Three options for focusing your search include searching for your concept in the Title (TI Title) or in the Abstract (AB Abstract).
Once you discover a subject heading - either by inspecting your initial search results or by using the ERIC Thesaurus - you may also wish to limit by Subject (SU Subject).
After choosing your search terms and limiting to a particular field (Title, Abstract, Subject), you can move farther down the search page and limit by a particular Educational Level e.g. Elementary Education.
It is possible to select more than one option under the Educational Level by keeping the Ctrl (Cmd) key depressed while clicking on multiple choices.
Use the asterisk * as a suffix to find all the variations of a word.
The search self-regulat* finds:
self-regulation, self-regulated, self-regulatory, self-regulated, etc.
To simply focus on peer reviewed journals check the box for Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
To focus only on empirical studies (research) articles:
Check the box for Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
Choose Reports - Research under Publication Type
