For the most part, you're going to want to search ProQuest to find articles. So in this video, we'll look at some of the different types of articles that you can find in ProQuest.
Let's search for information about the Americans with Disabilities Act, and how it applies to nursing students. We'll type that into the search box. "Americans with Disabilities Act" in quotation marks, AND "education" AND "nursing". Make sure full text is selected, and we'll hit search.
At this point, let's filter it to "scholarly journals." There are two ways to do this. You can limit it to "peer reviewed," which is another term for scholarly information (it just means that other scholars review it for validity before it is published). And you can also just click "scholarly journals" under "source type." Now everything in your results is a scholarly journal article.
So what exactly is a scholarly journal? Scholarly journal articles are research articles -- sometimes studies or experiments. There are three characteristics about scholarly journals that make them different than just a regular article out of a newspaper or a magazine. One is the authority. Just like with a book, the authors of scholarly journal articles are experts in their field. They can be scientists, or doctors, or college professors, or professionals in a medical field for example. They are usually experts on the topic that they are researching. That means they have credentials and have studied in that field. The second characteristic that sets them aside from a news article is that the content is usually primary research. They're studying something that's never been studied before in order to answer a research question or a hypothesis.
So for the topic of disabled nursing students, a good scholarly journal article might be an actual study of different nursing schools, done by experts, to determine just how successful disabled nursing students are at graduating and going into the workforce.
The third characteristic is their accuracy. Because they follow scientific methodology, go through a rigorous peer review process before publication, and because they often make reference to other scholarly research that's been done, the information in a scholarly article is pretty valid and accurate. Scholarly journals never contain an opinion -- it's always a conclusion based on facts.
So here's an example of a study done about disabled students and their success in college nursing programs. Let's click on this one: "The Americans with Disabilities Act: Effect on Student Admission and Retention Practices in California."
I'm going to click on "Full text PDF" and we'll get the actual image. This is what the article looks like in the print publication. It was published in the Journal of Nursing Education.
So, we'll look at the title first. They're studying whether or not the ADA had an effect on students' ability to succeed in California Nursing Schools. Just about all scholarly journal articles have an abstract at the top. An abstract is a summary of the article. This article is pretty short, so it doesn't have an abstract. Instead, what we see is a brief introduction and a literature review, where they state the problem. In this case, they were interested in knowing how nursing schools in California are recognizing disabilities and providing accommodations for students who need them, and whether those students are successful.
They conducted their study by sending a questionnaire to disabled students at different nursing schools to gather the data, and what they found was that disabled students who are not provided accommodations struggled to stay in the program.
One thing to point out about scholarly articles is that they are sometimes limited. Although they often do provide scientific evidence in a lot of cases like in this article -- which used a questionnaire to find out how successful disabled nursing students are, this study had its limits. They only studied nursing schools in California, for example, and they only surveyed a very limited number of students. This study, also, does not attribute any cause. It doesn't talk about why disabled students specifically struggled. It doesn't talk about how colleges determine which students are the ones who receive accommodations, or what kind of programs they have to ensure that disabled students are able to succeed. So scholarly articles are sometimes very focused on facts and that's sometimes it.
If we go back to our search results, let's see if we can find an article that puts disabled nursing students' struggles into better context. For that, we'll look for a popular article -- something from a magazine or newspaper that is written to inform the public. Let's get rid of the filter for "scholarly journals" over on the left. And we'll also turn off "peer reviewed."
Now we'll click the filter for "newspapers" under "source type." Since news is constantly updated, you'll see a lot of examples of how the ADA is being followed or not being followed in different educational settings.
So a popular article is different than a scholarly article. Remember that for scholarly articles, the author is an expert in the field. That's not the case for a popular article. Usually those are written by journalists or reporters. They might do some investigating, but they aren't usually a scientist who's conducting original research on a topic. Popular articles are written for the general public. Their purpose is to inform. They also put scientific studies into context.
The scholarly article didn't answer the question of why disabled nursing students aren't successful, only that there is proof that they AREN'T succesful. A news article on the incident will try and put that into perspective.
Let's take a look at this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Nursing Student, Disabled, Sues CCAC After Failing."
A quick glance at this article shows us an example of a student who sued a community college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after failing. The student suffered a stroke and was disabled as a result, but they received no accommodations, and they were treated badly by their instructor. This shows us a real life example of how and why a nursing student failed as a result of the way the college treated them due to their disability.
So the scholarly article showed us a study that was conducted to show just how many nursing students with disabilities are successful in the program, and this newspaper article gives us a broader context that shows an example of a student who faced discrimination within the program.
Don't forget that once you find an article, you'll need to locate the MLA citation in order to cite your source. Click on "Cite" at the top right.
The box that pops up defaults to an MLA 9th Edition citation. Copy and paste this into your Works Cited page.
Next, you'll get a chance to take a closer look at the two articles that we just found: the scholarly article from the Journal of Nursing Education, and the newspaper article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.