Pathfinding in the Research Forest: The Pearl Harvesting Method for Effective Information Retrieval.

Knowledge of empirical research has become important for everyone involved in education and special education. Policy, practice, and informed reporting rely on locating and understanding unfiltered, original source material. Although access to vast amounts of research has been greatly facilitated by online databases, such as ERIC and PsychInfo, comprehensive searching for particular topics can still be a challenge. End-users have been found to do a poor job of searching, and even experienced users report difficulties. The present paper outlines the development and testing of the Pearl Harvesting method for developing precise yet comprehensive database searches. An example in the field of developmental disabilities is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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