In many ways, I find Stephen King description, with regard to the fictional setting of "The Dark Tower" series, "the world has moved on" to apply to aspects of research. While I acknowledge the interest in Big Data, that is not what I have in mind, now. My current concern is the thing variously referred to as a "literature review" or "review or literature," and its associated variations.
To put it bluntly, I believe reviews of literature are increasingly exercises in process rather than relevant, useful contributions to knowledge. I acknowledge approaches to reviewing (findings from) prior research have been undergoing refinement for years. Meta-analyses and other (quantitative) pooled results reports and meta-syntheses or other (qualitative) integrated results reports have been around for decades. There are systematic reviews, mostly identified by use of a systematic, thorough but not typically exhaustive search and selection process, scoping reviews, characterized by a narrower scope, and even narrative reviews, that tend to be a (preference base? convenience based?) sample of research summaries. There are increasing alternatives in software programs and applications to support these efforts, including general qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) programs, although Microsoft Excel can often be made to do what is done. Conventionally, reviews of prior literature are either used to build rationales for new studies or may comprise free standing reports. As anyone who has used library database programs or database aggregators can attest, the number of hits (AKA articles displayed following a key word or other type of query) has increased exponentially since the turn of the century. People use various criteria to limit the number of sources that have to be screened, including publication date, attributes of the research, such as publication language, study design, participant characteristics, and others. Sometimes these are arbitrary, sometimes they are logical, and sometimes they seem to mostly represent the easiest way to greatly reduce the sample. But I think the biggest limitation to the usefulness or potential interest in any review of literature is reliance on published research, usually peer-reviewed published research. This may make a strange kind of sense since the aim is often to use the results to justify another research study, that will be published in a peer reviewed journal format.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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