ARAŞTIRMA YÖNTEMLERİ - Deneme Sınavı - 5

Roselle and Spray (2011, 5) suggest some sources that may be useful to search for your research topic:

• Textbooks

• Scholarly literature Literature Literature can be defined as published study such as articles, books, dissertations, research reports, etc. 

• Some scholarly articles that contain listings of particular groups of cases (e.g., war, conflict, crises, particular negotiations, etc.).

• Some scholarly websites which contain the databases you can explore

• Websites of respected international organizations such as International Monetary Fund, International Labor Organization; intergovernmental organizations such as United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

• Websites of governmental and nongovernmental organizations.

• Websites of government agencies such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Presidency of the Republic of Turkey.

• Reference books such as almanacs and books that contain helpful listings of the related field.

The supposition made on the relationship between the dependent and independent variables is called as hypotheses.

Purposes of a literature search as follows:

1. To identify the field and specific context in which the topic is located.

2. To decide which research and methodology will be adopted, which type of data may be collected and analyzed.

3. To deepen your knowledge related to the key concepts of the research topic

4. To avoid repeating previous studies that have ben completed before your attempt and to produce an original work.

5. To avoid the mistakes that past studies reported.

6. To discover the key people, organizations, and papers related to your research topic.

A literature review can be performed in seven steps:

1. Identification of research questions.

2. Selecting the databases and sources.

3. Specifying the key terms.

4. Applying practical screening criteria.

5. Applying methodological screening criteria.

6. Doing the review.

7. Synthesizing the results.

Narrative reviews are typically found in theses, dissertations, grant and research proposals, and research articles. In such reviews, the author selects relevant past research and synthesizes it into a coherent discussion. Narrative reviews typically are somewhat broad in focus compared to other kinds of literature reviews, discussing methodologies, findings, and limitations in the existing body of work.

The material on the home pages of individuals are likely to be unreliable.

The problems and controversial issues related to the topic should be discussed.

Another common mistake is the lack of criticism. In social sciences, every study has a limitation and they should be discussed.

Hypothesis: Predictions or educated guesses about a certain phenomenon that are derived from a theory.

Option is one of the basic concepts of positivism.

Positivists treated the social reality as measurable, quantifiable, testable making generalizations, thus not taking into account that meaning as the central block of social life cannot be measured or quantified; it can only be interpreted.

The term “epistemology” comes from the ancient Greek roots, from “episteme” meaning “knowledge” and from “logos” meaning “the study of.” Thus, epistemology can be defined as the philosophy of knowledge, or the study of knowledge. Epistemology, thus, is also referred to as the theory of knowledge.

Ontology is a concept that means the study of being/existence and the nature of reality. Ontology asks questions such as “What is the essential substance of (or the underlying foundation of) existence?”, “What is the nature of reality?” and “Is it possible for us to perceive reality as is?”

The other type is the experience of the reflections, which is the internal experience. The internal experience (reflection) happens as we reflect on the data (or the ideas) we gained from our sense experiences. For example, we can come up with an idea of a “unicorn” even though we have not experienced one (which does not exist), through combining our idea of a horse with our idea of a rhinoceros (an animal with a single horn).

A priori proposition/knowledge is a concept that refers to propositions or knowledge gained through rational means like thinking and reasoning. In other words, they don’t come from sense experience, or they are prior to the experience.

Empiricism is most often associated with John Locke (1632-1704)

Dualism is an intermediate position, defended by Descartes, according to which both material and immaterial worlds exist.

Idealism argues that there is no material, or no physical external world that is the basis of our reality. Thus, our reality does not correspond to a reality existing independent of our minds.

In inductivism, the starting point is observations of singular facts, events, or happenings, then expressing them as singular observation statements. An important condition is that the observations must be theory free in order to prevent contamination of pure facts with a previously accepted theory.

Anomaly: An anomaly is defined by Kuhn as a deviation of the “paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science”