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CIE 602: Research on Learning in Curriculum and Instruction

This guide provides resources for students enrolled in CIE 602.

Overview

This page will show you how to follow the scholarly conversation by tracing how research connects over time. You'll explore how to use citation chaining to find related studies. 

You can choose to watch the video or follow the steps below to learn more about citation chaining and research organization.

 

Expanding Your Search with Citation Chaining

This video will explore how to conduct backward and forward citation chaining to further expand your research.

Transcript

Understanding Citation Chaining

Citation chaining is the process of following the research trail - seeing how one study connects to others. Citation chaining helps you identify key scholars, trace theoretical developments, and ensure your literature review is comprehensive.

Type What it Does Where to Use It
Backward Chaining Looks at the references cited by an article to find earlier foundational research Can be done using any source with listed references. Use Scout to look up the citation information and access the full text of the article.
Forward Chaining Finds newer articles that cite an article after publication Use tools like Google Scholar, Scopus, and Scite.ai to find citation metrics.

 

Backward Chaining: Tracing the Past

  1. Open the full text of the article that you consider a quality, relevant source for your topic.
  2. As you read the article, note the studies and theoretical frameworks that are cited within the text.
  3. Find the full citation of these works from the References section.
  4. Search for the full text of the source by searching by title or author in Scout.
  5. If UA Libraries does not have access to the full text of the source, use the citation information to request the full text through Interlibrary Loan.

Forward Chaining: Following the Future

  1. Copy the title of a quality, relevant article into a database like, Scopus, Scite, or Google Scholar
  2. Search for the title in each of the databases. Remember to put quotation marks around the title, and adjust the search field to "Title".
  3. Click on the "Cited by" number to see a list of publications who have cited your selected article.

Examples of Forward Chaining:

Google Scholar

Screenshot of a Google Scholar search results page for the article Effects of coaching on Universal Design for Learning implementation. The article listing shows citation information, including the authors, journal title, and publication year. The “Cited by 21” link is circled in red to highlight where users can click to view newer publications that have cited this article. This demonstrates how Google Scholar supports citation forward chaining.

Scopus

Screenshot of a Scopus search results page showing one document found for Effects of coaching on Universal Design for Learning implementation. The search box and article title are outlined in red. On the right side, the “Citations” column shows the number 6 circled in red, indicating that the article has been cited six times. This visual illustrates how Scopus can be used to track citation counts and perform citation forward chaining through its citation data.

Scite

Screenshot of a Scite article record for Effects of coaching on Universal Design for Learning implementation by Craig, Smith, and Frey (2022). The section labeled “Cited by 9 publications” is outlined in red, showing how users can view specific citing papers. Below, an example citing article is listed with an arrow pointing to its title. This demonstrates how Scite allows citation forward chaining while also showing the context in which the article was cited.

 

By actively tracing citations, you move from simply searching for sources to understanding how scholarship develops. This is a key skill for writing your literature review.