Education
From Simmons Library Research Guides
We have selected these resources to help you find relevant information on your research topic. Please contact a librarian for help using the resources listed in this guide or for help with your research process.
Contents |
Reference and Background Information
Search for Reference sources that contain information about your specific research topic here:
You may also consult the resources below for overviews of the topic that you have chosen to research. Use these resources to help you to put your topic in context and give you the big picture of what information exists about your topic. These resources may have bibliographies at the end of each entry that can help further your research.
- Almanac of American Education
Level 1 Reference LA217.2 .A45
This book is your definitive source for American education related statistics. Find updated, comprehensive statistics for everything from high school drop out, to education statistics according to race and gender, along with charts and graphs.
- Developing Educational Standards
Free Online
Provides links to education standards by state and by subject.
- Education and Sociology
Level 1 Reference LC189.95 .E38 2002
This work details sociological research on ways to increase academic achievement. The emphasis is on understanding schools and school reform within the context of the larger society in which they exist.
- Educator's Desk Reference (EDR)
Level 1 Reference LB1028.27.U6 F74 2002
This print resource will help anyone who is conducting Master's and PhD level educational research. It is divided into six sections Print Reference Materials, Internet Information sources, Professional Publishing sources, Computer Software, Research Designs complete with Statistical Procedures and Sampling Techniques and a Directory of Organizations.
- Educator's Reference Desk
Free Online
Use this free web page to find subject specific lesson plans, read questions submitted by educators, find web pages and other resources related specifically to an educational interest, such as counseling or home schooling, and much more.
- Encyclopedia of American Education
Level 1 Reference LB17 .U54 2001
This comprehensive three-volume encyclopedia covers most broad topics in American education, including administration, court decisions, important figures, history, reform, and pedagogy, among others. This is a particularly useful resource for students of education, although it can provide useful background information for anyone interested or working in the field.
- Encyclopedia of Education
Level 1 Reference LB15 .E47 2003
An eight volume encyclopedia with extensive entries on famous educational figures, educational principles, terminology, recommended readings arranged by topic, and much more, with detailed analysis and discussion.
- Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration
Level 1 Reference LB2805 .E527 2006
A recent work that describes the concepts that form the foundation of educational leadership and school administration as it is currently taught and practiced. There is a combination of theoretical information, practical information as well as biographies of influential thinkers.
- Greenwood Dictionary of Education
Level 1 Reference LB15 .G68 2003
This dictionary focuses on the contemporary usage of terms in education in the United States. The terms covered encompass research, practice and theory of all levels of education.
- Language of Learning
Level 1 Reference LB15 .M32 1997
This dictionary aims to explain the jargon used by educational professionals using everyday language.
- Learning Theories, A to Z
Level 1 Reference LB15 .L4695 2002
Provides extensive, detailed definitions of educational theories and practices. There is also an annotated bibliography full of useful additional readings. This is a great book to use with difficult theory based assignments and readings.
- World Education Encyclopedia
Level 1 Reference LB15 .W87 2001
This three volume set of encyclopedias provides almost everything you need to know the educational systems of nations around the world. Along with basic facts, such as the literacy rate percentage, or number of years of schooling required, the book also provides history, a legal perspective, overviews and analysis of each education level, an examination of teaching as a profession in that country, and much more in-depth knowledge.
Curriculum Development and Lesson Plans
- Curriculum Collection
Level 2
Simmons maintains a collection of K-12 textbooks, teacher manuals, and other curriculum development tools. Search the Library Catalog for the subject you are developing a lesson or curriculum and limit you search to Location: Curriculum Collection to find helpful resources.
- Curriculum Resource Center
Simmons Eresource
An electronic library of printable teacher-handout material arranged by subject -- history, geography, science, and mathematics, for the middle, high school, and junior college curriculum. It contains maps, charts, pictures, diagrams, timelines and science experiments.
- Curriculum Resources Center Junior
Simmons Eresource
An electronic library of printable teacher-handout material arranged by subject -- history, geography, science, and mathematics, for the elementary school curriculum. It contains maps, charts, pictures, diagrams, timelines and science experiments.
- Educator's Desk Reference Virtual Lesson Plan Collection
Free Online
Use this free web page to find subject specific lesson plans, read questions submitted by educators, find web pages and other resources related specifically to an educational interest, such as counseling or home schooling, and much more.
- Federal Resources for Education Excellence (FREE)
Free Online
More than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources are included from dozens of federal agencies. New sites are added regularly.
- Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)
Free Online
The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) provides quick and easy access to over 40,000 lesson plans, instructional units and other educational materials in all forms and formats. GEM's goal is to improve the organization and accessibility of the substantial collections of materials that are already available on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. GEM is a nonprofit consortium membership organization serving educators and trainers at all levels in the USA and around the world.
- Lesson Plan Library
Free Online
Presented by the Discovery Channel, this resource offers hundreds lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school students developed by teachers.
- Smithsonian Educators: Lesson Plans
Free Online
Smithsonian lesson plans emphasize inquiry-based learning using primary sources and museum collections. Each plan is print-friendly and provides you with all the materials you need—photographs, reproductions, handouts, activities, suggested strategies, standards information, and additional online resources.
- Teachers' Domain
Free Online
Provides lesson plans and multimedia resources (documents, images, video, audio, and interactive presentations) for K-12 teachers. Content is produced by WGBH Boston and includes resources from NOVA, American Experience, and other public broadcasting programs. Free registration is required for saving preferences and searches.
- World Lecture Hall
Free Online
World Lecture Hall publishes links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver course materials in any language. Some courses are delivered entirely over the Internet. Others are designed for students in residence. Many fall somewhere in between. While the target audience is faculty and students in higher education, some modules and materials can be adapted for grade school curricula, especially high school.
Statistics
- Common Core Data (CCD)
Free Online
The Common Core of Data (CCD) is a program of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics that annually collects fiscal and non-fiscal data about all public schools, public school districts and state education agencies in the United States.
- Condition of Education
Free Online
This free web page from the National Center for Educational Statistics compiles educational indicators, assessments for all grade levels, surveys, and much more.
- Digest of Education Statistics
Free Online
Provides a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The Digest includes a selection of data from many sources, both government and private, and draws especially on the results of surveys and activities carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
- EDSTATS
Free Online
A comprehensive education statistics database developed by the World Bank’s Education Group of the Human Development Network in collaboration with Development Data Group in the Development Economics Vice-Presidency. It compiles data from a variety of national and international sources and provides information on key education topics.
- Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators
Free Online
This free web page provides a series of indicators for educational issues such as educational participation, financial investments in education, school environments and much more. Additional data, podcasts, surveys, and much more are also provided.
- Education Statistics Quarterly
Free Online
Use this web page to view free full text issues of Education Statistics Quarterly from 1999 through 2006. The articles cover many ranges of educational topics, all backed up with data and statistics. You can browse through entire issues, or view articles organized by topic.
- Educational Rankings Annual
Level 1 Reference LB2331.63 .E34
Provides the latest available statistics about the ranking of different schools, individual programs such as engineering, tests such as the SAT, class types such as A.P, and much more, all arranged according to topic area, such as chemistry. Each statistic is briefly annotated with information such as how the data was determined, and a brief background on how and why this information has been ranked.
- Online Education Database
Free Online
"The UNESCO/OECD/EUROSTAT (UOE) database on education statistics is compiled on the basis of national administrative sources, reported by Ministries of Education or National Statistical offices according to international standards, definitions and classifications. The collected annual data cover the outputs of educational institutions, the policy levers that shape educational outputs, the human and financial resources invested in education, structural characteristics of education systems, and the economic and social outcomes of education. The main purpose of this database is to produce and publish indicators and analysis on the operation, evolution and impact of education, from early childhood through formal education to learning and training throughout life."
- National Center for Education Statistics
Free Online
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. The website includes collections of education statistics and indicators about all aspects of American education.
- School District Demographic System
Free Online
Provides access to information about school district demographic resources in graphical map or tabular format.
- Social Statistics Briefing Room: Education
Free Online
The White House Web page makes available social indicators on education drawn from National Center for Education Statistics and National Science Foundation data.
- Teachers for Tomorrow's Schools
Level 1 Reference LB1771 .T34 2001
Analyzes the education indicators developed through the OECD/UNESCO World Education Indicators (WEI) program, including trends in educational finance and governance. Emphasis is placed on the what the indicators say about teachers and teaching conditions in participating countries.
- UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Free Online
Global and internationally comparable statistics on education, science, technology, culture and communication.
Instructional Technology
- Education and Technology
Level 1 Reference LB1028.3 .E17 2004
A two volume encyclopedia of all sorts of technologies with detailed definitions, and an explanation about how they relate to education.
- Educational Media and Technology Yearbook
Level 1 Reference LB1028.3 .E37
An annual publication that compiles articles and essays about technological issues relating to the most current educational issues, such as No Child Left Behind, and programs for children with autism. These articles include statistics, graphs and charts, and extensive bibliographies.
- Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology
Level 1 Reference LB1028.3 .H355 2004
From behaviorism and instructional technology to research on learning from television, this book compiles the latest educational research relating to technology.
Finding Articles
Below are suggested databases and indexes for articles on the topic that you have chosen to research. These databases include articles from newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals. Articles are shorter and more narrowly focused than books or reference materials so you should use them after you have narrowed your topic.
- Education Abstracts and Fulltext Journals
Simmons Eresource
Indexes over 500 scholarly and trade publications from the Education literature.
- Education Professional Development Collection
Simmons Eresource
Contains 700 journals and over 200 reports on education topics, many of them full text. Coverage: 1965 to the present.
- Educator's Reference Complete
Simmons Eresource
Drawing from journals, reports, and reference sources, Educator's Reference Complete provides information for educators on educational principles, child development and psychology, and best practices in education.
- ERIC
Simmons Eresource and Free Online
ERIC is the largest database of scholarly and non-academic literature on the field of education.
- Open Access Journals in the Field of Education
Free Online
Maintained by the American Education Research Association Special Interest Group, this list provides links to electronic journals that are scholarly, peer-reviewed, full text, and accessible without cost. Also listed are professional magazines that are largely not refereed and commercial journals that may only allow access to a very limited number of articles as an enticement to buy. This is not a searchable database.
- Academic Search Complete
Simmons Eresource
Academic Search Complete is a great place to start your search for both popular and scholarly articles, no matter what your topic is! It contains journals from almost every topic and is designed specifically for academic institutions. It provides more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, 4,400 of which are peer-reviewed journals. This resource also features content as far back as 1865.
- Academic Onefile
Simmons Eresource
Academic Onefile contains 8,000 academic journals, the majority in full-text, available in HTML and PDF formats. In addition it contains hundreds of podcasts and transcripts from NPR, CNN, and the CBC.
- Expanded Academic ASAP
Simmons Eresource
From arts and the humanities to social sciences, science and technology, this database meets research needs across all academic disciplines. Access scholarly journals, news magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images. Updated daily.
TIP: Use the Advanced Search for a more precise search!
Searching the Web
Simmons librarians have created a customized search engine that allows you to find Education information on the free web. Use this Education Google Custom Search Engine box to search all select, quality free web sites at the same time:
You may also wish to go directly to, or bookmark, the Education Google Custom Search Engine
Tips for Searching the Internet:
- Use the advanced search function, which is available from most search engines:
- Google - See also "Advanced Search Tips"
- Ask - Click "Advanced." See also "Advanced Search Tips"
- Live (MSN) - See also "Options"
- Exalead - See also "Exalead FAQ"
- Yahoo! Search
- Limit your search to .edu and .gov sites. These often provide quality research, statistics, and commentary. Sites ending in .org often have good information, too, but are likely to espouse a strong stance or bias on the issues they cover and may not be objective.
- Try Scandoo, which presents search results from Google, Yahoo! Search, or Live (MSN) with an evaluation about the objectivity, credibility, and overall reliability of the site.
- Consider using a directory of pre-screened, annotated sites:
Writing Style and Citation
For more information on style and citation for this discipline, please contact the Simmons College Writing Center
You may also consider consulting these resources:
- Writing Resources
Free Online
The Writing Center provides online resources for citing your research. If you are unsure of which citation style to use, consult your professor and consider the following:- Use APA (American Psychological Association) when your topic is in the Social Sciences
- Use ASA (American Sociological Association) when your topic is in Sociology
- Use MLA (Modern Language Association) when your topic is in the Humanities
- Use Chicago/Turabian when your topic is in Literature, History or the Arts
- Use CSE (Council of Science Editors) when your topic is in the Sciences
- RefWorks
Simmons Eresource
RefWorks is a great program for organizing articles, books, and other materials you need for research. You can also use RefWorks to create bibliographies, create in text citations in your paper (Write-N-Cite), and share your research with others. Access RefWorks from the A-Z list of resources on the library's web page, and then follow the instructions to create your own username and password. We hold RefWorks Clinics throughout the semester. For more information, ask a reference librarian
