Competency 6: Building Block Search on ERIC/FirstSearch

I used the database ERIC/FirstSearch to conduct a building block search. I decided to use ERIC because it is a database specifically for educational research articles. Since the question deals with schools, ERIC is a source worth using for searching.

Naive Question: How do school administrators determine how to allocate funds, especially where technology is concerned?

Facets to explore: funds allocation, technology, schools

Using the ERIC Thesaurus, I located the following subjects.

Possible synonyms for funds allocation: school purchasing, school funds, money management, educational finance, budgeting
Possible synonyms for technology: educational technology
Possible synonyms for schools: public schools, elementary, secondary

Based on my facets and ERIC subjects, I created my Subject Search.

SS1: "school purchasing" OR "school funds" OR "resource allocation" OR "budgeting" AND "educational technology" AND "public school" OR elementary OR secondary.

Records Retrieved: 237

Citations:

Hansen, J.S. (2001). 21st Century school finance: How is the context changing? Education finance in the states: Its past, present, and future. ECS issues paper. Education Commission of the States. ERIC database. 20 April 2010

Picus, L.O. (May 2000). Setting budget priorities. American School Board Journal 187 (5), 30-33. ERIC database. 20 April 2010.

Reflection:
I really like using ERIC. It is generally easy to locate education related articles. I got satisfactory results from the first search, though if I were to need more current information, I would need to reconstruct my search by either limiting my subjects or choose to limit the years of publication.