ARAŞTIRMA YÖNTEMLERİ

Axiological knowledge. It can also be called a “theory of experience”. This kind of knowledge is created by practitioners who share their long-term experiences. Axiological knowledge may include important conclusions and generalizations. This kind of literature knowledge does not mean technicalities but the world of practice. So, the literature reviewer should notice the potential use of the axiological knowledge and avoid using it as a theory or prior research.

A literature review can be performed in seven steps (Fink, 2014, 3): 1. Identification of research questions. This step guides the review. 2. Selecting the databases and sources. There are numerous bibliographic or article databases, websites, and other resources that can be utilized. 3. Specifying the key terms. Key terms are the words that are used to search and get the related documents. 4. Applying practical screening criteria. Literature reviewer can set the criteria to include or exclude the documents from the review among the numerous articles. 5. Applying methodological screening criteria. Methodological criteria incorporate criteria for assessing scientific quality. 6. Doing the review. To ensure the reliability and validity of the literature review, a standardized form should be used for abstracting data from papers. Besides, reviewers should be trained for abstracting the data and pilot testing of the process should be reported. 7. Synthesizing the results. Literature review results may be synthesized expressively. An uncommon sort of synthesis-a metaanalysis involves the utilization of statistical results of two or more research.

Political scientists define “the circumstances, topics, policies, or other phenomena that they want to understand as dependent variables”. For instance, when a researcher likes to investigate the reasons for a failing policy, the dependent variable of the study is “the failure of the policy”. Another study may attempt to find an answer why a specific country has ssuffered from several multiple coups, the dependent vvariable of the study is “the occurrence of several coup attempts in that country”. There exist multiple factors that influence the dependent variable of
a study which is called as independent variables. Independent variables may cause some changes on the dependent variable. In the example above, option A,B,C and E are independent variables that may change the dependent variable (the height of the plant.)The correct answer is D.

Meta-Analysis. Meta-analysis is performed by statistical techniques combining data from multiple studies that have analyzed the same research questions. Re-analyzing different sets of data related to the same research question provides a much better
understanding than that of a single study.The correct answer is C

Literature Search refers to discovering useful materials that would be included
in or excluded from a research project. The correct answer is A.

The following sources on the Internet are likely to be unreliable: 

1. The material on the home pages of individuals.
2. The material on organization websites that is written by enthusiasts rather than experts.
3. Free-for-all post-your-views sites (unless restricted to a recognized set of academic contributors).
4. Weblogs (blogs), chatroom pontifications, etc.

The correct answer is E.

Periodicals are more widely known as journals. They are the major information source of prior research literature. Periodicals are published a number of times a year and are sent to subscribers including the libraries. The journals which report the research findings are the most significant ones. The quality of journals varies greatly from journal to journal. The most qualified journals are refereed meaning that
the publication is evaluated by editors and/or peers expert in their fields in terms of quality assurance. The peer reviews process imply that the reviewers and the author identities are concealed from each other. The acceptance rate of submitted papers is another indicator of the quality of the journal. The best journals accept one or two percent of the papers submitted. The higher citation rates of the journals are
another indicator of the journal quality. The correct answer is B.

Exceptions and Counterexamples. It is important to control the results and
conclusions of the biases that ordinary people bear for selective critique of every
day processes. The literature reviewer is likely to recognize similar tendencies when a
conclusion goes with prevailing wisdom and or seems politically correct. The literature
reviewer should avoid such tendencies as far as possible. The literature reviewer should also avoid seeking supportive examples for the research topic. This kind of approach will cause “confirmation bias”. To overcome this threat, the literature reviewer should spend time for inconsistent evidence. The correct answer is D.

Ridley (2012, 43) expresses the purpose 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 (Fink, 2014, 3): 1. Identification of research questions. This step guides the review. 2. Selecting the databases and sources. There are numerous bibliographic or article databases, websites, and other resources that can be utilized. 3. Specifying the key terms. Key terms are the words that are used to search and get the related documents. 4. Applying practical screening criteria. Literature reviewer can set the criteria to include or exclude the documents from the review among the numerous articles. 5. Applying methodological screening criteria. Methodological criteria incorporate criteria for assessing scientific quality. 6. Doing the review. To ensure the reliability and validity of the literature review, a standardized form should be used for abstracting data from papers. Besides, reviewers should be trained for abstracting the data and pilot testing of the process should be reported. 7. Synthesizing the results. Literature review results may be synthesized expressively. An uncommon sort of synthesis-a metaanalysis involves the utilization of statistical results of two or more research.

Meta-Analysis. Meta-analysis is performed by statistical techniques combining data from multiple studies that have analyzed the same research questions. Re-analyzing different sets of data related to the same research question provides a much better understanding than that of a single study.

Internet sources that are likely to be unreliable 1. The material on the home pages of individuals. 2. The material on organization websites that is written by enthusiasts rather than experts. 3. Free-for-all post-your-views sites (unless restricted to a recognized set of academic contributors). 4. Weblogs (blogs), chatroom pontifications, etc.

Internet search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex makes many sources available directly. Yet, most of the databases are not available without a pay or a subscription via institutions or universities. Google Scholar provides a practical alternative to search scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites. It also shows the alternatives to access the complete document suggesting several sources. See https://scholar.google.com.tr.

The Library of Congress Classification. This classification is especially appropriate for the research universities and is used in some of the libraries in Turkey such as Middle East Technical University, Anadolu University and Hacettepe University.

Many countries have their own national catalogs which list all the publications available in the country An example for Turkey is TO-KAT (Ulusal Toplu Katalog - National Union Catalog). It is a database that includes all the recorded details of all the books that are available in the libraries in Turkey. The website of TO-KAT is available at http://www.toplukatalog.gov.tr.

Periodicals are more widely known as journals. They are the major information source of prior research literature.

Some grey literature databases are available from the following sources (http://libguides.library.curtin.edu): • Trove • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) • MedNar • The Grey Literature Report • OpenGrey • GreyNet International • Cochrane Handbook

Be Critical. Another common mistake is the lack of criticism. In social sciences, every study has a limitation and they should be discussed. The criticism can be performed under the sub-heading such as literature and findings. Your paper’s value will increase if you can discuss the weaknesses and strengths of the evidence you referred. As a researcher/literature reviewer your role is not that of a lawyer who seeks to prove the best case for one side of the argument. Instead, your role is to consider the evidence skeptically like a judge or jury. Another error related to this point is that, some writers fail to be consistent with what they evidenced and concluded. Your conclusions should coincide with the weaknesses and the strengths of what you discussed in the literature, methods, and findings subheadings.

Reviews. As can be understood by its name, reviews are based on the criticism of the important studies in a particular field. Reviews are very helpful to researchers in the sense that they gather a lot of specific pieces of research and cast them into frameworks and levels of generalization which may be more useful than the many other types of studies.The correct answer is E.

The following material on the Internet is considered to be very reliable :

1.Peer-reviewed journal articles that are also published in an academic journal. These should be referenced according to their paper details, rather than as an Internet resource. 2. Peer-reviewed journal articles published in genuine electronic journals. These should be referenced using their volume number and date, plus the full web address. It is possible that they will not have page numbers. 3. Already published journal articles and book chapters that have been posted, usually in PDF format, on an academic’s home page. Check, however, that it is the published version. If it says ‘submitted to’ a journal, or ‘draft’, it has yet to be peer-reviewed. You could then check if it has since been published. 4. Electronically readable books written by subject experts. 5. Official materials published on a recognized institutional website, e.g., the British Museum site, or the Institute of Linguists’ site. You can find out what site you are on by going to the homepage.

The correct answer is A.