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BEHL 2009: Group work 

Getting started

This page will get you started in finding information for your group project plan and critical reflection paper.

Remember always consult your Course Outline and Course Learnonline site for the details of the assessments.

Plan your search

Example group project: your team is preparing to plan and facilitate a group of young people and address the bullying issue.

It is important to search the literature about the group that is being planned. Typing your group project topic into Google or the Library Catalogue is not the best way to search. To get the best search results, you should plan a search strategy following the simple steps below. 

Identify keywords

Mapping out your search can be a good place to start:

  • Identify the keywords (also known as key concepts) in the project topic: young people, bullying and group work - these are the words which give meaning to the question, the main ideas.

Consider alternative keywords

Think of synonyms or similar concepts that can be used. This is important as not everyone will use the same terminology or spelling.

Create a mindmap or table to help you brainstorm alternative keywords.

Key concepts

Synonyms or alternative concepts
young people teenagers, adolescents, young adults, youth
bullying aggression, aggressiveness, aggressive behaviour
group work treatment group, groups, group interaction

Connect your keywords

Connect your concepts using AND or OR 

  • AND Connects different concepts
  • OR Connects similar concepts or synonyms

So the search strategy might look something like this:

("young people" OR adolescents) AND bullying AND "group work"

Remember to use "quotation marks" to keep phrases together.

Where to search

We recommend you use the following search tools.

The Library Catalogue is a good place to start your search for scholarly material. You can use it to find eBooks, journal articles, reports, videos and more.

Link to example search strategy in the Library Collection

("young people" OR adolescents) AND bullying AND "group work"

Using the "Refine my results" menu, you can refine your search to find exactly what you need.

Try Google Scholar to find scholarly information. An advantage of Google Scholar is that it provides access to the full text of many UniSA scholarly (academic) articles if you connect via the link above, or from the Library home page.

The Advanced Google Scholar search option gives more flexibility when you search. To access it select the menu (three lines) in the top left hand corner of Google Scholar. This menu will appear once you do an initial search in Google Scholar.

Here is an example:

Enter the term "youth" in all the words field. Enter "group work" in the exact phrase field and the terms "bullying aggression" in the at least one of the words field.

Screenshot of advanced search in Google Scholar

You should also try searching library databases for relevant academic sources.

Databases are search tools for finding articles, papers, reports and more. Find databases by browsing the database list by subject.

Here is an example search in ProQuest Social Science Database.

1. Put each different concept on a new line. Notice these are connected with AND.
  • Using the * symbol will help you find alternative endings to a word. For example: adolescen* finds adolescent, adolescents, adolescence.

Screenshot of example search in Proquest database

adolescen*

AND BULLYING

AND "group work"


2. You may want to consider putting some synonyms (similar concepts) into your search. There are connected with OR.

  • For example: adolescen* OR "young people".

adolescen*OR "young people"

AND BULLYING

AND "group work"


To look for recent scholarly articles you can apply the limits:

Some useful databases:

Critical reflection paper

If you're not familiar with reflective writing as an assignment task, the videos and resources below may assist you to understand what is required.

Watch this short video to understand what reflective writing is (2:14)

Image of reflection process DIEP model You can use the DIEP model in the reflection process.

You will find some techniques and sample paragraphs in the video below (6:28)

 Tip: Even though these resources use examples from different contexts, use them to get a feel for the writing style and depth of the reflection.