Here's a question that extends beyond applied animal behavior researchers, with hopefully a few researchers or even librarians with expertise in massive article searches that might be able to provide some help. The basics are this: We started a meta-analysis of enrichment about a decade ago:
Poster An Enrichment Meta-Analysis: Reassessing Our Past to Plan fo...
The idea was to extend the three enrichment meta-analyses that looked at what effect enrichment had on stereotypic behavior in zoo animals (Shyne, 2006; Swaisgood & Shepherdson, 2005; Swaisgood & Shepherdson, 2006) to more than just stereotypies and in more settings than zoos. We were looking at the effects of enrichment on all different behaviors (e.g., foraging, inactivity, social) as well as across numerous species and in zoos, shelters, farms, stables, labs, etc. At the start of this project (2010), we managed to find 12,000 articles that were limited to 150 papers mainly by using the Google Scholar "OR" function (i.e., enrichment OR stereotypy OR welfare OR behavior...), and then limiting it to (a) peer-reviewed publications that (b) did some type of enrichment to baseline independent variable manipulation, and (c) measured at least one type of behavioral effect.
The difficulty we have run into is this: Google Scholar only allows any query to produce 1000 searches. And there have been a lot more studies done since 2010, with anywhere from 23,000 to 50k+, depending on how we exclude terms. We can search by year for each, but that is less effective. And, we could include other search engines, like Web of Science, to produce more accurate results. I just feel like we're going about this in a less optimal way if we start limiting searches by year. So that is essentially it:
What is the most optimal way to produce a large meta-analytic search on peer-reviewed publications that have examined the effects of environmental/behavioral enrichment on (a) any kind of behavior (b) in any setting?
It has to be at least partially experimental since we require a non-enriched baseline measure for comparison. Other than that, we would like to find all the papers we can, probably in the range of 250 - 500, and then start doing our meta-analysis on what those papers have to say about enrichment used with different species/taxa, different types of enrichment, different settings, and so on. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
References:
Shyne (2006). Meta‐analytic review of the effects of enrichment on stereotypic behavior in zoo mammals. Zoo Biol, 25(4), 317-337.
Swaisgood, R. R., & Shepherdson, D. J. (2005). Scientific approaches to enrichment and stereotypies in zoo animals: what's been done and where should we go next?. Zoo Biol, 24(6), 499-518.
Swaisgood, R., & Shepherdson, D. (2006). Environmental enrichment as a strategy for mitigating stereotypies in zoo animals: a literature review and meta-analysis. Stereotypic Animal Behaviour: Fundamentals and Applications to Welfare. CABI, 256-285.
Follow the Cochrane Handbook guidelines (http://handbook.cochrane.org/) for how to conduct a systematic review. They set the gold standard for how to do a systematic review. The three general databases you have to use are MEDLINE, CENTRAL, and Embase. You can supplement with topic-specific databases. Definitely, Google Scholar would not be the database I'd start with. Recruit a librarian with systematic review expertise to help you.
The librarians at the Animal Welfare Information Center in the US could probably help you design a search. They will also perform searches, if you want, and they have access to many databases. However, I think you would have to pay for the search. Google “AWIC“ to get to their website, then there should be a “contact us” page. Sorry I can’t be more specific, but I’m on my iPhone, so my options are limited.
Librarians are the best partners for this type of search. Mary Wood, now retired, was a master in this domain. You could ask Erik Fausak.
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