No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Quality of Literature Reviews
Abstract
Whereas the starting point of a literature review is presented in Chapter 2—finding out more about what is written about a specific topic by evaluating it from a critical objective—, it leaves open what constitutes a good quality literature review, whether as review of scholarly knowledge before an empirical study or as stand-alone study. Keeping in mind that there are different archetypes of literature reviews, see Section 2.5, also the way of looking at quality will vary across these types and with the objective of the literature review. Thus, it deserves a closer look at how quality of literature reviews can be assured.
... To synthesize and expand the existing knowledge base, this study's research design entails a two-pronged approach to build upon the existing knowledge base. First, a systematic literature search is conducted to uncover relevant scholarly sources, as the rigor of a literature review hinges on the quality of the search process (Dekkers et al., 2022;Snyder, 2019). Second, the retrieved articles are analyzed using predefined criteria to extract the key themes, knowledge gaps, and future research directions. ...
Information security in institutions of higher learning continues to be a concern. This is substantiated by the many security-related incidents that have occurred in these institutions over the past decade. In this study, we expound on the vulnerabilities and threats faced by higher education institutions and identify the information security measures that can be adopted to ensure safety. The study identifies insiders, poorly implemented information security frameworks, decentralized networks, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and a lack of investment in information security in HEI as the highest vulnerabilities. Accordingly, the study identifies social engineering attacks, distributed denial of service attacks, malware, and insider threats as potential threats and attacks on information in HEI. Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest multi-faceted information security measures encompassing technological, organizational, environmental, and human measures to ensure information security protection in HEI. The study identifies gaps for areas of further research.
The value of qualitative evidence synthesis for informing healthcare policy and practice within evidence-based medicine is increasingly recognised. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding how to judge the methodological quality of qualitative studies being synthesised and debates around the extent to which such assessment is possible and appropriate. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool is the most commonly used tool for quality appraisal in health-related qualitative evidence syntheses, with endorsement from the Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group. The tool is recommended for novice qualitative researchers, but there is little existing guidance on its application. This article considers issues related to the suitability and usability of the CASP tool for quality appraisal in qualitative evidence synthesis in order to support and improve future appraisal exercises framed by the tool. We reflect on our practical experience of using the tool in a systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis. We discuss why it is worth considering a study’s underlying theoretical, ontological and epistemological framework and how this could be incorporated into the tool by way of a novel question. We consider how particular features of the tool may impact its interpretation, the appraisal results and the subsequent synthesis. We discuss how to use quality appraisal results to inform the next stages of evidence synthesis and present a novel approach to organising the synthesis, whereby studies deemed to be of higher quality contribute relatively more to the synthesis. We propose tool modifications, user guidance, and areas for future methodological research.
Background:
Systematic reviews are a key input to health and social welfare decisions. Studies included in systematic reviews often vary with respect to contextual factors that may impact on how transferable review findings are to the review context. However, many review authors do not consider the transferability of review findings until the end of the review process, for example when assessing confidence in the evidence using GRADE or GRADE-CERQual. This paper describes the TRANSFER Approach, a novel approach for supporting collaboration between review authors and stakeholders from the beginning of the review process to systematically and transparently consider factors that may influence the transferability of systematic review findings.
Methods:
We developed the TRANSFER Approach in three stages: (1) discussions with stakeholders to identify current practices and needs regarding the use of methods to consider transferability, (2) systematic search for and mapping of 25 existing checklists related to transferability, and (3) using the results of stage two to develop a structured conversation format which was applied in three systematic review processes.
Results:
None of the identified existing checklists related to transferability provided detailed guidance for review authors on how to assess transferability in systematic reviews, in collaboration with decision makers. The content analysis uncovered seven categories of factors to consider when discussing transferability. We used these to develop a structured conversation guide for discussing potential transferability factors with stakeholders at the beginning of the review process. In response to feedback and trial and error, the TRANSFER Approach has developed, expanding beyond the initial conversation guide, and is now made up of seven stages which are described in this article.
Conclusions:
The TRANSFER Approach supports review authors in collaborating with decision makers to ensure an informed consideration, from the beginning of the review process, of the transferability of the review findings to the review context. Further testing of TRANSFER is needed.
Knowledge production within the field of business research is accelerating at a tremendous speed while at the same time remaining fragmented and interdisciplinary. This makes it hard to keep up with state-of-the-art and to be at the forefront of research, as well as to assess the collective evidence in a particular area of business research. This is why the literature review as a research method is more relevant than ever. Traditional literature reviews often lack thoroughness and rigor and are conducted ad hoc, rather than following a specific methodology. Therefore, questions can be raised about the quality and trustworthiness of these types of reviews. This paper discusses literature review as a methodology for conducting research and offers an overview of different types of reviews, as well as some guidelines to how to both conduct and evaluate a literature review paper. It also discusses common pitfalls and how to get literature reviews published.
Free access: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6g7QmsrpKmVZg2vNmjR8/full?target=10.1080/15022250.2019.1584965
Meta‐synthesis of qualitative research can be an important way to consolidate and grow nursing knowledge and theory. However, from recent readings of such works in the nursing literature, one can observe that there is increasing use of meta‐synthesis being used as a way to simply aggregate qualitative research findings in a manner claimed to be similar to quantitative meta‐research while also remaining compatible with the qualitative research tradition. The aim of this paper is to discuss whether this meta‐aggregation form of research has a sound epistemological foundation and should be considered a viable form of meta‐synthesis. The conclusion drawn is that meta‐aggregation falls short of being a sound method and is not compatible with the qualitative research philosophy. It is also concluded that meta‐aggregation should not be seen as a form of qualitative meta‐synthesis. Meta‐synthesis is best understood as a way to re‐interpret, compare and translate disparate qualitative studies using different conceptual apparatus into a consolidated knowledge of fundamental importance to nursing care practitioners. To conclude, aggregating qualitative research tends to turn rich descriptions into thin abstractions that are of little use to nursing practice knowledge and does not advance nursing science.
Background
Systematic reviews of research evidence have become an expected basis for decisions about practice guidelines and policy decisions in the health and welfare sectors. Review authors define inclusion criteria to help them determine which studies to search for and include in their reviews. However, these studies may still vary in the extent to which they reflect the context of interest in the review question. While most review authors would agree that systematic reviews should be relevant and useful for decision makers, there appears to be few well known, if any, established methods for supporting review authors to assess the transferability of review findings to the context of interest in the review. With this systematic mapping and content analysis, we aim to identify whether there exists checklists to support review authors in considering transferability early in the systematic review process. The secondary aim was to develop a comprehensive list of factors that influence transferability as discussed in existing checklists.
Methods
We conducted a systematic mapping of checklists and performed a content analysis of the checklist criteria included in the identified checklists. In June 2016, we conducted a systematic search of eight databases to identify checklists to assess transferability of findings from primary or secondary research, without limitations related to publication type, status, language, or date. We also conducted a gray literature search and searched the EQUATOR repository of checklists for any relevant document. We used search terms such as modified versions of the terms “transferability,” “applicability,” “generalizability,” etc. and “checklist,” “guideline,” “tool,” “criteria,” etc. We did not include papers that discussed transferability at a theoretical level or checklists to assess the transferability of guidelines to local contexts.
Results
Our search resulted in 11,752 titles which were screened independently by two review authors. The 101 articles which were considered potentially relevant were subsequently read by two authors, independently in full text and assessed for inclusion. We identified 31 relevant checklists. Six of these examined transferability of economic evaluations, and 25 examined transferability of primary or secondary research findings in health (n = 23) or social welfare (n = 2). The content analysis is based on the 25 health and social welfare checklists. We identified seven themes under which we grouped categories of checklist criteria: population, intervention, implementation context (immediate), comparison intervention, outcomes, environmental context, and researcher conduct.
Conclusions
We identified a variety of checklists intended to support end users (researchers, review authors, practitioners, etc.) to assess transferability or related concepts. While four of these checklists are intended for use in systematic reviews of effectiveness, we found no checklists for qualitative evidence syntheses or for the field of social welfare practice or policy. Furthermore, none of the identified checklists for review authors included guidance to on how to assess transferability, or present assessments in a systematic review. The results of the content analysis can serve as the basis for developing a comprehensive list of factors to be used in an approach to support review authors in systematically and transparently considering transferability from the beginning of the review process.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1186/s13643-018-0893-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Education for sustainable development (ESD) and higher education for sustainable development (HESD) are complex, multidisciplinary fields of enquiry, drawing on concepts and terms from different disciplines and languages. Although the fields are advancing in their acceptability within educational systems worldwide, they are currently struggling to achieve sought-after graduate and societal outcomes such as environmentally-responsible or sustainability-focussed-citizenship. The research described in this article explores the possibility that miscommunication or misunderstanding of basic concepts within these fields is contributing to slow progress towards their objectives. We used a philosophical hermeneutic analysis to explore how the terms ‘competence’ and ‘capability’ are used within selected ESD/HESD papers. We identify substantial internal contradictions and inconsistencies with respect to differences between learners’ abilities and their willingness to perform these abilities, and to the educational context in which these outcomes are sought. We emphasise the importance of linking educational objectives with pedagogical approaches to teaching and assessment.
Over the years, researchers in psychological science have documented and investigated a host of powerful cognitive fallacies, including hindsight bias and confirmation bias. Researchers themselves may not be immune to these fallacies and may unwittingly adjust their statistical analysis to produce an outcome that is more pleasant or better in line with prior expectations. To shield researchers from the impact of cognitive fallacies, several methodologists are now advocating preregistration—that is, the creation of a detailed analysis plan before data collection or data analysis. One may argue, however, that preregistration is out of touch with academic reality, hampering creativity and impeding scientific progress. We provide a historical overview to show that the interplay between creativity and verification has shaped theories of scientific inquiry throughout the centuries; in the currently dominant theory, creativity and verification operate in succession and enhance one another’s effectiveness. From this perspective, the use of preregistration to safeguard the verification stage will help rather than hinder the generation of fruitful new ideas.
Paper aims
The purpose of the paper is to offer guidance regarding how to write a Literature Review for empirical papers, that provides adequate background and convincing support. The literature review plays the fundamental role of unveiling the theory, or theories, that underpin the paper argument, sets its limits, and defines and clarifies the main concepts that will be used in the empirical sections of the text.
Originality
Most papers and books focus on literature review as full articles (systematic reviews, meta analyses and critical analyses) or dissertation, chapters, this paper is focused on literature review for an empirical article.
Research method
It is a theoretical essay.
Main findings
The paper summarizes the main steps for performing a literature review and guides how to organize the analyzed literature.
Implications for theory and practice
Well-crafted literature reviews are the cornerstone of good papers, and this paper offers some guidance on how to write good reviews for empirical papers, and, as a consequence, to produce better quality texts.
Scholarly discourse concerning the distinction between qualitative and quantitative approach often takes on a binary character. This structuralism undermines the legitimacy of positivist qualitative research, a unique method frequently used in social science research. In the present essay, the author argues that positivist qualitative research should be recognized as a unique form of qualitative research. The essay focuses on three issues: (a) the paradigmatic roots of positivist qualitative research, (b) the components of positivist qualitative research as an empirical research approach, including a typology for mapping various manifestations of partially and fully positivist qualitative research, and (c) incorporating a paradigmatic disclaimer section in articles to improve the quality of qualitative research, positivist and non-positivist alike. Recognizing positivist qualitative research as a distinct and legitimate type can improve qualitative studies in social science.
The shipbuilding system can use the techniques used in the Toyota Production System as an example for its production process. Production should be lean, minimize defects, stop production and reduce or eliminate inventories. Lean production is regarded by many as simply an enhancement of mass production methods, whereas agility implies breaking out of the mass production mould and producing much more highly customized products - where the customer wants them in any quantity. In a product line context, it amounts to striving for economies of scope, rather than economies of scale ideally serving ever smaller niche markets, even quantities of one, without the high cost traditionally associated with customization. A lean company may be thought of as a very productive and cost efficient producer of goods or services.
Excessive and continuous stress has effects that go beyond mere health commitment, by triggering various diseases, and it is well stablish that this stress-related somatic events can affect the quality of life. Based on the exposed, the following questions were raised: There is association between quality of life and stress level in university students? What are the potential variables that influences this association? Therefore, this research aimed to analyze recent scientific productions about stress and quality of life in university students.
Synthesis of qualitative studies is an emerging area that has been gaining more interest as an important source of evidence for improving health care policy and practice. In the last decade there have been numerous attempts to develop methods of aggregating and synthesizing qualitative data. Although numerous empirical qualitative studies have been published about different aspects of health care research, to date, the aggregation and syntheses of these data has not been commonly reported, particularly in pharmacy practice related research. This paper describes different methods of conducting meta-synthesis and provides an overview of selected common methods. The paper also emphasizes the challenges and opportunities associated with conducting meta-synthesis and highlights the importance of meta-synthesis in informing practice, policy and research.
General guidelines for conducting literature reviews often do not address the question of literature searches and dealing with a potentially large number of identified sources. These issues are specifically addressed by so-called systematic literature reviews (SLRs) that propose a strict protocol for the search and appraisal of literature. Moreover, SLRs are claimed to be a ‘standardized method’ for literature reviews that is replicable, transparent, objective, unbiased and rigorous, and thus superior to other approaches for conducting literature reviews. These are significant and consequential claims that – despite increasing adoption of SLRs – remained largely unnoticed in the information systems (IS) literature. The objective of this debate is to draw attention of the IS community to SLR’s claims, to question their justification and reveal potential risks of their adoption. This is achieved by first examining the origins of SLR and the prescribed SLR process and then by critically assessing their claims and implications. In this debate, we show that SLRs are applicable and useful for a very specific kind of literature review, a meta study that identifies and summarizes evidence from earlier research. We also demonstrate that the claims that SLRs provide superior quality are not justified. More importantly, we argue that SLR as a general approach to conducting literature reviews is highly questionable, concealing significant perils. The paper cautions that SLR could undermine critical engagement with literature and what it means to be scholarly in academic work.
Several articles have addressed the issue of rankings for Operations Management journals. Such rankings are important because promotion and tenure decisions are based on journals in which research is published. Soteriou, Hadjinicola and Patsia (1999) noted that the publication rates of European researchers in highly ranked U.S. journals was low. Barman, Hanna and LaForge (2001) furthermore mentioned the complexity of journal perceptions. We started from the idea that research paradigms may influence journal perceptions and that they might also influence article selection within journals. We set out to conduct an exploratory analysis on this topic by focusing on four highly ranked
In academia there seems to be a taken for granted assumption that there is one way to do a literature review. This paper argues that the manner of reviewing literature needs to be congruent with the particular research methodology. As an example, the authors explicate re-viewing literature in hermeneutic research. The paper begins by discussing philosophical assumptions. The authors then offer personal accounts of their experiences of working with literature in ways that are congruent with hermeneutic methodology. It is argued that the key purpose of exploring literature in hermeneutic research is to provide context and provoke thinking. Literature, which can include anything that provokes thinking on the phenomenon of interest, becomes an essential dialogical partner from which scholarly thinking and new insights emerge. In conclusion distinguishing hallmarks of ways of working hermeneutically with literature are articulated Authors' notes: We would like to thank our doctoral students for trusting our guidance on how to do a hermeneutic literature review, and then extending our own understandings in the writing they produced. We acknowledge the constructive feedback from the reviewers of the Manuscript.
The quality and success of scholarly work depends in large measure on the quality of the literature review process. This paper advances conceptual understanding of the literature review process and extends earlier guidelines on literature reviews. It proposes a hermeneutic framework that integrates the analysis and interpretation of literature and the search for literature. This hermeneutic framework describes the literature review process as fundamentally a process of developing understanding that is iterative in nature. Using the hermeneutic circle it describes the literature review process as being constituted by literature searching, classifying and mapping, critical assessment, and argument development. The hermeneutic approach emphasizes continuous engagement with and gradual development of a body of literature during which increased understanding and insights are developed. The paper contributes to better understanding of the literature review process and provides guidelines to assist researchers in conducting high quality reviews. Approaches for efficient searching are included in an Appendix.
This paper reports on the first systematic review of Gifted and Talented Education. Its main aim was to investigate interventions designed to improve the educational achievement of students identified as Gifted and Talented. A systematic literature review method was used for both content analysis and in-depth thematic synthesis of the articles. The review offers tentative corroboration for recent English educational policies that focus support for Gifted and Talented students within mainstream settings. Materials that emphasise personalised, differentiated learning are, therefore, generally well-placed to offer specific guidance.
In accordance with Windelband’s original proposal, the notions of nomothetic and idiographic are complementary terms, rather than an oppositional dyad. Given their dynamic and field-dependent nature, psychological phenomena are inherently unique—the relationship between their way of being and their constant becoming is mediated by the contingent conditions of the field. Therefore, science cannot be anything but idiographic—always facing a new unique event—while it is aimed at producing general knowledge of the nomothetic kind out of the ever-changing processes that unfold through irreversible time. The uniqueness of psychological phenomena makes it unfeasible for science to rely exclusively on inductive generalization that works through accumulation of empirical evidence provided by aggregated collections of specimens either within a single case (accumulation over time) or by assuming equivalence of exemplars across single cases subsumed under the same general class (a category viewed as a population). Abductive generalization can be a solution to the class←→ individuals relationship problem as it allows characterizing the dynamics of the unique case while it arrives at generalization.
The authors suggest that findings of independent, similar research articles may be aggregated into a cohesive study. Such a procedure greatly enhances the generalizability of the original studies and produces a relatively solid mid-range theory. In this article, the criteria for selecting studies, possible problems inherent in the aggregation approach, and potential areas for application are discussed.
As scholars and their audiences pursue standards of evidence, standards for literature reviews have also become salient. Many authors advocate “systematic” reviews and articulate standards for these. This article compares the bodies of literature derived from systematic and other types of review, which the author labels conceptual, and examines problems associated with different approaches to defining a body of literature. These problems include (a) defining the boundaries of the literature, (b) distinguishing studies from citations, (c) distinguishing literature from lore, (d) deciding which reporting venues to include, and (e) weeding out anomalous studies. The article demonstrates that although systematic reviews may remove some biases through their inclusion rules, they may introduce other biases through their exclusion decisions and may thwart conceptual advances in a field.
This work presents and illustrates the application of hydroPSO, a novel multi-OS and model-independent R package used for model calibration. hydroPSO allows the modeller to perform a standard modelling work flow including, sensitivity analysis, parameter ...
In this article it is proposed that approached in the right way, literature reviews can be an opportunity for creative inquiry. The process of the literature review is framed as a participation in a community, a dialogue with those who are part of the community now and with one's “ancestors.” The literature review can also explore the deeper underlying assumptions of the larger community or communities of inquiry one is joining and one's own beliefs, assumptions, and attachments. Three levels are proposed that each provide a different perspective on the construction of knowledge. The article concludes with a brief overview of the way inquiry, specifically in the context of the literature review, can also be an opportunity for self-inquiry.
In order to leverage global cost differentials, companies are increasingly turning to offshoring. Nevertheless, discussions in research and practice on offshoring are characterized by the lack of a common definition as well as a theoretically grounded explanation for this phenomenon. This article presents an explicit definition in order to provide a stringent understanding of the term offshoring along the dimensions of contractual/legal arrangement and geographic location. Further, the driving forces of offshoring are analysed on the environmental and company levels. The article closes with a discussion of managerial implications and an outlook on aspects for further research.
Governmental requirements of making use of evidence-based treatments on one side, and the family therapy field’s pluralism on knowledge sources on the other, may create a dilemma for the systemic clinician. This dilemma has also an epistemological relevance on research within the systemic field, addressing which research questions are relevant and needed, as well as applying the appropriate research methodology suited to answer these questions. This dilemma is in this chapter viewed in the light of two domains of knowledge, idiographic and nomothetic, that again are discussed from two perspectives: the sources of knowledge defined in evidence-based practice, combined with three levels of evidence. Central in this discussion is the objective of user involvement by applying systematic feedback that is suggested as a means to integrate the nomothetic and idiographic levels of knowledge. Further, it is also discussed how user involvement may work constructively to the dilemma between professional autonomy and increased governmental requirements.
The evaluation of rockburst is becoming increasingly important as mining activities reach greater depths below the ground surface. In the literature, rockburst assessment has been tackled by many researchers with various methods. However, there has not been a study that examines and compares different rockburst assessment methods. In this paper, rockburst classification and its varying definitions are briefly summarized. A comprehensive review of the research efforts since 1965 then follows. This includes empirical, numerical, statistical and intelligent classification methods. Of particular significance is that in all the above-mentioned techniques, the review highlights the source of data, timeline of study and the comparative performance of various techniques in terms of their prediction accuracy wherever available. The review also lists current achievements, limitations and some promising directions for future research.
Purpose
Literature reviews are essential tools for uncovering prevalent knowledge gaps, unifying fragmented bodies of scholarship, and taking stock of the cumulative evidence in a field of inquiry. Yet, successfully producing rigorous, coherent, thought-provoking, and practically relevant review articles represents an extremely complex and challenging endeavor. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the key requirements for expanding literature reviews’ reach within and across study domains and provide useful guidelines to prospective authors interested in generating this type of scientific output.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon the authors’ own experience of producing literature reviews and a scrutiny of review papers in major management journals, the authors develop an end-to-end process of writing and publishing review articles of high potential impact.
Findings
The advanced process is broken down into two phases and seven sequential steps, each of them being described in terms of key actions, required skill sets, best practices, metrics of assessment and expected outcomes.
Originality/value
By tapping into the inherent complexity of review articles and demystifying the intricacies associated with pursuing this type of scientific research, the authors seek to inspire a wealth of new influential surveys of specialized literature.
Offering an up-to-date account of systems theories and its applications, this book provides a different way of resolving problems and addressing challenges in a swift and practical way, without losing overview and grip on the details. From this perspective, it offers a different way of thinking in order to incorporate different perspectives and to consider multiple aspects of any given problem. Drawing examples from a wide range of disciplines, it also presents worked cases to illustrate the principles. The multidisciplinary perspective and the formal approach to modelling of systems and processes of 'Applied Systems Theory' makes it suitable for managers, engineers, students, researchers, academics and professionals from a wide range of disciplines; they can use this 'toolbox' for describing, analysing and designing biological, engineering and organisational systems as well as getting a better understanding of societal problems. This revised, updated and expanded second edition includes coverage of abductive reasoning, the relevance of systems theories for research methods and a new chapter about problem analysis and solving based on systems theories. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017. All rights reserved.
The hermeneutical circle is one of the most fundamental and contentious doctrines of hermeneutical theory. In its most basic form in contemporary hermeneutics, it is the idea that we always understand or interpret out of some presuppositions. Hermeneutical thinkers like Heidegger, Bultmann, Ricoeur, and Gadamer view the hermeneutical circle favorably since it constitutes for them an inescapable and positive element of understanding: as finite and historical beings, we understand because we are guided by anticipations, expectations, and questions. For them, the key is not to escape the hermeneutical circle, but, to enter into it in the right way. The notion of the hermeneutical circle is recent, but its roots go back to antiquity and ancient rhetoric. The hermeneutical circle, Heidegger contends, describes the constant and ongoing process of trial and error, where one always strives to develop the right anticipations which have to be “borne out by the things themselves”.
Background:
Systematic reviews-which identify, assess, and summarize existing research-are usually designed to determine whether research shows that an intervention has evidence of effectiveness, rather than whether an intervention will work under different circumstances. The reviews typically focus on the internal validity of the research and do not consistently incorporate information on external validity into their conclusions.
Objectives:
In this article, we focus on how systematic reviews address external validity.
Methods:
We conducted a brief scan of 19 systematic reviews and a more in-depth examination of information presented in a systematic review of home visiting research.
Results:
We found that many reviews do not provide information on generalizability, such as statistical representativeness, but focus on factors likely to increase heterogeneity (e.g., numbers of studies or settings) and report on context. The latter may help users decide whether the research characteristics-such as sample demographics or settings-are similar to their own. However, we found that differences in reporting, such as which variables are included and how they are measured, make it difficult to summarize across studies or make basic determinations of sample characteristics, such as whether the majority of a sample was unemployed or married.
Conclusion:
Evaluation research and systematic reviews would benefit from reporting guidelines for external validity to ensure that key information is reported across studies.
A simplified conceptual diagram was introduced in the previous chapter. Figure 2.1 illustrates the research design typology model, with ideology highlighted for discussion in this chapter.
Twitter has become a pervasive tool in election campaigns. Candidates, parties, journalists, and a steadily increasing share of the public are using Twitter to comment on, interact around, and research public reactions to politics. These uses have met with growing scholarly attention. As of now, this research is fragmented, lacks a common body of evidence, and shared approaches to data collection and selection. This article presents the results of a systematic literature review of 127 studies addressing the use of Twitter in election campaigns. In this systematic review, I will discuss the available research with regard to findings on the use of Twitter by parties, candidates, and publics during election campaigns and during mediated campaign events. Also, I will address prominent research designs and approaches to data collection and selection.
Adaptation as a process requires the generation of variation by companies, and the subsequent selection of mutations by the environment when drawing an analogy with evolutionary biology. The research aims at revealing both processes and structures that contribute to the generation of variation by companies, and that make it possible to anticipate on the selectional forces of competition and the product-market combinations. Companies differ from organisms to the extent that they can create a larger impact on the environment, they have the capability of foresight, and they possess relatively open boundaries. Additionally, mutations are induced and implemented in the organisation rather than creating offspring, the mechanism for organisms to adapt. To provide a structure for adaptation, not equalling one-time interventions but continuous change, the research has proposed a Framework for Dynamic Adaptation, encompassing: · the Model for the Dynamic Adaptation Capability, containing both the externally oriented Dynamic Capability and the Internal Innovation Capability. Although both thrive on the interaction with the environment,the main purpose of the Dynamic Capability is to deal with environmental change and the impact of internally induced variation on the environment. The Internal Innovation Capability describes mostly the generation of variation; · the Innovation Impact Point Model, which describes the impact of innovations on decision-making within companies. This model has been included in theModel for the Dynamic Adaptation Capability; · the Collaboration Model. This model shows the interaction between companies for horizontal and vertical integration. © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc 2005. All rights reserved.
Background:
The relationships between medical schools and communities have long inspired and troubled medical education programmes. Successive models of community-oriented, community-based and community-engaged medical education have promised much and delivered to varying degrees. A two-armed realist systematic review was undertaken to explore and synthesize the evidence on medical school-community relationships.
Method:
One arm used standard outcomes criteria (Kirkpatrick levels), the other a realist approach seeking out the underlying contexts, mechanisms and outcomes. 38 reviewers completed 489 realist reviews and 271 outcomes reviews; 334 articles were reviewed in the realist arm and 181 in the outcomes arm. Analyses were based on: descriptive statistics on both articles and reviews; the outcomes involved; the quality of the evidence presented; realist contexts, mechanisms, and outcomes; and an analysis of underlying discursive themes.
Findings:
The literature on medical school-community relationships is heterogeneous and largely idiographic, with no common standards for what a community is, who represents communities, what a relationship is based on, or whose needs are or should be being addressed or considered.
Conclusions:
Community relationships can benefit medical education, even if it is not always clear why or how. There is much opportunity to improve the quality and precision of scholarship in this area.
A literature review can be an informative, critical, and useful synthesis of a particular topic. It can identify what is known (and unknown) in the subject area, identify areas of controversy or debate, and help formulate questions that need further research. There are several commonly used formats for literature reviews, including systematic reviews conducted as primary research projects; reviews written as an introduction and foundation for a research study, such as a thesis or dissertation; and reviews as secondary data analysis research projects. Regardless of the type, a good review is characterized by the author's efforts to evaluate and critically analyze the relevant work in the field. Published reviews can be invaluable, because they collect and disseminate evidence from diverse sources and disciplines to inform professional practice on a particular topic. This directed reading will introduce the learner to the process of conducting and writing their own literature review.
The relevance of idiographic and nomothetic forms of science has been the subject of fierce debates within psychology, and there has been a false tendency to see these two terms as antagonistic rather than complementary. The origins of contemporary confusions over the term 'nomothetic' stem from a long-held misconception that nomothetic research requires large samples and group-based statistics such as means and variances (i.e. the 'Galtonian' paradigm), when in fact nomothetic research has another paradigm at its disposal that can be termed the 'Wundtian' paradigm, which relies on smaller samples, and a case-by-case form of analysis (Lamiell, 2003). Meanwhile, the historical origins of confusion over the term 'idiographic' stem from an enduring but incorrect sense that it is opposed to nomothetic inquiry, combined with an increasing tendency to use the word in ways that bear no relation to its original meaning. The contemporary situation could be substantially improved if Psychology was to re-locate the Wundtian model back to its rightful central position in the discipline.
A common feature of most policy literatures is that the bulk of the empirical evidence is embodied in case studies. This presents a problem for subsequent analysis. Although each case study may provide rich insights into a specific situation, it is difficult to generalize about the studies as a whole. The following article describes one means of dealing with the problem: analyzing the content of case studies by using a closed-ended questionnaire. The resulting case survey method allows an analyst to aggregate the case study experiences and to assess the quality of each case study in a reliable and replicable manner.
The article applies Bloom's (B. S. Bloom, M. D. Engelhart, F. J. Furst, W. H. Hill, & D. R. Krathwohl, 1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain to the process of graduate-level writing in counselor education. Bloom's Taxonomy is provided as a mechanism to help students develop and demonstrate cognitive complexity when writing comprehensive literature reviews. The article outlines common assumptions held by students operating at each level of the Taxonomy, typical organizational structure and content of papers at each level of the Taxonomy, and tips to move writing to more cognitively advanced levels.
Purpose
– Progress in theory building in the field of collaborative networks in manufacturing is preponderantly seen in contributions from disciplines outside manufacturing science. Interdisciplinary research is one way of accelerating the development of appropriate theory for this emerging domain where industrial practice has moved beyond the state of the art of scientific knowledge for establishing workable, competitive solutions. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent interdisciplinary research has contributed to a better understanding of collaborative (manufacturing) networks.
Design/methodology/approach
– To find out more about provenances of on‐going studies, to identify clusters of contributions and to provide direction for future work of researchers in this domain, publications of the past 22 years have been evaluated. To retrieve these contributions, a structured literature review has been undertaken by applying keywords to selected databases and using a strictly defined stepwise procedure. In total, 202 publications of all kinds have been evaluated.
Findings
– From the analysis of the results, it appears that most interdisciplinary contributions to collaborative (manufacturing) networks rely on one original outside discipline for either developing solutions or advancing theoretical insight. Consequently, and after further analysis, it seems that researchers in collaborative networks hardly resort to multi‐disciplinary approaches, unless “natural”; further advances might arrive from stimulating these multi‐disciplinary avenues rather than sticking to more mono‐disciplinary, and less risky, takes on both applications and theoretical insight. A more detailed investigation of the value of contributions reveals that efforts to make interdisciplinary advances are either difficult or limited. Also, the findings indicate that researchers tend to follow a more “technical” approach to decision making by actors in networks rather than searching for a shift in paradigm.
Originality/value
– While setting out these directions for future research and guiding research, this first‐of‐its‐kind review introduces the collaboration model as a systematic approach to collaborative (manufacturing) networks. This model might serve as a reference model to integrate disciplines for addressing the characteristics of Collaborative Networks. Its use in the review led to the finding that typical traits of networks, such as changeability, supplementary assets and decentralisation of decision making, are under‐researched.
This paper addresses a traditional problem in the cumulation of scientific knowledge: the need to aggregate evidence from previous studies. Typically, the existence of many individual studies on a given topic makes such a step highly desirable, yet the procedures for "reviewing the literature" have not been developed in a methodologically rigorous manner. In particular, reviewers make many subjective judgments to distinguish those studies that are to be reviewed from those to be discarded because of poor quality; the resulting review may contain unknown biases. This paper demonstrates one way of making the effects of any discarding explicit by: (a) developing operational criteria for quality, (b) applying the criteria to 140 case studies on technological innovations in local services, and (c) indicating the differences between higher and lower quality cases. The results showed that the discarding of lower quality cases would have affected the universe of cases (higher quality cases focused more on hardware innovations, public works and transportation services, efforts supported by federal funds, larger sized efforts in terms of dollar support, and efforts with client participation), but not the overall outcomes of the innovative experience (no relationship was found between quality and service improvement or incorporation).
Validation of qualitative research is here discussed in relation to postmodern conceptions of knowledge. A modernist notion of true knowledge as a mirror of reality is replaced by a postmodern understanding of knowledge as a social construction. Of the common psychometric concepts of validity, predictive validity is related to a modernist correspon dence theory of truth, whereas construct validity may be extended to encompass a social construction of reality. Three approaches to validity are outlined in some detail. First, validity is treated as an expression of craftsmanship, with an emphasis on quality of research by checking, questioning, and theorizing on the nature of the phenomena investigated. Second, by going beyond correspondence criteria of validity, the emphasis on observation is extended to include conversation about the observations, with a communicative concept of validity. Third, by discarding a modern legitimation mania, justification of knowledge is replaced by application, with a pragmatic concept of validity. In conclusion, the validity of the validity question is questioned.