Systematic literature reviews are common in social research for integrating and synthesising existing research. This paper argues that the outcomes of such reviews are affected by the choice of bibliographic databases. It presents evidence of substantial variation across three large electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO) in a…

The use of text mining tools can help librarians improve the precision of searches, increase search sensitivity, and translate search strategies across multiple research databases. When combined with the intuitive approaches that librarians commonly use, text mining tools help reduce biases by improving the objectivity, transparency, and…

The purpose of this article is to overview various challenges that prospective authors of quality systematic reviews should be prepared to address. These challenges pertain to all phases of the review process: from posing a critical question worthy of pursuit and executing a search procedure that is appropriately framed and transparently recorded,…

Research on the development of active learning and information search behaviors has been growing rapidly, drawing interest from multiple disciplines, from developmental psychology to cognitive science and artificial intelligence. These different perspectives can open pathways to understanding how preschool-age children grow into adaptive and…

Starting with the hypothesis that analogical reasoning consists of a search of semantic space, we used eye-tracking to study the time course of information integration in adults in various formats of analogies. The two main questions we asked were whether adults would follow the same search strategies for different types of analogical problems and…

Background: Digital Information Literacy (DIL) refers to the ability to obtain, understand, evaluate, and use information in digital contexts. To accurately capture various dimensions of DIL, assessment designers have increasingly looked toward complex, interactive simulation-based environments that afford more authentic learner performances.…

Background/purpose: This study investigates how the teaching intervention and familiarity with the search topic enhance Greek students' behaviour while solving information problems. Materials/methods: Seven university students solved three information problems on the same search topic during an academic semester. After the first and before the…

Current methodologies for designing search strategies rely heavily on the knowledge and expertise of information specialists. Yet, the volume and complexity of scientific literature is overwhelming for even the most experienced information specialists, making it difficult to produce robust search strategies for complex systematic reviews. In this…

Reviews of literature are conducted within academia to summarize and highlight gaps in findings and research approaches associated with a particular line of inquiry. Identifying sources to be included in reviews in rigorous ways can be challenging for interdisciplinary research topics, as relevant articles may be found in a wide variety of…

This paper explores the connection between critical theory, information evaluation, and the instructional practice of critique for STEM students and librarian instructors. Using an emerging theory and instructional method, the authors examine how to more deeply include voices that have historically been excluded from STEM information critique. The…

While geographic search filters exist, few of them are validated and there are currently none that focus on Germany. We aimed to develop and validate a highly sensitive geographic search filter for MEDLINE (PubMed) that identifies studies about Germany. First, using the relative recall method, we created a gold standard set of studies about…

When searching for scholarly documents, researchers often stick with the same familiar handful of databases. Yet, just beyond these limited horizons lie dozens of alternatives with which they could search more effectively, whether for quick lookups or thorough searches in systematic reviews or meta-analyses. Searchsmart.org is a free website that…

This study was designed to inform the renaming of a credit-bearing information literacy course. Researchers surveyed librarians to gather existing information literacy course titles. They also surveyed and held focus groups with students to learn what students consider when choosing electives, to understand how well the researchers' current…

With the rapid development of information technologies, online learning platforms have become the most convenient way for users(teachers and learners) to share their learning content. However, due to the increasing number of educational content, it becomes very difficult for learners to find the most appropriate items. Most previous methods…

Purpose: Motivation is a complex phenomenon that can influence a person's ability to make progress in treatment. We sought to understand how motivation is currently measured and utilized in aphasia rehabilitation by identifying treatment studies that (1) include measurement of motivation and (2) use motivation to predict treatment response.…