Welcome back from Spring Break, Panthers! As you prepare to tackle the second half of the semester with vigor and research, be sure you’re following our “My Librarian’s Favorite Resource(s)” blog series to get hot tips on the best resources to use for each discipline. This week we’re chatting with Assessment Librarian Lauren Dubell about her favorite resources in the two fields in which she serves as subject liaison librarian – Education and Political Science. Lauren writes:

“I have been working with the faculty and students at the Donna Ford Attallah College of Educational Studies as their subject liaison librarian for almost three and a half years. I teach undergraduate and graduate instruction sessions and provide individual research consultations to students from the undergraduate to doctoral level. I’ve compiled a list of two resources below that are wonderful sources for Educational research. However, feel free to access the Education Research Guide (https://chapman.libguides.com/education) for more useful resources.

  • Education Full Text: https://chapman.libguides.com/education_full_text
    • This database has a large range of education journals and access to articles about a myriad of education subjects, including adult education, school administration, and special education. I point to this database as the perfect place to start researching.
  • ERIC ProQuest: https://chapman.libguides.com/eric_proquest
    • This database is a great place to find empirical articles and studies done in Education, as well as conference papers, theses, and dissertations and a variety of other source types. One feature of the database allows for limiting by education level if you’re interested in finding studies for a specific education level such as elementary education, high school, or higher education.

I also support the Political Science Department within the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Much like my work with the Education Department, I provide instruction sessions and meet with students to help them with their research. Two great resources I recommend for Political Science research include the Roper Center Archives and the CQ Researcher Plus Archive. Again, there are many more great resources, which you’ll find on the Political Science Research Guide (https://chapman.libguides.com/political_science).

  • Roper Center Archives: https://chapman.libguides.com/roper_center_archives
    White text on red background. Logo for the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

    Logo for the Roper Center

    • This database houses a large collection of poll data from United States polling firms, with over 710,000 polling questions, response results, charts, and data sets. It’s a really good resource if you’re looking for public opinion data or want to use survey research in your projects.
  • CQ Researcher Plus Archive: https://chapman.libguides.com/cq_researcher_plus
    • I recommend using this database to find reports on political and social-policy issues. There is coverage from 1923 to present, and the reports are well-researched and include an overview, background section, chronology and a bibliography, which is always useful to review when writing a research paper or learning more about an issue. You can also search by topic to find specific reports.”