General sources of Education journal articles
The general education databases (listed first) are a great place to start. If you are looking for more specific discipline databases, try the Specialist Education Resources.
- Education Database (ProQuest)Education Database covers information on adult education, elementary education, higher education, home schooling, secondary education, special needs education and teacher education.
- Education SourceEducation Source provides indexing and abstracts for academic periodicals and includes full text for journals, books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for articles including book reviews and controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests. Coverage in Education Source spans all levels of education from early childhood to higher education and also includes educational specialties such as multilingual education, health education and testing.
- ERICProduced by the US Department of Education, ERIC is an excellent source of scholarly publications and US government reports.
- ERIC (Ebsco)The major education database produced by the United States Department of Education.
* ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences within the US Department of Education. The Department of Education is working with the Department of Government Efficiency to “reduce overall Federal spending” and “reallocate spending to promote efficiency” (EO 14222). From April 24, 2025, the number of records added to the ERIC collection will be significantly reduced. The number of actively catalogued sources will likely reduce by approximately 45%. At this time, we believe that all records currently in ERIC will remain available. This means that if you ran a search in ERIC previously, those results should remain in the index.
- Taylor and Francis online journalsTaylor and Francis journals is a multidisciplinary collection covering subject areas including social sciences and humanities, science, technology and medicine.
- VOCEDplusVOCEDplus covers the outcomes of tertiary education in the shape of research, policy, practice, and published statistics. It has extensive coverage of Australian material and includes a wide range of international information.
Education Encyclopedias and other great sources of definitions.
These are all great places to find definitions, succinct outlines and introductions to education topics written by experts in the area.
- Credo ReferenceCredo Reference provides published reference works from publishers in a variety of major subjects, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias.
- Oxford Research Encyclopedias: EducationSpanning education globally, articles are authoritative, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated entries written by experts from many different methodological and theoretical approaches.
Licensing information: Please read what you can and can't do with each resource in the A-Z Databases under 'License Information'. Queries can be sent to the Publisher Licensing Consultant.
Finding Scholarly Resources
What is a scholarly journal?
A scholarly journal is a publication in which experts in a field submit articles. This is one of the primary means through which many disciplines discuss new findings, ideas and research.
What is a scholarly article?
Scholarly articles can also be referred to as academic or peer reviewed articles. They have been through a formal review process prior to publication to ensure they are academic in nature and meet specific criteria. They are written to inform or report research to a scholarly audience, and therefore tend to use technical language.
Many of these articles have been through a peer review process. They contain an abstract along with a list of references or other readings.
What does peer review mean?
Evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field.
For help finding a particular journal or journal article, try these instructions for finding specific articles and books
How do you decide if a journal is peer reviewed?
Here are some tips to help you identify a peer reviewed journal:
- These journals will always include a statement to identify themselves
- Most databases have a search option to limit the search results to peer reviewed /refereed / scholarly articles
- Look for information about the journal when searching databases
- Still in doubt? Find out more information on the journal by going to the journal's website
Video: What is Peer Review?
Peer review is a quality control process used in academic and scholarly work. This video explains the term, the process and how to identify a peer reviewed article.
What is FIND IT @DEAKIN?
You will sometimes see a FIND IT @ DEAKIN link when you are searching for journal articles, and the full text is not immediately available.
FIND IT @ DEAKIN will provide you with possible options for locating the full text of the article if it is not available in full text from the database you are using.
Clicking on the FIND IT @ DEAKIN link will provide a link to other databases, to the library website, and other possible sources.
How to: Find a source by its citation
Being able to find a resource by its citation is a valuable skill. You can do this by searching for the resource by title in the main search box on the Library home page OR by using A-Z Journals and using the citation details to search for the journal name, then year, volume, and issue until you locate the article.
How to: Access resources the library doesn't have
If you've found a book, chapter, article or other resource that the library doesn't have, we can try to get it for you. There are a few options available. See the 'Access items we don't have' page for further information.
CAVAL
The CAVAL Reciprocal Borrowing Program allows our staff and students to borrow in person from participating Victorian academic Libraries.
ULANZ
ULANZ membership allows our staff and students to borrow from participating academic Libraries in person.
Interlibrary loan
If the resource is a book chapter or article, you can fill out an online request for an Interlibrary loan. The Library will try to source the item and a digital copy will be emailed to you.