Subject Research: Education:

Subject Research: Education

Books are great for background information on topics, trends, and people.  Many of the most popular and influential theorists and theories will only be available in books.

The Walden Library has a wide collection of books in the field of education. 

View recommended education book titles and databases

Learn more about Education research basics

When working on your literature review, you will read and look at hundreds of articles, books, and other materials. However, you will not include all of them in your final literature review. This does not mean you've wasted your time looking at unnecessary articles! Rather, this review of the literature is what helps you become an expert in your field.

• Role of the Literature Review
• Search Skills
• Staying Organized
• Writing the Literature Review
• Beyond the Literature Review

Learn more about the Literature Review process in Education 

Learn more about the Literature Review process

Part of your research will include identifying and obtaining original theoretical works, and integrating them into your research to tie your ideas together and keep them grounded in historical context. We understand that it may be challenging to find theories and theorists and track down their original works.  The Library can help!

• Explore theories in Education
• Reference and dissertation databases
• Education encyclopedias
• Education theories and theoretical works

Here is a short video demonstrating how to find articles by or about a theorist:

 Learn more about Theories & Theorists in Education

 Learn more about Theories & Theorists

​The SAGE Research Methods Online database provides access to encyclopedias, journal articles, and books that discuss methodology.

Learn about research methods, design your research study, and explore different methodologies.

We also have tutorials on how to use SRMO - one with a qualitative search example and one with a quantitative search example.

More resources:

• Education Research Methodology Books
• Search by Research Method
• Additional Resources

 Learn more about Education Methodology

When you begin your search, you will need to determine if you need prepared statistics or raw datasets. The term statistics refers to data that has already been analyzed.

Locating Datasets

If you want to do your own analysis, then you need a dataset. You can find secondary datasets (data that has been collected by someone else) in sources like the ICPSR database (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Science Research Datasets) or the U.S. Census.

• Statistics & Data by Topic: Some data and statistics are available freely online from government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions.
• ​ICPSR, which contains raw datasets, is a subscription database that is available through the Office of Research and Doctoral Services.

Data and Statistics in Peer-Reviewed Articles

You can search the Library's research databases for peer-reviewed articles that use statistics to support a position or argument. You may have to try several different searches to find relevant articles. Peer-reviewed articles can be very valuable if you are struggling to locate statistics or data from a government site or database. The Statistics in Articles page includes instructions that show you how to search for articles in the Library's research databases.

Finding a test or measurement instrument for your doctoral study is often one of the most challenging parts of your research. The multidisciplinary aspect of Education research can further complicate the task of finding an instrument. In fact, many education dissertations use psychological measurement instruments.

Most measurement instruments can be used for a variety of research topics. The instrument(s) you choose will depend on the specific things you want to measure as part of your own research.

Start by looking at the Identify Tests page of the Tests & Measures Guide. It provides basic information about available test databases and provides videos of sample searches.

 Learn more about Tests & Measures for Education