Searching Systematically for Doctorate in Counselling Psychology
R20–0703 EDUM01140
Introduction
Hi everyone! I’m Michael, a Teaching and Learning Librarian at the University of Manchester Library. You will be seeing me in a few weeks’ time to discuss this content and any questions you might have. This resource will help you to turn your research question into a well constructed search strategy and apply that strategy across a range of databases — a key part of your systematic review.
Constructing your search strategy
Search terms
When conducting a systematic review your aim is to consider all of the published research relevant to your topic. To do this you need to consider other ways that researchers might describe the terms and concepts in your topic. This is the first step in constructing your search strategy.
- Highlight the key concepts in your research question.
- Map out synonyms — are there any related concepts or other ways to express the same idea which need considering?
- Consider alternative spellings or word endings.
You could arrange them in a mind map like in the image below, or in a table — whatever way works best for you.
Analyse the example question below, identify the key terms or concepts and map out relevant synonyms and related concepts:
“An investigation of the efficacy of online therapy for children and young people suffering from trauma.”
Try working through this online resource with your own topic or question:
PLEASE EMBED — https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/learning-objects/mle/planning-search/story_html5.html
Search frameworks
Search frameworks can help you to organise your concepts and search terms. I might use the ‘PICO’ framework with our example (potential synonyms in parentheses):
- Population — children and young people (infants, adolescents, teenagers, etc.)
- Intervention — online therapy (e-therapy, web-based therapy, etc.)
- Comparison — other therapy delivery (face-to-face therapy, self-help, group therapy, etc.)
- Outcomes — positive outcomes (quality of life, completion rates, improved mental health, etc.)
The above is a lay-person’s attempt — I expect you to bring your subject expertise as well as ideas from reading the papers you find to your search strategy!
Work through our online resource with your own topic or question. Do any of the frameworks suit your topic? If so, try fitting your terms into one of the frameworks:
PLEASE EMBED — https://medium.com/specialist-library-support/using-frameworks-to-structure-your-search-6d2753eb801c
Combining your search terms
When your are feeling confident that you have considered all the terms and concepts relevant to our topic you can start thinking about how you will combine them. To do this, we use ‘Boolean logic’ — AND, OR and NOT.
OR broadens a search and returns results with any of the terms joined by OR. Use it when combining synonyms or related concepts. For example — ‘children OR young people OR adolescents OR teenagers’.
AND narrows a search and return only results with all terms joined by AND. Use it when combining unrelated concepts. For example — ‘children AND online therapy’.
NOT removes results which contain that term. It should be used sparingly to avoid unintended consequences. For example — ‘online therapy NOT teletherapy’. An unintended consequence might be to remove a relevant paper about ‘online therapy’ that mentions ‘teletherapy’ in its abstract so be considered when using NOT.
You can find out more about Boolean logic in our online resource:
PLEASE EMBED — https://medium.com/specialist-library-support/advanced-search-making-use-of-boolean-operators-edcc0ab034c8
Choosing and using search resources
Choosing your subject databases
Using an appropriate range of search resources is crucial to conducting an effective systematic search. It is important to consider the different areas of research that might have an interest in your topic and choose appropriate tools from those areas. Let’s take an example:
“An investigation of the efficacy of online therapy for children and young people suffering from trauma.”
What research areas or professionals might have an interest in this topic and why?
Now let’s think about your topics or questions. Please post your topic or question and your ideas on the research areas or professionals who might have an interest in your topic. Comment or reply to other people’s posts to share ideas in the discussion board below.
PLEASE EMBED A DISCUSSION BOARD
PLEASE EMBED ‘FINDING INFORMATION 1.3–1.4’
Using databases
Once you have identified the databases you will use it’s time to get searching! As you do please add any questions you have to the discussion board at the end of this section and we can address those questions via Blackboard or in our live ‘Q&A’.
Most of you will have identified ‘Psycinfo’ as a key database and it is a great place to start. You can find our guide to Psycinfo and other health sciences databases in our online resource:
PLEASE EMBED — https://medium.com/specialist-library-support/replicating-searches-in-different-health-science-database-platforms-b2dc80145897
You will probably notice that some databases look very similar and others completely different. This is because some databases are on the same ‘platform’ (Psycinfo and Medline can be both accessed on the Ovid platform) and some are on different platforms (CINAHL is on the EBSCO platform, ASSIA is on the Proquest platform). It is important to know the difference between a database and a platform when you report on your search results. You can find out more about this in our online resource:
PLEASE EMBED — https://medium.com/specialist-library-support/introduction-to-health-science-databases-fb2c0669beb1
PLEASE EMBED DISCUSSION BOARD WITH INSTRUCTION:
Please add any questions you have to the discussion board at the end of this section and we can address those questions here or in our live ‘Q&A’ on 20th October. Please feel free to respond to other people’s comments too!
Help and support
PLEASE EMBED FINDING INFORMATION 1.9
