Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
(5) SECONDARY DATA SOURCES, RESEARCH ETHICS & LIT REVIEWS: - Coggle…
(5) SECONDARY DATA SOURCES, RESEARCH ETHICS & LIT REVIEWS:
SECONDARY DATA:
- Data that is situational.
- The data exists independent of your research project
- It is existing data that researchers simply gather and analyse (not data created by the researcher for the purpose of their research project).
SOURCES OF SECONDARY DATA:
It can be found in documents, databases and on the internet
- ABS Census Data
- ABS Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAL)
- HILDA report
- Mental Health Tribunal Statement of Decisions
- Royal Commission reports, Public Inquiries and Submissions
- Hansard
- Program evaluations (publicly available)
- Public online forums (eg whirlpool)
- Comments section of public sites
- Social media
- Policy documents
- Media (newspaper, magazines, cartoons)
- Art, Film, TV, Photos, Documentaries
- Census and demographic data
- Publicly available reports
- Family Law Court Judgements
- Australian Unemployed Workers Union
USING EXISTING/SECONDARY DATA: (O'Leary)Benefits:
- Saves time, energy and money
- May reduce researcher bias. The process of generating the data does not involve the researcher in the same way (but selection of data and analysis does).
Considerations:
- You can never full get rid of researcher bias. Their values and assumptions always come into play.
- Needs to be screened for credibility; may not be as current or relevant; may not be subject t undisclosed methodological flaws; risk of endless searching 'down the rabbit holes'; may or may not be valid re answering your RQ etc.
RESEARCH ETHICS: (Seperate lecture)
- Using existing data removes a formal ethics review process from our research project. However ethics is still important.
- Just because data is publicly accessible doesn't mean researchers aren't required to uphold ethical standards. There may be occasions where it is appropriate to seek ethical approval.
- Eg. if you were using personal accounts in a private group (such as a private member fb group) it would require ethics approval.
KEY PRINCIPLES:
- Respect (for autonomy people are free to make their own decisions about involvement)
- Non-maleficence (the research should do no harm)
- Beneficence (the research must benefit all of those engaged in the research)
- Justice and integrity (the research should be fair and just for and to the wider community)
- Ethical use of digital data
Ethical considerations:
- Harm v Risk
- Protecting the vulnerable
- Informed consent
- No deception
- The right to privacy/confidentiality/anonymity
- The right to withdraw
- Ethical issues arising from vested interests
- Data protection
- Recruitment/relationships/reimbursement
How can Ethics help your research?
Seeking ethics approval forces you to think through to following questions...
- Why are you doing the research?
- How are you going to conduct the research?
- Who (or what, as in personal records) are you going to work with as sources of data?
- How are you going to recruit (or source) them?
- How will you ensure you have informed consent?
- What are you going to ask (of) them?
- How will you provide support, if needed?
- Do the benefits of the research outweigh the risks?
There are additional ethical considerations in relation to some participant groups:
- Children and young people
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- People in dependent or unequal relationships (e.g., student and teacher, health care professionals and their clients)
- Others for whom informed consent is not straight forward (e.g., prisoners, nursing home residents and others in institutional forms of care, people with cognitive impairment)
FORMAL ETHICAL GUIDANCE:
- RMIT Ethical Review - Code of Conduct on Research
- Ethical Requirements outlined in National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (ARC 2007)
- Australian Code of Responsible Conduct
- Professional Codes - AASW Code of Ethics, Code of Ethics for Social Work and Social Care Research (2008 JUCSWEC)
LITERATURE REVIEWS:It locates your research in literature and shows its contribution to knowledge by:
- Telling the story of your topic by discussing context and background information which explains the extend and significance of the research problem. ie Why is this a problem to be addressed?
- Providing a critical analysis and synthesis of the previous research (and methods used) showing relationships between different research, key debates and writers.
- Justifies your research question by identifying strengths and weaknesses in the research and pointing to a gap in current knowledge which your proposed research aims to address.
- Establishes your credibility i.E. Shows the reader you know what you are talking about
Where does it sit in the research process?
- Select research topic - what do I want to know?
- Literature review - what is already known? What more needs to be known? How has this knowledge been generated?
- Develop a research proposal
- Coduct the research
- Write research report and disseminate findings
CRITICALLY ENGAGE IN THE LITERATURE, DON'T REPORT:
- Existing knowledge will be partial, incomplete and questionable in a variety of ways.
- Look for ‘gaps’ in the literature
- The ways in which existing knowledge has been generated may be open to critique.
- Undertaking a ‘review’ of the literature involves much more than becoming acquainted with existing knowledge, it requires a critical engagement with the literature
and the ways in which it has been constituted. (D’cruz & Jones, 2014 p.28).
.
- A literature review is a ‘very specific piece of argumentative writing that acts to create a ‘space’ for your research study.
- It reviews past research and relies on articles published in well-established research journals and is usually a distinct and required section of any research write-up, including grant applications, research reports and journal articles’. (O’Leary, 2014 p. 88)
What is NOT a literature review?
Reportage - descriptive, uncritical summary of the topic.
An annotated bibliography - descriptive individual summaries of different authors or articles/research
An argumentative essay - gathering evidence to answer a question
Remember: you are reviewing evidence to identify a question
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD LIT REVIEW: Davies & Hughes 2014 p. 38
- Make an interesting read in its own right.
- It should be elegantly and professionally written.
- Give it a good overall structure, with headed sections and sub sections
- Aim at good paragraph construction and good sentence construction.
- Let it flow naturally through the topics covered.
- Conclude with a section that indicates your own judgement on the messages that have emerged from your reading of the literature.
KEY PHASES OF LIT REVIEW:1. Structured search of the literature:
- Establish research topic and working RQ i.E. What is the social problem and what element of this do I want to know about?
- An example: There is a lot of rhetoric around choice and control in disability funding policy but what is the actual experience of people living with disability? RQ - to what extent do individualised funding approaches impact choice and self determination for people with disabilities?
- Establish the bodies of literature relevant to the topic. From the previous example: The literature related to human rights, disability, personalisation and individualised funding policy frameworks
- Identify key search words, terms and strings to narrow down the field. Eg. Disability AND human rights AND personalisation… gather relevant material, read abstract and conclusion first to assess relevance and eliminate those that are not An iterative process of reading, decision making, including and excluding literature based on relevance to your RQ
2. Critical engagement (ie informed and considered):
- Ask questions of the existing research such as..
- What is the author actually asking and trying to do? I.E. RQ and aims
- What is the methodology and does this align with their question and what they want to know?
- What are the strengths & limitations of the research design given the question/s?
- How does this piece compare / contrast/ link with other articles i have read? Agrees, disagrees, novel approach?
- Lightbulb moments?
3. Reconstruction and synthesis into key themes:
- Synthesise definition - to ‘combine separate elements to form something new, a connected whole’.
- Make links and find relationships to establish new patterns and themes in the existing research. Treat the research as data to be organised into themes which make sense given your RQ > this is very different to just summarising each article.
- Your synthesis will be unique because of your unique question and your unique lens and interests – you are out to discover the gap.
- Depending on your RQ, the body and building blocks of your review could be structured around key themes or the chronology of your topic or location of research etc.
- Developing themes; reconstruction
- Your RQ will guide how your organise the themes
- What makes the most sense given your working RQ?
(2) Questions to ask regarding strengths and limitations of research design:
- Is the sample big enough?
- Is the sample diverse enough?
- How did they recruit or develop their sample?
- How was the data analysed?
- What can they say based on the sample and findings?
- Were the conclusions logical?
- Are they overstepping what they can say based on the findings?
(2) OTHER CRITICAL QUESTIONS TO ASK: Gruba & Zobel, 2014: 60
- Where and when did the research take place? What might this suggest about gaps? ò Was the research robust?
- Is the work significant? Some studies are remarkable but most are an incremental contribution and need to be understood as such. Make sure you include reference to major well-known studies in your topic to show you understand the foundational and established material e.G. Royal commission findings, key research studies
- Consider the status of the publication (peer reviewed? Credible?) And authors’ reputation and standing (if possible)
- How does this research relate to my RQ and proposed study? I.E. Content, new ideas, methodologies, theoretical lens, challenges
(2) IN SUMMARY, PAY ATTENTION TO:
- Key articles (ones that are often cited or linked)
- Key authors - Including when and where the research occurred
- Key ideas, theories, debates and terms - When and where these ideas were prominent, When and how these were perhaps challenged.
- Methodologies (how has knowledge been produced?) - Rigor, Context, sample, methods, Credibility of claims
STRUCTURE OF LIT REVIEW:1. Introduction:
- Topic context, RQ and why it is important.
- Outline scope and structure of the review the themes to be discussed.
- Start broad but narrow very quickly.
2. Body:
- Elaborate on key themes/topics/developments in the literature
- One paragraph per theme
- Discuss strengths and limitations of the claims, ideas and methods. undertaken by the researchers represented in the literature.
- Compare and contrast
3. Conclusion:
- Summarise the review and key themes, emphasise the gap you have identified and implications for future research.
- State the importance of your research given this gap and show how you will be adding to existing knowledge.
(1) Structure of introductory para:
- 1st sentence - Introduce the topic
- 2nd sentence - Narrow the topic and establish that this issue is important and is relevant to social work (and why)
- 3rd sentence - Establish themes
4th sentence - Discuss knowledge gap, critique existing research.
(2) Structure of body (theme) paras:
- Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence outlining the theme to be discussed.
- Explore strengths and limitations of the claims, ideas and methods in the research you are discussing, make comparisons.
- Keep the literature in the foreground of the writing.
- Make an observation about the body of literature relevant to the particular topic
- Keep control of the review, use your voice, don't discuss too much about the author's/researcher's voice.
ARGUE THE GAP:
- The research gap is not an obvious aspect of the literature – if it was you wouldn’t need to do this literature review to show it.
- You need to convince the reader that 1. The gap exists. 2. Your research question is valid and important.
- You will become a ‘mini expert’ trying to make a case for your research by concluding with a section stating your critical judgement on the themes from the lit review and being very clear about the gap (Davies & Hughes, 2014: 38)
THREE PURPOSES OF LIT REVIEW:
Gruba & Zobel 2014 (p. 59)
- It gives the background information required to establish the extent and significance of your research problem.
- It identifies and discusses attempts by others to solve similar problems.
- It provides examples of methods they have used in attempts to get these solutions
COMMON MISTAKES:
- Wasting time on readings too far from your central topic.
- The urge to chase too many rabbits down holes
- Topics that are too broad and not sharply focussed