HLT: Accessibility Advising

Start the search process by identifying the major concepts in your topic or research question. Think of these as the most important aspects of your question. They are usually the nouns in your research question, such as people or groups, issues, or places. 

PCC Framework

In the health sciences, you can also use a framework to identify the main concepts in a research question. The PCC framework helps you identify the main concepts in a qualitative research question.

Example

Research question: How do faculty perceptions influence the use of disability services among university students?

Population: students with disabilities

Concept: faculty perceptions

Context: university disability services

Next, for each of your main concepts, choose several words or phrases that represent it. These will be your search terms. It's important to come up with alternatives, since there are many ways to refer to a concept. If you only use one, you may miss relevant articles.

As you brainstorm search terms for each main concept, consider synonyms, related terms (broader or narrower), alternate spellings, different word forms (like singular and plural), and scientific vs. common names. 

Some main concepts may need to be broken down further, if they are made up of multiple words that have different sets of synonyms. For example, faculty perceptions can be broken down into search terms for faculty (like professor, instructor, etc.) and keywords for perceptions.

Example

Boolean Operators and Modifiers

Once you've chosen your search terms, you're ready to combine them to create your search strategy.

Terms are combined using Boolean operators. They are a set of commands that search engines, online catalogues, and databases are able to understand. They also make searching more efficient by letting you combine dozens of queries into one search. Boolean operators include AND, OR, NOT

Another set of commands, called Boolean modifiers, allow you to instruct the database to group your terms (parentheses) and search for variant word endings (truncation) and exact phrases.

Boolean operators video transcript (PDF)

Need more help? See our page on Boolean operators. 

Boolean modifiers video transcript (PDF)

Narrow Your Search: AND, NOT

AND tells the search engine to only return results that contain all the words you've entered. Since the search is more specific and selective, you'll retrieve fewer results.

Example: disability AND faculty AND attitude

NOT tells the search engine to give you results that contain all of the words you entered except the word following NOT.

Example: student NOT K-12

Expand Your Search: OR, Truncation

OR tells the search engine to give your results that contain any of the terms you've entered. This creates a broader search, so you'll retrieve a greater number of results.

Example: faculty OR professor OR instructor

Truncation (usually represented by an asterisk *) allows you to search for multiple endings of the same root word.

Example: disabilit* = disability, disabilities

Phrase Searching

Search for two or more words as a unit by putting them in quotation marks. This is especially useful for titles or phrases.

Example: "disability services"

Combining Searches

By using parentheses, you can ask a search engine to perform several Boolean searches at the same time. The search engine will perform the search enclosed in parentheses first, before moving on to the other search terms.

Example: student* AND (faculty OR professor* OR instructor*) AND (perception* OR attitude* OR experience*) AND (universit* OR college* OR "higher education" OR post-secondary OR postsecondary) AND "disability services"