Scholarly Googling

Searching Google Scholar 

In an effort to keep trekking forward in this journey and to assist with consistency, I began my search in Google Scholar with a similar search string to the final string used in Google.

(primary OR elementary) geography (“inquiry learning” OR “inquiry based learning” OR “guided inquiry”)                                                (7720 hits)

This search revealed the word ‘primary’ branching out into primary sources and primary levels, which referred to stages of investigation within science mainly. Adding ‘school’ to the equation, a custom range of ‘since 2010’ and ‘NOT science’, refined the results to more relevant and more current. I was surprised to still view ‘science’ on the first page of these results, but equated that to the fact that there would not be many articles similar to my ILA focus.

(“primary school” OR “elementary school”) geography (“inquiry learning” OR “inquiry based learning” OR “guided inquiry”) NOT science                   (1600 hits) 

Investigating the drop down bar on the top right corner, features such as metrics, settings and advanced searches are available. Metrics lead me to a collection of top publications. Choosing from the left hand menu, I selected Social Sciences, and found a sub-category called Teaching and Teacher Education. Although this led me to a buffet of educational journals, it could only provide two in relation to geography, and unfortunately no relevant articles were uncovered.

Top Publications Filter

As one would expect, there are more scholarly and professional writings available than Google, and the currency and reliability of the articles are supported with highly accomplished references and citations. However, trawling through the heavily science based results, I was able to discover four articles that where deemed relevant to my ILA focus, and so used the feature of saving to My Library for later reference. It became apparent that inquiry learning in primary geography lacked a variety of published documentation, and I suspect that this reflects the historical overview of geography pedagogy. With its content driven nature and the lack of experienced teachers to deliver this learning area, the heart of geographical inquiry has a very weak pulse.