Although your focus is on a social work research topic, the knowledge you employ will come from different knowledge bases from several different disciplines. By searching different knowledge bases, you can incorporate a broader range of diverse perspectives and insights into your research.
For example, you might search social work databases using key terms from your research topic idea but find limited results. However, a search in psychology or health sciences databases might yield new information that you can apply to your social work research or practice goals. Based on that new information, you might even find new key words you had not considered before, prompting you to return to the social work databases to use those key words as additional search terms. This cycle—search, document new information, and revise your search based on the new information to continue to narrow your topic—will be more fruitful the more you expand your knowledge base.
In this Assignment, you use a Discipline Tracker tool—located within the Expanded Literature Review Matrix document in your Learning Resources—to document specific databases you can use when investigating your research topic across different disciplines.
To Prepare
Open the Expanded Literature Review Matrix document from your Learning Resources and select the Discipline Tracker tab.
Review the resource, Database Search Skills: Identify Relevant Databases, from the Learning Resources.
Navigate to the Walden Library homepage. Then, using your Discipline Tracker tab to document your search, do the following:
Click on Research by Subject to view a list of disciplines.
Select at least three disciplines, in addition to your primary Social Work discipline, you will use to further investigate your potential research topic.
Click on each of the disciplines you selected. Then click through the list of databases in each discipline page—under the [Subject] articles, journals, & books heading—to view potential databases for researching your topic.
Select at least two databases in each discipline. In your selected databases, use the key words for your potential research topic to conduct a discipline-specific library search.
Review the topic-appropriate articles based on your search results. Take note of the common journals you see. Then select a journal from each discipline to help you further investigate your research topic.
Note: You do not have to submit your Excel file for this Assignment, but you will be required to submit the completed information in Week 10.
By Day 7
In a Word document, submit your short answers to the following:
Describe your selection: Why did you choose these disciplines over others?
Did you find some of the disciplines you selected more helpful than others? Why?
Were there any disciplines you started to explore but then decided against using? If so, why? If not, are there other disciplines you still want to explore as you continue your literature searches?
In 5–7 sentences, describe what you learned about your potential research topic after doing a search within the different databases.
In 5–7 sentences, describe what you learned about your potential research topic after doing a search within the different specific, discipline-related journals.
