Keywords: research methods; Literature review; Study the integration method; Meta-analysis;
For the development of pedagogy, research method is the key factor to determine the quality of educational research, that is, the scientific nature of pedagogy. At present, in educational research documents, such as research reports and dissertations, it is often seen that some researchers emphasize the use of "literature method" in their research methods? (also known as "literature review method" or "literature research method")? . This so-called research method is mainly manifested in the descriptive analysis and summary of some related research documents collected and sorted out in the traditional sense as the basis for raising research questions when writing literature review. In this regard, some educational researchers raised objections. Some people point out that "literary method" is not a research method, while others emphasize that it is a research method, and the two views sometimes have heated debates.
From the perspective of research methods, can this "literature method" be called research method? The clarification of this issue will help to further clarify the essence of research methods, improve the methodology system of educational research, and also help to improve the quality of educational research.
First, the paradigm dispute of research methods.
To find out whether "literature method" is a research method, we should sort out the basic paradigm of educational research method and understand the debate of research paradigm behind this problem. Educational research paradigm is a research norm or model based on corresponding methodology, which guides scientific research to adopt specific research methods. At present, the basic paradigm of scientific research can be simply summarized as speculative research and empirical research, which is also the basic paradigm of educational research. Among them, speculative research focuses on solving inevitable problems, emphasizing the construction of concepts, theories and viewpoints, solving conceptual and normative problems through logical reasoning, and empirical research focuses on solving realistic problems, emphasizing the inference of research results based on the collection and analysis of data and information.
Specifically, the speculative paradigm and the empirical paradigm of educational research have different philosophical foundations and research orientations. Speculative research emphasizes that researchers use philosophical methods such as dialectics to explain ideas or theories through logical analysis of things or phenomena. Some people think that speculative research method has unique ontological value and outstanding epistemological value, which determines that it has always played an important role in the fields of humanities and social sciences and even natural sciences. Empirical research pays attention to the role of direct experience, emphasizes the observation, experiment or investigation of the research object, systematically analyzes and explains the collected data or information, and explores the essential attributes or laws of things with facts as evidence. In the field of educational research in China, speculative research paradigm has long occupied a dominant position, but in recent years, empirical research has been paid more and more attention. In fact, there is no conflict between speculative research and empirical research. Empirical research often needs speculative support, and speculative research also needs empirical verification.
At present, the system of western educational research methods strongly shows the characteristics of empirical research, which takes positivism as the support of philosophical concepts and holds that all knowledge comes from sensory experience and then generates new knowledge. Western educational research methods traditionally tend to use quantitative research, and then the importance of qualitative research is gradually valued. At present, they prefer to combine quantitative research and qualitative research methods to form a mixed research method. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed empirical methods have become the mainstream of western educational research methods. In the field of educational research in China, it is also emphasized that the core of scientific research norms is empirical research, which is the only way for pedagogy to move towards science.
In the view of empirical researchers, the so-called "literature method" used in traditional literature review writing is not a real research method, has no characteristics of empirical research, and lacks systematic, standardized and operable research methods and tools.
Second, literature review and research methods
1. About literature review
For a research topic, people often discuss it from different research perspectives or based on different theories, which also promotes the formation of a rich knowledge system in related research fields. Therefore, when each researcher conducts a new research on a research topic, he often needs to collect and sort out a large number of previous research documents, analyze and synthesize the information related to the new research, and prepare for putting forward new research questions. Literature review often reflects the efforts and achievements of many researchers in the past.
Specifically, literature review is a kind of "re-study" of research results or research documents, which belongs to the category of "meta-research" or "research learning". A comprehensive summary of the previous research literature related to the research topic is helpful for researchers to fully understand the progress and shortcomings of previous research and establish the connection between old and new research. A good literature review focuses on the research problems that researchers want to discuss, discusses and discovers new research problems, explains why new research is needed, and provides a basis for clarifying the research purpose and research methods of a new research.
It can be seen that literature review is of great value in educational research and an important part of scientific research activities. However, literature review cannot be simply equated with "literature method".
2. Characteristics of research methods
The writing of literature review should obey the research theme and methodology. Although from the perspective of speculative research, "literature method" has the nature of speculative research, whether it can be called a specific research method is debatable.
An important feature of science is that it contains a set of procedures or standards, which show how research results are obtained and can be used repeatedly by peers. This set of procedures or standards is called "scientific method". Macroscopically speaking, research method refers to the system of research methods, including methodology, research paradigm and specific research methods. Microscopically, research methods refer to specific research methods, which are systematic, standardized and repeatable research procedures adopted by researchers to reveal the characteristics or laws of things. Research methods directly affect the realization of research purposes, often manifested as research tools or technologies used to directly serve research purposes.
Generally speaking, at the micro level, educational research methods generally have three characteristics:
One is science. The progress of science is inseparable from the development of research methods. Scientific research methods emphasize that research should be based on relevant theories or observed facts, put forward research questions, design research plans, collect and analyze data, and verify research questions in order to understand and explore the truth of things. Western scientific research methods are mainly empirical research, which also affects the development trend of educational scientific research methods. From the perspective of empirical research, it is easy to question the scientific nature of the research only by speculating. However, for the analysis of "science" itself, based on different philosophical views, speculative researchers still have reason to insist that speculation is scientific as a way to understand the world, while empirical researchers can't seem to criticize it completely from philosophical views and epistemology.
The second is systematic. Research methods should have systematic and standardized procedures or strategies, and people should have an understanding of the standardization of this research method. At present, in the literature review of some educational research reports or papers, the so-called "literature method" is not systematic: on the one hand, the retrieval and collection of previous research documents are not systematic; On the other hand, the analysis of previous research literature lacks systematicness. Some literature reviews have not formulated the standards and procedures for literature analysis, and lack the techniques and tools for rigorous analysis of the data or information of previous literature.
The third is uniqueness. Different types of research use different research methods. Each research method has its own particularity different from other research methods, serving specific research purposes and being applied in different research fields. In the field of educational research, almost all research reports or dissertations need to write a literature review, which involves the analysis, discussion and comprehensive summary of previous literature. Therefore, from this point of view, even if the "literature method" emphasizes the nature of speculative research, this research method is not special, not a specific research tool, nor can it be called a research method. And some widely recognized specific research methods, such as questionnaires and interviews, can be called research methods, one of the reasons is that they are special and serve their specific research purposes.
3. "Literature method" is not a research method.
By analyzing the characteristics of research methods, we can see that writing literature review is a very important basic work for educational research. Literature review is to prepare or pave the way for a study to use corresponding research methods, and it is an important link or part of a study. However, the traditional descriptive literature review lacks the basic characteristics of research methods and does not belong to the category of specific research methods.
Even if speculative researchers think that writing a literature review is to use "literature method", there is a logical misunderstanding in this judgment itself, that is, the logical relationship between "literature review" and "research method" still lacks sufficient basis. Literature review is one of the basic contents of an educational research report or paper research framework, and does not involve specific research methods. Literature review and research methods are not necessarily related. If there is a "literature review" part in a research report, it is called "literature method", and this logical relationship is obviously unreasonable.
Therefore, no matter from the perspective of speculative research or empirical research, the statement of "literature method" is difficult to establish, and it is too vague, not scientific and rigorous, and does not show specific research methods. Moreover, for most educational research reports or papers, no matter whether researchers are under the banner of empirical research or take the road of speculative research, their research purpose is often not to write a literature review. The quality of literature review does not determine whether the research purpose can be achieved, but the research method determines whether the research purpose can be achieved. Therefore, we can't emphasize the application of the so-called "literature method" just by writing a literature review.
Of course, writing literature review does not exclude the use of scientific research methods. If a research report adopts a scientific, systematic and unique method to write literature review, then this method can be called research method. For example, in the methodology system of social research, "literature research" as an independent research method mainly uses second-hand data for analysis, and the specific research methods of literature research mainly include content analysis, secondary analysis (meta-analysis) and statistical data analysis. In the field of educational research, there is a research method that summarizes the previous research literature, discusses the characteristics and laws of the previous research literature, and scientifically, systematically and uniquely analyzes, synthesizes and summarizes the research literature to serve the research purpose. But the research method adopted in this case is not the so-called "literature method", but the "research integration method". Meta-analysis is the most common research method in the study of integration methods.
Thirdly, the research integration method: literature review method.
1. On the research integration method
In the field of western educational research, people advocate a more scientific and rigorous method to summarize the existing research literature, that is, the comprehensive method of research? . Research integration method is an empirical research method based on literature, which systematically analyzes previous research reports to generate new knowledge or explanations, including drafting research questions, searching related literature, evaluating, analyzing and synthesizing data, and explaining research results. The research integration method is different from the so-called "literature method", which emphasizes the systematic and clear method of literature collection, retrieval and screening, and refers to the comprehensive collection, collation and management of literature materials by researchers.
The research integration method plays an important role in analyzing the existing research literature, which not only helps to understand the existing research literature comprehensively and completely, thus establishing the connection between the old and new scientific knowledge, but also helps people to enhance their understanding of the existing research and expand the scope of the existing research. In addition, it is very important to study the integration method, because it helps people to understand the existing knowledge and conflicts, especially for the same research topic, when similar research designs are used to produce contradictory research results, it is helpful to analyze the reasons. For educational science, the research related to human behavior is more complicated, many interfering factors are difficult to eliminate, and some contradictory educational research results are also questioned. Moreover, each study has its own particularity in time, sample and situation, and each independent study is difficult to help people make decisions based on the research results. At this time, it is of great significance to study the integration method. Advocating research integration method in the field of educational research is helpful to integrate various research results of related research topics and explain the diversity and contradiction of research results.
The research integration method emphasizes the ideas and methods of empirical research, and pays attention to the research facts of predecessors, rather than the subjective judgments or opinions of researchers. The research integration method has attracted more and more attention and discussion, and people tend to think that it is an effective literature review research method, which can present the research status more objectively and clearly and better reflect the main problems in related research fields. The disadvantage of studying the integration method is that it needs enough time and literature resources to implement this method, and it needs long-term empirical research and follow-up analysis. In addition, what are the specific methods to learn the integral method? (such as meta-analysis)? People usually think that analytical techniques are too complicated, so it is challenging for the authors and readers of research reports.
Generally speaking, the research integration method is a research method to systematically analyze the previous educational research literature by using specific research tools or means. In essence, research integration method is called research method because it contains a series of scientific, systematic and specialized research methods. The research integration method emphasizes the advantages of methods, especially the application of statistical methods, and uses system analysis technology to integrate and summarize documents. Among a series of specific research methods to study integration methods, meta-analysis method has been widely concerned.
2. About meta-analysis
Meta-analysis? (meta-analysis) It is the most effective research method in the study of integration method and is highly respected in the study of educational literature. Some researchers define meta-analysis as a research method, while others prefer to regard it as a statistical analysis method and technology to study integration methods. Some scholars even regard meta-analysis as a synonym for research integration methods. Some people think that meta-analysis is unique in variable coding and other research links. It is not only a statistical technique, but also a research method. Even meta-analysis can be equated with research integration method, which aims to quantitatively integrate the existing research results of related research topics, so as to determine the research status of this research topic.
Meta-analysis has a set of quantitative statistical methods, which can be used to comprehensively analyze a large number of research data and materials. Meta-analysis does not prejudge the previous research results, but pursues a holistic view of the previous research results in order to draw meaningful inferences. The main advantage of meta-analysis is that it has norms or standards. In the process of analyzing the existing research results, we can make a clear report on the integration process of the previous research, which is convenient for the public to consult or repeatedly verify; Moreover, meta-analysis can systematically analyze and summarize a large number of previous research documents more effectively and in detail, which is helpful to discover the utility and relationship of existing research.
Meta-analysis has detailed research steps, generally speaking, it is mainly to define research problems, retrieve and collect documents, encode research results, determine the same measurement indicators, and make statistical analysis of existing research results.
Four. Suggestions on the writing of educational research reports and papers
1. Improve the speculative research level of literature review
At present, in educational research reports and papers, the writing methods of literature review mostly belong to the category of speculative research, which is often a logical speculative analysis of previous related documents, which is understandable. Speculation does not conflict with other research paradigms. Educational research paradigms should advocate pluralism, and various research paradigms should support and develop each other. Speculation and empirical research examine the research theme from different angles of "what should be" and "what should be" respectively. Some problems discussed by speculative research methods are difficult to solve by empirical research methods. Speculative research method is helpful to comprehensively evaluate empirical research and examine research methods, concepts, theories, reflections and viewpoints. Educational research often needs to comprehensively use empirical and speculative research methods. In educational research, two basic methods, demonstration and speculation, permeate each other, and the theory largely determines the interpretation of observers. Educational research methods need not only rigorous speculation on the current situation of education and its theoretical development based on "should be", but also extensive and in-depth empirical research on the laws and characteristics of education based on "should be". Educational research should not only pay full attention to the orientation of value judgment, but also emphasize the orientation of fact judgment.
However, the speculative nature of traditional literary criticism has been questioned by some scholars. For example, some studies have analyzed the literature review of some doctoral dissertations in education in China, and pointed out the outstanding problems: literature review, listing literature, lack of substantive review; The number of references is insufficient, the source of documents is single, and there is a lack of careful selection; Lack of in-depth reading and analysis of literature, it is difficult to analyze and summarize the existing research status of related topics; The structure of literature review is unreasonable and the writing is not standardized. Therefore, we should improve the speculative research level of writing literature review and strengthen the logical analysis and generalization training of existing literature.
2. Pay attention to the empirical method of literature review.
Judging from the current research paradigm used in educational research papers, some studies have pointed out that speculative research is still the main method in the field of educational research in China, and the proportion of quantitative research is very small, showing a slight upward trend year by year. At present, in the system of educational research methods in China, empirical research methods are paid more and more attention. Educational research constantly emphasizes exploring related educational research problems through objective, verifiable and repeatable empirical methods. For literature review, the traditional descriptive literature review is often difficult to eliminate readers' doubts. In order to ensure the consistency of research logic and highlight some research conclusions, researchers may subjectively avoid some important documents in existing research, thus losing the objectivity and impartiality of scientific research.
Therefore, writing a literature review based on the ideas and methods of empirical research will help to improve the quality of literature review and be more convincing. As a quantitative analysis method based on empirical research, meta-analysis and other research integration methods are of great significance to the development of literature review. If researchers want to improve the quality of previous research literature analysis, then using meta-analysis and other research integration methods will help to write a more objective and rigorous literature review.
Of course, whether educational research uses meta-analysis and other research integration methods to write literature review depends on its research purpose. In fact, the research topic of some educational research reports is not to discuss the previous research literature. Literature review is the basic premise of research, not the purpose of research. It is not necessary to use meta-analysis and other research integration methods to write literature review. What kind of research method a researcher uses to write a literature review is the most critical method, which should serve the research purpose. If a research report or paper uses empirical methods such as "research integration method" or "meta-analysis method" to analyze the literature, which will help to achieve the research purpose, then it is essential to use this research method.
Meta-analysis, as a quantitative research integration method, is developing continuously in the field of western educational research. Meta-analysis has certain basic requirements for the quantity and quality of previous research documents, and it needs to accumulate a large number of research documents in related research fields in the early stage. Due to the limited accumulation of empirical research literature in some educational research fields in China, the application of research integration methods such as meta-analysis may be limited, and it is necessary to make continuous efforts to carry out rich educational research to break through.
From the development of educational research methods, through research integration methods? (such as meta-analysis)? Literature review of empirical research methods is of great value for improving the quality of educational research papers and promoting the development of educational research.