LibGuides: Early Childhood Education and Care: Journals

About Journals

A Journal is a scholarly academic publication usually published at regular intervals such as monthly, quarterly etc. Journals provide relevant, up to date information on a topic.

Why Use Journals?

To keep up to date with the latest developments in your subject
To find topical project/essay/assignment information and ideas
To get a wide range of references for your research assignments
To read articles written or recommended by your tutors

Peer Reviewed?

When an article is Peer-Reviewed, the editors of the journal send it to experts in the relevant field; e.g., an article about Early Childhood Education would go to other academics and researchers in that area These experts provide feedback (about the quality of research and presentation of findings, and more) and may recommend changes. This ensures that the articles that are published in academic journals have scholastic merit and contribute to the overall research in that field.

Journals for students of ECEC

The library's Early Childhood Education and Care journals are available in electronic format only, mostly from library subscription databases. Some scholarly journals in your area:

Early Childhood Education Journal

International Journal of Early Years Education

Early Childhood Research and Practice

Child: Care, Health and Development

Australasian journal of Eary Childhood

Miscellaneous journals of interest:

Early Childhood Matters

Child Abuse and Neglect

Children and Society

American journal of Play

What if the library does not have the journal article you need?

Try searching Google Scholar by using the significant words or a phrase from the title of the article combined with the last name of the author.
You may also try searching for the title of the journal using quotations. This will often lead to the publisher's Web site. Browse the site to see if the article you need is freely available. Some publishers allow access to older articles without subscription.
If the Library doesn't provide access to the journal, you can request a copy through the Inter library loan service, ask at the library desk.
You can go to another library that has a printed version of your article and photocopy it yourself, local libraries include NUIG or the County libraries.

Finding Journals

Most of the journals you will be interested in are available online. As long as you go via library.gmit.ie all journals will be available to you both on and off campus. Please note that you will not get full text access if you go via another route eg straight to the journal website or Google.

Finding a journal title is different to finding a journal article.

Each journal title has a number of individual journal articles in each issue.

Search + Find

Using Search + Find to find journal titles

Finding Online Journal Titles

To find a journal title online browse our e-journals portal.