LibGuides: Special Education: Home

Finding assessments

PsycTESTS This link opens in a new window
PsycTESTS indexes psychological measures, scales, surveys, and other instruments used for research across the behavioral and social sciences.

Finding definitions

Glossary of Special Education Terms
"Understanding the Language of Special Education: A Glossary for Parents and Educators", from the PA State Department of Education

Evidence Based Research

What Works Clearinghouse
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education with the goal to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions.
National Center for Special Education Research
A collection of available data, videos, training materials, and more designed for active researchers.

Finding articles

For scholarly articles, search the following databases.
Try keyword searching, then narrowing results by the descriptors or subject terms.
For more tips see the "doing library research" tab

Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) via U.S. Department of Education This link opens in a new window
This is the publicly available version from the US Dept of Ed. Use the thesaurus to clarify your search terms. It offers full-text of self-published reports. For full-text of scholarly articles just copy/paste the article title into the big search box on the Drexel Libraries home page under the "Articles & More" tab.
Includes ability to limit search results by education level (such as early childhood education or a particular grade) and audience (such as counselors, parents, or teachers)
Education Source This link opens in a new window
This database on the EBSCO platform has excellent full text but a less useful search interface than the public ERIC.ED.GOV website which contains more self-published content. Try both to find which works best for you.

Find Briefings and Opinions

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Good short summaries of hot topics with excellent timelines and bibliographies of key events and documents that play into legislation before Congress. See entry for "Special Education"
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints (formerly: Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context) is an online library of current event topics: the facts as well as the arguments of each topic's proponents and detractors. Features include Viewpoint articles, access to statistics and government data placed in context, interactive maps, and infographics.
Westlaw Campus Research This link opens in a new window
Contains legal, news, and business-related subjects. Newspapers & legal materials are featured, including cases, statutes, and regulations of the U.S. government and the various state governments; includes the legal encyclopedia American Jurisprudence 2nd and American Law Reports; case law from 1789 to present; current statutes and regulations.

"Special Ed Connection" Ask your course instructor from Drexel's School of Education for the current login details for the departmental account they have for this resource. Or request a trial subscription directly from the vendor. Great news portal and timely updates for conducting legal/regulatory research about: Autism, Behavior and Discipline, Early Childhood, IEPs, Inclusion, LRE, Specific Disabilities, Transition.

LIBRARIAN'S TIP: WestLaw is a good all-purpose alternative for the legal case literature that the School of Education has in the past accessed through the niche subscribers-only "Special Education Connection" portal. WestLaw features an excellent 1-800 research support help line for Drexel users in the event you have trouble finding what you need. Or you can also contact a librarian from the Drexel Legal Research Center.

Subject Guide

Deborah Bishov

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Subjects: Education