ARAŞTIRMA YÖNTEMLERİ

Past experiences of professionals can be a strong inspiration for researchers.

Theories can be used to develop research studies.

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.

There are three well-known reasons that researchers seek after. They are; experience, theory testing, and replication of previous research. Past experiences of professionals can be a strong inspiration for researchers. Researchers are mostly interested in negative experiences for the purpose of improving practices and making them better for next generations. Theories can be used to develop research studies. Even a single study can be the focus of a research to examine its implications. The replication studies refer to repeating a past research recognizing its methodological weaknesses to do a better one. A researcher repeats a study carefully so that the previous limitations will not be repeated.

Anderson and Arsenault defines six types of knowledge: Historical knowledge, axiological knowledge, theoretical and conceptual knowledge, prior research studies, reviews and academic debate. Axiological knowledge, also be called a “theory of experience”, 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.

Literature can be defined as published study such as articles, books, dissertations, research reports, etc. Social scientists define literature as the “published scholarship”. The term literature review is referred as “the process of reading and reviewing published scholarship in the field.” It empowers us to perceive how new investigations and research are fairly similar to building squares, which are laid upon the thoughts worked by others.

A literature review is considered to be a research methodology in its own right when it is carried out systematically. In other words, if a literature review):

Deepening the knowledge related to the research topic is only a purpose of literature review in a study.

A literature review can be performed in seven steps:

There are four types of literature review: narrative literature review, systematic literature review, meta-analysis, focused literature review. A literature review is considered to be a research methodology in its own right when it is carried out systematically. In systematic reviews, a strict methodology is followed in literature selection. While selecting the literature, including or excluding criteria are transparent. Systematic reviews are convenient when the reviewer aims to illuminate the existing literature and its potential implications.

Internet materials can be ranked from unreliable to very reliable depending on their sources and the quality of their publication processes. A good researcher distinguishes the most effective types of sources from the others. Peer-reviewed sources are regarded as the strongest, implying that the published paper has been reviewed by authorities in their fields and appreciated for the quality of the methods adopted in the paper. Thus, the literature reviewer should be careful about the sources they prefer. In this sense, websites of an individual, who is not an expert on the issue can be considered as an unreliable source.

University repositories are an ordinarily open-access database of the research and publication productions of an institution. Grey literature is the unpublished, non-commercial, hard-to- find information that organizations such as professional associations, research institutes, think tanks, and government departments produce. The most comprehensible sources of reference are the encyclopedias for the selection of the topic as well as the preparation readings after the topic selection. One of the sources that are appealed in scientific studies is the statistics. The statistics utilized by researchers lose their up-to-dateness as soon as the new statistics are published. 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.

A good literature review should have the following characteristics:

Common problems and mistakes in conducting a literature review include uncertain purpose, vague introduction and poor organization, not enough information, failing to connect to take-home message, be critical, exceptions and counterexamples, tell the reader where to go, and matters of style. Some other common literature review mistakes are as follows: