Library Guides: EMT302 Research Skills Guide : Develop your skills

Welcome

Hi! I'm Jess, your embedded librarian and I've created this guide to help you with your research for EMT302.

Each section introduces the steps you should take when researching for an assessment. You'll find links to videos and resources that will give you the tools to find great information. Use the activities on the Test Your Knowledge tab to see what you need to revise.

Getting started with your assessment

The first thing is to make sure you clearly understand the task and what topic you are seeking information for, this is called topic analysis.

Assessment Item 1, for instance, asks you to investigate a topic or question regarding the use of technology in education. Be sure to thoroughly read your Subject Outline for the assessment details in full, including the Marking Criteria.

With an understanding of your task you then need to plan how you will search for information. This starts with identifying and brainstorming keywords. As this topic is quite open-ended, you will also need to consider how you will narrow your focus.

From your assessment task:

Keywords	Synonyms or related terms
technology A narrower focus may be assistive technology	Accessibility, aid, adaptive Adaptive devices, accessible technology
Education	learning, teaching, literacy, numeracy, pedagogy

Does your task place any limits? These might be "in the last X years"; Australian content; or a stage of education, like early childhood. These limits can also be used as keywords to search - keep reading for some example search strategies!

For guidance in topic analysis check out:

Choose the right place to search

Before you start searching, think about what types of information you need and where you can search to find those types of resources.

Primo Search

Primo Search is a good place to start as it allows you to use one search box to bring back results from most of our Library collection including books, eBooks, journal articles, newspaper articles and more. You may get a large number of results and some of these will be from outside your subject/discipline area. Check the content is relevant to your assessment task before you use it.

Library databases

Databases will help you find academic resources and are often subject specific. You will get fewer results than Primo, but they will be more relevant to your subject/discipline.

I recommend trying the following database:

ERIC - Education Resources Information Center (EBSCOhost version)
ERIC is the largest education database in the world, and is sponsored by the U.S. Dept of Education. It is available here as an EBSCOhost database, with much material available in full-text.
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is one of many databases available in the EBSCOhost platform, but is also available elsewhere as well (see below). Established in 1966, ERIC is an online digital library of education research and information. It is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. It provides extensive access to educational-related literature, and is said to be the largest education database in the world. It includes more than 1.3 million bibliographic records.

There are two types of ERIC content:
* Journal articles (EJ). Most are from peer-reviewed journals, and many are available in full-text, depending on the version of ERIC being used (see below).
* ERIC Documents (ED). These consist of materials from a range of sources, including scholarly organisations, professional associations, research centres, policy organisations, University Presses, the U.S. Department of Education and other U.S. federal agencies, and state and local agencies. They include conference papers, research papers, dissertations, theses, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, and books. Many are available in full-text.

Subject coverage includes:
* Adult, career and vocational education
* Counselling
* Elementary and early childhood education
* Education management
* Higher education
* Junior colleges
* Second-language learning
* Special education
* Teacher education
* Tests, measurement, and evaluation

A thesaurus is available to assist with subject-searching.

Charles Sturt Library has access to ERIC via 2 different platforms/interfaces. In addition to this EBSCOhost version, ERIC is also available via the ERIC website. These versions differ in their interface, the frequency of updating, and the amount of full-text content.

ERIC's own website includes fewer links to full-text but is updated more regularly and does have extra information about ERIC as a resource.

The Education & Teaching list has more databases you can search.

Learn how to search efficiently in Primo and Library databases:

Other Sources

Web Resources

As your assessments focus on educational technologies, you may find reliable websites a useful and current source (in addition to peer reviewed journal articles and scholarly books). For example:

Technology 4 Learning
A NSW Department of Education website that includes recommended classroom technologies and tools, news and professional reading.

Images

Assessment Item 1 also requires you to use a digital presentation application to share your findings, like PowerPoint or Keynote. To enhance your presentation, you may wish to include visual elements. To help you comply with Copyright law and source images responsibly, see:

Using Images at University
A Charles Sturt library guide that explains rules around using images, plus links to images that are freely available in the public domain, or under creative commons licenses.

Create a search strategy

When you search using Primo Search or a library database use the keywords and limits you identified above to create your search. Combine the keywords with search operators, rather than searching with a whole sentence or question. Search operators tell Primo or the database how to search with your keywords.

For your assessment topic potential search strings could include:

"assistive technology" AND "early childhood" AND educat*
(assistive OR access* OR adaptive) AND (tech* OR device) AND "early childhood" AND Australia*
"early childhood" AND pedagog* AND technolog*

Remember: you will need to try a range of searches. Don't stop after just one.

To understand how search operators work check out:

Evaluate

Using credible information will improve the quality of your assessment and may result in better marks, but how can you tell whether the resources you've found are credible and suitable for your assessment? Have you been asked to use peer reviewed, academic or refereed articles? Are you using authoritative websites?

The information below will help you evaluate the information you find, in books, journal articles, or online to make sure it’s reliable.

Using AI

Have you been asked to use Generative AI Tools (GAITs) in your assessment? Or are you thinking of using GAITs for research and study?

Make sure you are aware of the risks associated with using GAITs:

Academic integrity
Plagiarism
Inaccurate content
Intellectual property
Privacy concerns.

For more information see:

Library Guide: Generative AI

Microsoft Copilot

You have access to Microsoft Copilot's secure enterprise version while studying at Charles Sturt. This means your data is protected when using the secure version of Copilot via a student account, hence your data isn't retained or used for training the genAI. To find out how to access, head over to Charles Sturt's Microsoft Copilot page.

Reading, writing and referencing

The Academic Skills team can help you to build your writing, referencing and reading skills to be successful at Charles Sturt University.

Explore resources from the Academic Skills team in the Learning Skills section of the Student Portal.

Here are some pages to get you started:

Last Updated: Apr 15, 2025 2:14 PM
URL: https://libguides.csu.edu.au/emt302
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