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    Qualitative Doctoral Research

    This guide will help direct you on how to use the library during your doctoral journey.

    Building Background Knowledge

    When starting out you will often need to review the basic knowledge of your field. Books and reference sources are an excellent way to develop the base knowledge and vocabulary needed to research in any given area. You'll also develop your knowledge as you review the literature. View the Preparing for Literature Review tab for more on the review process.

    We recommend searching for books using broad, general search terms to start. 

    Search LopeCat, the GCU Library Catalog (opens in new tab).

    Search for ebooks, print books, streaming media & more!

     How to Use the Book Catalog

    The most relevant results are found using the author's name using this format:

    Rogers, Carl

    Keep in mind, you may only have the first initial of the author. For example: Rogers, Carl may appear only as  Rogers, C.

    To locate an exact title, enclose the title with a set of quotation marks as shown here:

    "Casebook for a spiritual strategy in counseling and psychotherapy"

    The most relevant results are found using this format:

    psychotherapy OR therapy OR counseling
    Or
    "higher education" OR college OR university

    Use multiple keywords to represent the same concept or try multiple combinations and alternatives!

    For electronic books from  LopeCat, after you have entered your search terms,

    click on " Online Book " under " Format" on the left side menu options.

    • Print books can be checked out at the Library Information Desks. Don't live nearby? We can mail them to you!
    • Print books can be checked out for 3 weeks with an option to renew.

    What does it mean if the location says 'annex'?

    • Books in the annex are available by request- Create an account in LopeCat to request a book, we have detailed instructions on the Find Books page.

    What if I don't live in the Phoenix, Arizona area?

    • We will mail (using the US Postal Service) the books to you, FREE of charge. You may check them out for 3 weeks with an option to renew if you need them longer. A postage-paid return envelope will be included.

    What if I can't wait for the mail delivery?

    • Try WorldCat .  This resource will allow you to search for books in libraries closest to your zip code.
    • If you find your desired resources, check with that library for their circulation/checkout policies. Even if you cannot check the book out, you may be able to read the book at the library.

    Basic Searching in the Databases

    New to research in databases? View the tips below for the basics of what databases are and how they work.


    A library database is a collection of information, organized to make the storage and retrieval of resources easier and accessible to more people. Basically, it’s an electronic catalog or index for published materials. These materials most commonly include magazine, newspaper, and journal articles. Often, other items like books and videos are also included in databases. The database is like the bookcase that holds all these materials.

    Databases are highly organized and allow searching for information on a topic by keyword, subject, author, title, and short phrases. Most databases at the GCU Library provide access to full-text content, which means that you will find entire articles available, not just the abstracts or summaries of articles.

    Scholarly Resources: Scholarly resources are written with a focus on a specific subject discipline and usually written by an expert in the same subject field.  Scholarly resources are written for an academic audience.

    Examples of Scholarly Resources include: Academic journals, books written by experts in a field, and formally published encyclopedias and dictionaries.

    Primary Sources: “Original records created by participants or observers at the time historical events occurred or well after events, as in memoirs and oral histories." ( ALA 2008 ).

    Examples of Primary Sources include:Photographs, letters, historical documents, data sets, and audio recordings.

    Peer Reviewed Journals:   Peer Reviewed journals are evaluated prior to publication by experts in the journal’s subject discipline. This process ensures that the articles published within the journal are academically rigorous and meet the required expectations of an article in that subject discipline.

    Empirical Article : This type of scholarly resource is a subset of scholarly articles that reports the original finding of an observational and/or experimental research study. Common aspects found within an empirical article include: literature review, methodology, results, and discussion.

    Boolean Operators

    The Boolean Operator ‘ and’ retrieves articles that contain ALL terms
    Narrowsthe search 

    The Boolean Operator ‘ or’
    retrieves articles with either/any of the terms
    Broadensthe search

    The Boolean Operator ‘ not’ eliminates articles that have this term
    Narrowsthe search

    How They Are Used

    AND
    cat AND dogUsing AND, this search would retrieve results with cats AND dogs

    OR
    cat OR dogUsing OR, this search would retrieve results with cats, with dogs, and with both

    NOT
    cat NOT dogUsing NOT, this search would retrieve results with cats, and exclude those with dogs, or cats and dogs

    Boolean Operators in Action

    Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) can be typed into the search line with your search terms, like this: cat AND dog, cat OR dog, cat NOT dog.
    This image shows what it looks like in the database search box:

    You can also use the dropdown box the database has provided, and type a term (cat) in the first line, change the dropdown box to the Boolean term you want to use ( AND, OR, NOT ), and put your second term (dog) in the box beside the dropdown menu. This image shows what this technique looks like in the database search box:

     You can also combine the truncation technique with the Boolean operator. This image shows cat* AND dog* (truncated with the asterisk at the end of the root of your search term to include all possible endings for cat and dog).

    To broaden our search even more we can include synonyms, truncation, and Boolean operators. In this search we have searched for: [cat* or feline or kitten*] AND [dog or canine or pup*].

    Truncation

    What is it?

    Truncation is an easy way to search for multiple versions of a word.

    How does it work?

    Remove the end of the word (leaving the root of the word) and replace the ending with an asterisk *.

    Why should I use truncation?

    It saves time, and will expand your search to include all versions of the word. When you search in a database you are trying to identify keywords and subject terms; truncating a word will give you a greater chance of finding articles on your topic.

    How To Do It

    For our example , we'll use the word nurse:

    An article about nurses might say nurse, nurses, or nursing.

    We will keep the root word, nurs, and replace the possible endings with an asterisk: nurs*.

    Another example: leadership.

    An article about leadership might talk about leader, leaders, or leadership.

    We will keep the root word, leader, and replace the possible endings with an asterisk: leader*.

    Truncation In Action

    When you break your topic down to keywords, it's likely that there are many versions of that word. Including all of the possible versions will help make sure you find articles on that topic. This example shows multiple forms of the word leader (leader, leaders, leadership):

    Truncation means you shorten the word to the root, and replace the endings with an asterisk. In this example we have only the word leader*, and we will get the same results as before when we included all forms of that term.

    In this example, we are starting with multiple forms of the word nurse (nurse, nurses, nursing):

    And we can truncate the word to nurs* and get the same results:

    Don't search for full sentences. Search with keywords and synonyms instead, and always check your spelling --For example, if my assignment question is 'How do libraries help college students?' I would search for the terms library, college or university or higher education, and students - this image shows how this can be put into the search box:

    This example uses Boolean operators and truncation - two search tools you can use to improve your search technique.

    Limiting Search Results

    Many databases provide a menu next to each search box where a field limiter can be selected.  Each search box has its own field menu, so you can search different fields for each of your terms.

    In the Lopesearch each search box has select a field as a choice which allows choosing author, subject, or other choices

    This can help narrow down results by restricting your keywords to just the title, abstract, or subject tags.

    Most databases also have a set of filters to narrow down your results.

    the limit your results menu includes full text, date range, and peer reviewed

    In particular look for Published Date, Full Text, and Peer Reviewed as limits on your search results. 

    the all filters menu also appears as a sidebar after searching

    LopeSearch

    LopeSearch is a broad search that searches across a number of databases at once. It's the best place to start a search to get a broad set of results.

    Search box to enter search terms into

    How to Read a Database Record

    Article records contain information about the article and provide important context for the articles you locate. Below are some of the common pieces of information that a record contains, and where they are located in our large cross database search engine, LopeSearch (EBSCO).

    The Detailed Recordor Abstract/Detailspage of a database holds information about a resource. Each library database uses the same key elements when organizing information.  However, those elements aren't always in the same location on the page.

    To learn more about the elements, click on the corresponding section.

    Here are the differences between EBSCO LopeSearch and ProQuest Central.

    EBSCOcalls this page the Details. You'll find it below the article title.

    ProQuestuses tabs to separate information about the article and the PDF. The Abstract/Detailspage is shown below.

    Subjectsare assigned by librarians and information specialists in order to help organize the millions of articles held within each database. But what are they?

    Subjects are terms that cover the main focus of a resource. A resource can be a book, book review, article, dissertation, or report. These terms are then what researchers (students, faculty, librarians, etc.) use to help connect different resources together. They are found below the article title, author(s), and journal information.

    Here is an example:

    Search example that displays article title, author, journal source, database name, and subjects

    While the subjects of this article include leadership and higher education (the search terms used), it also contains:

    • Artificial intelligence
    • Academic integrity
    • Digital divide

    Reviewing these terms not only helps one further understand what is contained in the article, but also suggests more terms that can be used in the search boxes to help generate more results.

    Instead of having to type the subject terms into the search boxes, most databases make the words hyperlinked, allowing you to conduct a new search with the click of a mouse.

    After clicking on Academic Integrity, a new search is run:

    The database uses abbreviations in order to search the various elements found on the record. To continue searching, enter search terms after the provided term.

    An abstractis a summary of an article that is often written by the author(s), highlighting the purpose and significance of the research. Reading the abstract can make your research process faster.

    You can review abstracts from the results page in an EBSCO or ProQuest database. Here's how:

    For an EBSCOresults list, click on "Show more" to expand the information below a search result and see the abstract.

    For a ProQuestresults list, click on Previewand the abstract will display below. The words in yellow match the keywords used in the search.

    Library databases have many articles from many journals from across the world. Because of that, not all articles will be written in English. If the abstract is in both English and another language, it is more likely that the full article is not in English. In other articles, the Abstractmay be translated into English, but the full text will not be in English. How do you know what language the article is in? Look for Languageunder Details:

    The GCU Library does not offer translation services on the full text of the article, but we can assist with filtering search results to Englishonly. Here's how:

    On the Filters menu, choose English from the Languagedrop down.

    If you have already searched, click on All filters to open the filters menu and select language:

    You can open the All filters menu at any time to see what filters you have applied.

    Library databases hold a variety of document/source types: books, book reviews, articles, dissertations, reports, news, magazines. This is important to note when reviewing your assignment requirements. It is possible to filter, sort, or limit your results by types.

    On the resultspage of an EBSCOdatabase, open the All filters menu and select what you need from the source types menu.


    In ProQuest, click on more options under source type to open a popup menu.

    The type of document or source is also shown on the record page under details, in the Document type.

    EBSCO:

    ProQuest:

    Creating a personal EBSCO account

    1. Locate the MyEBSCO link in the purple bar at the top of the EBSCO search screen.
    2. Click on Create and account.
    3. Fill out the form. 
      • You can use any email address that you would like.
      • You do not need to use your GCU username and password.
    4. Click on Create account.

    Clicking saved will work even without an account.  However, saved articles without an account are cleared when you exit the database. To keep articles from one session to another, log in and use "add to project" to create a folder of saved articles.

    Please note: If you are going to use your EBSCO account consistently, you will login twice.  First, you will log into the library as you normally do with your GCU login information and then you will go to the purple bar and sign into your EBSCO account.

    Creating a personal account in ProQuestdatabases works much the same way.

    In the upper right corner of the ProQuest database page, click on the silhouette of a person (A). It is the 3rd icon. Then click on Sign into My Research(B).

    On the next page, click on Create a My Research account.

    Just as with EBSCO, any username and password can be used.

    Note: Always remember to sign in to your My Research account if searches and articles are to be saved in the folders.

    The Share menu lets you save the article to a share drive like One Drive, create a short link to the article, or send the article by email.

    Click the share icon in the tools menu. 

    The popup will have options for share drive and the create link option.the first share menu has google drive, one drive, and create link

    The email menu is where you can enter your email to have the article sent to you. the email part of the share menu has a box to enter your email and then send it.

    .

    In ProQuest databases, the email feature is located on the right side of the page, with other options such as Download PDF, Cite, Print, and Save.

    (A) - Click Email.

    (B) - Enter any email address. It can be your school or personal email.

    (C) - Enter your name.

    (D) - Click Continue.

    The email will be sent to you with the citation and a persistent link back to the Abstract/Detailspage.

    Citation information is found below the article title and Authors section on the results page as well as on the record page.

    Many databases will include a citation tool to help generate a formatted citation. These are computer generated and not checked for accuracy, always double check the citation provided against a style guide.

    One the citation popup you will also find the options to export the citation to citation managers such as RefWorks.

    For more information about citing sources in APA, MLA, or Turabian, see the Citing Sources Guide .

    You can use the URL in the address bar, but to create a shorter link:

    1. From the three dot menu next to the search result.
    2. OR: From the tools menu on the detailed record page or the PDF full text or online full text of the article. 
      the share button in in the list of tools
    3. Locate the share option.
    4. Click "create link".
      the create link menu is with the share to drives tools
    5. Copy and paste this URL.

    If you are using the Alumni editions of the EBSCO databases, please click "permalink" in the tools menu to get a persistent link. The address bar URL will not work.

    When searching in a library database, you may see the following option:

    "Check for Full Text" means that there could be full text of this particular article in another database. Click the link to view available options:

    the full text check page lists the databases where the full text is located

    Another element that may be found on the Detailed Record is Request ILL.

    This article is not immediately available, however before clicking on the Request ILL link, take a moment and search Google Scholar . If the article is not freely available, it is time to request an InterLibrary Loan. This is a free servicebut it can take 3-12 daysto get it to you. If the abstract looks promising for your research, then click the Request ILLlink and fill out the information.

    If the item being requested is a book, it may take 1-3 weeks to arrive at your mail box. For more information, view the Library's ILL Request form .

    What Are Empirical/Research Articles?

    At various points in your educational journey, you will need to find empirical articles for many class assignments, capstones, and research projects, including doctoral DNP projects and dissertations.  

    Some of the databases have specific filters to help you narrow your results to empirical articles or labels to identify them quickly. These are outlined in the section below, as well as how to find articles in databases without these filters.

    An empirical article reports on the outcome of a study based on observation or experiment carried out by the author(s).

    These can also be called primary or researcharticles. They contain original data and the conclusions of the researchers involved in an experiment or study.

    The two main sections of an empirical article are the methodology (sometimes called the design) which describes how the study was carried out, and the results (sometimes called the findings) which lays out and analyzes the data or observations which were found. Both quantitativeand qualitativearticles are empirical.

    Qualitative Research

    Qualitative research includes all modes of inquiry that do not rely on numbers or statistical methods. (Encyclopedia of Nursing Research, 2012, Springer). Qualitative research typically involves interviews, surveys, or questionnaires.

    Quantitative Research

    Quantitative research consists of the collection, tabulation, summarization, and analysis of numerical data for the purpose of answering research questions or hypotheses. (Encyclopedia of Nursing Research, 2012, Springer).

    It would be great if all empirical articles were labeled with the words "Empirical" or "Research Article." Unfortunately, most of them aren't. Instead, the article has to be read and analyzed to determine if it is empirical. Empirical articles have certain features that identify it as empirical. Look for these features to decide whether an article is empirical.

    Introduction- This section introduces the article. It gives an overview of the problem, and the rationale for the study. The research hypothesis or research question is provided. 

    Literature Review- In this section, the authors review previous research that is relevant to their study. This may include key concepts, theories, or similar studies.

    Method- This section describes the original research study conducted by the authors. It includes the research methods used, the population sample, and the data collection process.

    Results- Also called discussionor findings. In this section, the authors discuss the results of the study. This includes analyzing the data, drawing conclusions based on the data, and determining whether their hypothesis/research question was correct.

    Conclusion- This section summarizes the research study and provides suggestions for future research. Looking at the suggestions for future research is a great place to find the gap in the literature. 

    References- A list of all the sources the authors used in conducting their research and writing the paper. 

    To begin working with empirical/research articles, the Library recommends viewing the video How to Read and Understand a Research Study from Sage and reading Evaluating Research Studies from the Handbook of Research Design & Social Measurement .

    • When beginning to read in a new discipline, you will need to build knowledge of terminology.
      • Course readings, textbooks, and reference databases like Credo below are an excellent way to develop discipline specific vocabulary.
    • Is the journal one you are familiar with?

    Most research articles follow the same basic layout, with the same general sections.

    the abstract is a recap and usually comes first, the introduction explains why a study is done

    Abstract

    The brief summary or recap of the article.

    • Read the abstract before the article!
    • The abstract will tell you an overview of what they did and what the results were.

    introductions should explain why the study needed to be doneIntroduction

    This section introduces the article. It gives an overview of the problem, and the rationale for the study. 

    1. Read the intro first.
      • Look for:
        • Why was this study necessary?
        • What question were they trying to answer?
        • What's the point of this research?
        • What's the bigger context for why research in this area is being done?
        • A good research objective is measurable, realistic, and timely. 

     Pause.

    Check your understanding here.

    • If the abstract and introduction aren't making sense, do more background research before reading the rest.

    results sections tell what happened

    Results

    Also called Discussion or Findings.

    The results of the study. This includes analyzing the data, drawing conclusions based on the data, and determining if the hypothesis/research question was correct.

    1. Read Results second. This allows you to immediately compare the question with the answer. 
      • Look for:
        • Are the conclusions in line with the research questions? 
        • Do they discuss limitations or flaws in the results?

    Conclusionconclusions cover the interpretation of the results

    Summarizes the research study and explains what conclusions the results support. 

    1. Read after the results. Make sure to compare the conclusion to the introduction. 
      • Look for:
        • A clear answer to the research question established in the introduction.
        • Why the findings matter.
        • What additional research needs to be done in this area.

    the method section covers the howMethod

    The research methods used, the population sample, and the data collection process. The actual study part of a study.

    1. Read the methods last.
      • The methods section will generally be the most technical section, so reading and understanding the other parts will make understanding it easier.
      • Compare the methods to the conclusion.
      • Look up methods in Sage Research Methods if you aren't familiar with them.
      • Look for: 
        • Does the design make sense? Especially given the conclusions. 
        • Do they identify the analysis and scales clearly? Are these validated scales that have been used in other studies?
        • Does the sample size match the conclusions made?
          • Watch out for claims of significance or absolute findings when dealing with a small number of subjects.
          • Be aware of p -hacking.

    References

    A list of all the sources the authors used in conducting their research and writing the paper. 

    • Check the references if you want to follow up on a study mentioned in the paper, for the full information to locate it.

    Some articles may also include a section reviewing other studies that did the same or similar research, called a literature review.

    • If there is one, look for: 
      • Are they in line with or contradicting prior research?

    Two types of review articles will sometimes appear in searches for empirical articles, including when using database filters. While they are secondary sources and do not represent primary research, they are important overviews of the current state of research. A recent review or analysis can be a useful source of articles. They can also point towards gaps in research or areas for further study.

    Meta Analysis

    Meta-analysis is a quantitative approach that permits the synthesis and integration of results from multiple individual studies focused on a specific research question. (Encyclopedia of Nursing Research, 2012, Springer).

    Systematic Reviews

    Systematic reviews are overviews of research evidence that address a specific clinical question. The purpose of the systematic review is to provide a more comprehensive synthesis and evaluation of the state of the science in the area of interest. (Dictionary of Nursing Theory and Research, 2010, Springer).

    • Last Updated: Mar 27, 2026 8:06 AM
    • URL: https://libguides.gcu.edu/QualitativeDoctoralResearch
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