Your inquiry is: what are the best sources for academic information about how modern technologies decrease positive family interactions in the home?
Medicine Hat College Library Services provides many resources that can be employed. The resources include: the online catalogue (OPAC) for locating books and audiovisuals; the databases for locating periodical articles (journal, magazine, and newspaper articles); and the naturally the Internet/Web.
It should be noted that even though we supply the search tools, we do not have all the sources that you need on hand. If you need to acquire materials that are not available via our print or electronic holdings, consider using the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Service. This service can acquire materials for you at a minimum of cost and difficulty. To discover more about the service, click here; and to create an ILL account or begin ordering, click here.
The first stage in your search process is to define your search terms. Terms that you might identify are: family, interactions, and technology – which are derived directly from your proposed thesis. It is wise to develop a list of secondary search terms. The reason we do this is because all people do not think alike, thus if we are not successful with one search we can use our alternative terms to try different searches. Alternate terms we could employ include: relatives, folks, “family unit”, “domestic unit”, and household [alternatives for “family”]; communication, contact, “social interaction”, talk, and interface [alternatives to “interactions”]; and “communication tools”, “cell phones”, machines, computers, television, Internet, ”video games”, etc. [alternatives terms and specific forms of technologies]. If you want to apply a fourth term “decreased positive” (or: negative, harmful, unconstructive, limit, debilitate, weaken, etc.], you could. Once you are ready to search, start with two or three of the terms – one from each category – and add/alternate terms as necessary. The fourth term should be applied as a last resort – only if you have too many results.
A good place to begin is the library’s online catalogue (OPAC) – you can also click “Books and Audiovisuals” on the library’s homepage. We entered: family AND communication, and family AND change (each in a “Basic Search”), which returned several hits. [PLEASE NOTE: The word AND, is used to link terms to narrow our search parameters (i.e., only titles with the words “family” and “communication” will appear).] Notable titles include:
- Family Communication: Cohesion and Change (6th edition; Galvin, Bylund, and Brommel)
- Connections: The Threads That Strengthen a Family (Jane Illsley Clarke)
- 50 Great Tips, Tricks & Techniques to Connect With Your Teen (Debra Hapenny Ciavola)
- Should We Worry about Family Change? (Jane Lewis)
- Family Structure and Social Change (R. C. Davis, Ed.)
- Family Diversity: Continuity and Change in the Contemporary Family (Pauline Irit Erera)
- The Canadian Family in Crisis (John F. Conway)
Be aware that other libraries are online and searchable. Click here to search other libraries. Notable links that you should use include: The Alberta Library (TAL), and The National Library of Canada – they have the ability to search over 230 libraries in Alberta and 1,300 libraries across Canada, respectively. If you locate potential sources, use the aforementioned ILL service to acquire the materials. It does not cost you anything to order books.
Other sources to consider are the online databases/periodical indexes. Click here to go to the databases or by clicking “Journal, Magazine, and Newspaper Articles” from the library’s homepage. The best selections to suit your needs would be under the “Sociology” heading. To begin, select the “On Campus” or “At Home” link for the “Sociological Collection” database. If you select the “At Home” link, you will be prompted to enter your student ID number and if your library account is not up-to-date, you will not gain access. Once you are in, select the “Chooses Databases” tab near the top of the page. You will get a list of other databases that we subscribe to from the same company. Select the following databases: Academic Search Complete, Child Development & Adolescent Studies, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, Family & Society Studies Worldwide, Humanities International Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, SocINDEX with Full Text, Sociological Collection – each of these databases could return relevant information and you will not have to search each one individually now. Click “Continue” to return to your search. Once you have returned to the main search page, select the “Advanced Search” tab near the top of the page – this page will give you some additional options. Enter your desired search terms and select “peer review” under each of the database titles on the search page – there will be about seven to check. The “peer review” check box will hopefully limit your search to more academic material. Click “Search” to begin and review the results. If the results are not to your satisfaction, select the “Refine Search” tab to enter different terms.
We did a search using: technology AND family AND “social interaction” (the last was entered as a “Subject Term” search). We had a number of results returned, some good and others not so good. Some articles that you might consider include:
It should be noted that not all of the listed articles are full-text, so you will need to order some via the ILL service. There are a host of additional database tools that you can employ, so refer to the help pages of a database for additional insight about the resource. You can browse a handout that the library produced by clicking here. Another service that will help you locate periodical articles includes the Find It service. For more details about Find It, click here . Also, take a look at the databases under the Canadian Studies and General/Multidisciplinary headings.
When it comes to Web searching, you want to apply a lot of the same criteria that you use to evaluate journal articles. You want the document to: be well written; display author’s name, credentials, and contact information; updated regularly (or at least original posting date given); hosted/posted on a reputable site/organization; peer reviewed; and well cited/documented. We tend to consider academic institutions and government agencies to be a better than average/reliable sources of information – look for affiliation or sponsor information on any site you review. The University of Alberta has several resources that will help you determine some criteria that you will use to evaluate Web resources. You can find those sources at: http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/criticalevaluation/index.cfm, and: http://www.library.ualberta.ca/instruction/science/evalweb.pdf. The latter resource is a list of 20 questions that you should ask yourself when viewing a Web page. Source such as Google Scholar do tend to return a better class of academic material/results, but it is not foolproof and the critical criteria must always be applied.
Thank you again for using the Ask A Question service. If you need more help, please use the service again or see the Information Desk in the Medicine Hat College Library (phone #: (403) 529-3867; Toll Free: 1 (866) 282-8394 (Ext. 3867)).
AAQ#: 43885
