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Tips for searching: FInd quantitative research

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Finding quantitative research

General strategies for finding quantitative research

Search a variety of databases as no single database will cover all of the literature. Individual library databases may provide their own search tips in the help menus - this is a good place to start if you are unfamiliar with the database. 

Remember to plan your strategy before you start searching as this will help to minimise irrelevant results.

Basic search tips

  • Break down your research topic into keywords. Keep a list of your keywords and keyword results for later use.
  • Use Boolean operators to connect your search terms/keywords to narrow or broaden results. See Boolean searching.
  • Use parentheses, quotation marks, and/or asterisks with your search terms to create search phrases. Again, it helps to keep a list of how you connected your search terms/keywords for later use in other databases.

Subject headings

  • Databases categorise their records using subject terms or controlled vocabularies (Thesauri)
  • Subject Headings vary for each database
  • Medline and PubMed use Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for indexing.

Whie Quantitative research is not directly indexed in PubMed it can be located by choosing specific subject terms.  Examples include:

  • Statistical Distributions
  • Evaluation Studies as Topic
  • Investigative Techniques
  • Meta-Analysis as Topic

Combine searches with topic Subject Headings to locate quantitative research.

Free text keywords

  • Use selective free text keywords to search in the Title, Abstract or Keyword database fields.
  • Examples of selective keywords could include:
    • correlation
    • quantitative
    • statistical
    • survey
    • validity
    • variance