature in education. The three primary education databases are ERIC, Education Index, and Educational Research Abstracts (ERA). Click the tabs above to find specific search tips for doing research with each database. Also, find several related psychology, social science and language/literacy databases under the "More Databases" or "Psychology" tabs above. Several of the related databases, such as PsycInfo, are searchable simultaneously with ERIC on the ProQuest platform.
ERIC, EdIndex and ERA all search for scholarly journal articles in education. There is some overlap among them with respect to journal coverage; however, each indexes some journal titles not covered by the others.
In addition, ERIC indexes Documents (known as "ERIC Documents") from hundreds of organizations producing education-related material. Document types include books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers, and school district documents. Organizations providing non-journal content to ERIC include research foundations, federal and state agencies, policy organizations, university affiliates, and commercial publishers.
ERA also searches ebooks and reference materials published by the Taylor & Francis Group, that includes Routledge, Psychology Press, CRC Press, and Garland Science,
Where to Find ERIC, EdIndex, and ERA.
All the primary education databases - ERIC, Ed Index, and ERA - and PsycInfo are linked from the EDP Library's homepage.
Key Education Topics
ERIC
Where to find ERIC. Find ERIC on the EDP Library homepage under ERIC for the Eric.gov interface or MultiEdPsyc for the ProQuest platform. The MultiEdPsyc link has been configured to search several related databases at once. With one search engine, simultaneously search ERIC, PsycInfo, Communication Abstracts, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, and MLA International Bibliography. The MultiEdPsyc link is available ONLY on the EDP Library homepage.
What's in ERIC ERIC, publicly sponsored and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is the primary and leading index to journals and other literature published in education.
ERIC provides an index to citations for (1) journal articles and (2) ERIC Documents relating to the field of education. Journals and documents are indexed back to 1965. The index points to over 780 journals, representing more than 1.3 million bibliographic records. Check the journal list for titles.
ERIC Documents are from hundreds of organizations producing education-related material. Document types include books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers, and school district documents. Organizations providing non-journal content to ERIC include research foundations, federal and state agencies, policy organizations, university affiliates, and commercial publishers.
How to find full-text of cited material: The Library provides full-text access (online or in print) to most of the journals indexed in ERIC and the other databases searchable from the ProQuest platform. From ProQuest, follow 
to discover UC’s online or print full-text coverage. In ERIC.gov, click on "Find in a Library", then on the button, . WorldCat connects the ERIC database to the UC Libraries' collectons.
ERIC has digitized the entire collection of ERIC Documents (formerly on microfiche). ERIC has not received copyright permission to provide online full-text of a small portion of the documents, however. Most of this portion is available on microfiche at the EDP Library. Microfiche may be checked out and taken to Doe Library for scanning onto a flash drive or printed at EDP. For digitized ERIC Documents follow (via CSA) or the pdf link, 
ERIC Full-text ,( via Eric.gov).
If an item is not available full-text from the UC Libraries, ask a librarian for assistance, or use the “Request” links in Melvyl or Oskicat to request an interlibrary loan.
ERIC.gov Tips
Use the Advanced Search engine for the best results.
Advanced Search lets you refine your search by: keywords, title, author, descriptor, source (i.e. journal name), ERIC Accession Number, ISBN, institution, sponsoring agency, publisher, date range, peer review status and more.
Browse by Topic using the Thesaurus. Index terms, referred to as “descriptors,” are assigned to every item in the ERIC database. Click on “Thesaurus” from the ERIC homepage. Here you can browse alphabetically, by category or search by descriptor.
Find Effective Keywords using the Thesaurus. First think of your question in your own words. Enter those words into the thesaurus search engine to see if there is a descriptor that matches your words. If not, ERIC will provide suggested words. For example, to find articles and documents about tests that measure attitude, enter "test* attitude." The asterisk picks up both singular and plural. The results indicate two descriptors: "Attitude Tests 1966_1980" and "Self Attitude Test."
Refine Your Search. Click on the ERIC Search button to launch an ERIC search from the Thesaurus. ERIC will automatically create a search using the descriptor, but will first give you the opportunity to refine the search by presenting the advanced search screen with its many limiter options.
Once the results appears, you will have another opportunity to narrow your search by author, publication, dates, audience, educational level or additional descriptor.
Ed Index
Where to find Ed Index. Find Ed Index via the EDP Library homepage. Education Index in now on the Ebsco platform. Both Education Full Text and Education Index Retrospective appear together.
What's in Ed Index: Education Index indexes journal articles and book reviews. Ed Index provides citations from over 350 journals as far back as 1996. It also points to citations for nearly 770 journals back to 1983. Newly added is the full-text of The Chronicle of Higher Education back to January 2001. Click on “Journal Directory” after opening the Ed Index search engine to find a full list of journal titles and their coverage. Some of the titles overlap the coverage in ERIC, but several are only indexed by Ed Index. This is why it is important to run the same search in both ERIC and Ed Index.
How to find full-text of cited material: The Ed Index search engine points to citations, including abstracts. The Library provides full-text access, either online or in print (via UC-eLinks), to a large number of journal articles from the present back to 1929. IMPORTANT NOTE: When using the Ed Index search engine, do not check the “full-text” box. Why? Because you will miss many citations and full-text articles which the Library buys and to which we have online access from other content providers (other than Ebsco).
Once a citation is identified in Ed Index, follow UC-eLinks 
to discover the full-text. If we buy the full-text from Ebsco, there will be a direct link from the initial results page. If links to full-text (online or in print) do not readily appear, ask a librarian, or use the “Request” links in Melvyl or Oskicat to request an interlibrary loan.
Ebsco Tips
Ebsco's Search Engine. This is the search engine linked to Education Index Full-text, Education Index Retrospective, Academic Search Complete, and Business Source Complete. Ebsco provides only a single column, three-row f search entry. To clarify intent, terms can be linked with “and”, “or”, or “not”.
Do not check the box labeled “full-text” as you will miss most of the material available online at UC and find only the content we buy from Ebsco. Ebsco indexes, i..e., points to, more content than that which they sell in full-text. UC buys all of Ebsco's education full-text content and much more full-text from other vendors. Everything UC has purchased is seamlessly linked and findable via the UC-eLinks yellow button.
For example, a broad subject search for empirical studies on writing instruction in K-12 schools might be:
Row One: TX (All Text) = “writing instruction”
Row Two: TX (All Text) = “empirical study”
Row Three: TX (All Text) = K-12
Ebsco is not as granular as other search engines, such as ProQuest, in that it does not permit searching by more specific fields such as Methodology or Tests & Measurements.
Better results occur when phrases are placed in quotation marks.
ERA
Where to find ERA. Find ERA (Education Research Abstracts) on the EDP Library homepage. After doing searches in ERIC and EdIndex, run another search in ERA to pick up additional citations.
What's in ERA: The focus of ERA is current international research in education. ERA covers multiple topics including: child development, literacy, multicultural education, sociology of education, and training and general education.
ERA indexes over 860 journal titles, and provides over 50,000 article abstracts. Citations date back to 1995. ERA includes journals from Britian, Canada, Australia, United States and Europe, some of which are not indexed in either ERIC or Ed Index/Retro.
How to find full-text of cited material. The full-text of most of the articles to which ERA points are linked directly from the ERA platform. ERA points to nearly 350 journal titles. The Library purchases access to full-text articles, either online or in print, for most of the journals cited in ERA. If a hypertext link does not appear next to a citation, do a separate search for the journal in Oskicat or Melvyl to see if the Library purchases the title from another provider. Also, ask a librarian for assistance.
T&F Informaworld Tips
ERA (Educational Research Abstracts Online) is on the Informaworld platform. Because it is a smaller, more focused database, it is most effective when broader, more general terms or keywords are searched. Use the advanced search screen to deselect additional databases not related to education.
Sample Search:
To do a subject search for empirical studies on writing instruction, follow this example:
KW (Keyword) = writing instruction
This search produces a very manageable set of less than 100 results.
More Databases for Education
Key Education Topics
ERIC.gov Tips
Use the Advanced Search engine for the best results.
Advanced Search lets you refine your search by: keywords, title, author, descriptor, source (i.e. journal name), ERIC Accession Number, ISBN, institution, sponsoring agency, publisher, date range, peer review status and more.
Browse by Topic using the Thesaurus. Index terms, referred to as “descriptors,” are assigned to every item in the ERIC database. Click on “Thesaurus” from the ERIC homepage. Here you can browse alphabetically, by category or search by descriptor.
Find Effective Keywords using the Thesaurus. First think of your question in your own words. Enter those words into the thesaurus search engine to see if there is a descriptor that matches your words. If not, ERIC will provide suggested words. For example, to find articles and documents about tests that measure attitude, enter "test* attitude." The asterisk picks up both singular and plural. The results indicate two descriptors: "Attitude Tests 1966_1980" and "Self Attitude Test."
Refine Your Search. Click on the ERIC Search button to launch an ERIC search from the Thesaurus. ERIC will automatically create a search using the descriptor, but will first give you the opportunity to refine the search by presenting the advanced search screen with its many limiter options.
Once the results appears, you will have another opportunity to narrow your search by author, publication, dates, audience, educational level or additional descriptor.
T&F Informaworld Tips
ERA (Educational Research Abstracts Online) is on the Informaworld platform. Because it is a smaller, more focused database, it is most effective when broader, more general terms or keywords are searched. Use the advanced search screen to deselect additional databases not related to education.
Sample Search:
To do a subject search for empirical studies on writing instruction, follow this example:
KW (Keyword) = writing instruction
This search produces a very manageable set of less than 100 results.
Ebsco Tips
Ebsco's Search Engine. This is the search engine linked to Education Index Full-text, Education Index Retrospective, Academic Search Complete, and Business Source Complete. Ebsco provides only a single column, three-row f search entry. To clarify intent, terms can be linked with “and”, “or”, or “not”.
Do not check the box labeled “full-text” as you will miss most of the material available online at UC and find only the content we buy from Ebsco. Ebsco indexes, i..e., points to, more content than that which they sell in full-text. UC buys all of Ebsco's education full-text content and much more full-text from other vendors. Everything UC has purchased is seamlessly linked and findable via the UC-eLinks yellow button.
For example, a broad subject search for empirical studies on writing instruction in K-12 schools might be:
Row One: TX (All Text) = “writing instruction”
Row Two: TX (All Text) = “empirical study”
Row Three: TX (All Text) = K-12
Ebsco is not as granular as other search engines, such as ProQuest, in that it does not permit searching by more specific fields such as Methodology or Tests & Measurements.
Better results occur when phrases are placed in quotation marks.
Related Subject Guides
Related Course Guides
Go To Full Version
