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Chapter Four - Notes
Chapter Four - Notes
Beliefs: What We Know and How We Know
When we begin to consider beliefs, we turn again to culture and ask the question—How do we k
now what we know? In our experiences, it is possible that we have absorbed the beliefs of our pa
rents, beliefs of our society or culture, beliefs of our traditions, moral teachings, and
spirituality. As we move through life, we have experiences that might either affirm or challenge
our beliefs. Further, in the field of philosophy, the term philosophical thinking moves us to look
into
the thinking that forms our beliefs and their logical connections with other beliefs.
Your Worldview
As discussed in Chapter 2, culture is the overarching influence for the literature review. In Figure
4.1, we have illustrated how culture, which is changing and evolving with life, is the influencing
factor
in our belief systems for composing what we term your worldview. The term worldview is a calq
ue of the German word Weltanschauung, comprising the word Welt (“world”) and Anschauung (
“view” or
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“outlook”). Your worldview is the philosophical stance that provides a basic set of beliefs for
guiding a researcher’s actions (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). A worldview is influenced by the follo
wing components:
Epistemology, or the nature of knowledge and justification. For example, proponents of
empiricist epistemology posit that knowledge comes from sense experience. Proponents o
f
rationalist epistemology argue that through reasoning comes knowledge (Schwandt, 2007
).
Ontology, or the study of reality or being, to understand the kinds of things that are part o
f theworld. For example, idealismis the idea that nothing exists but minds and the experie
nce within minds. Phenomenology is concerned with the essential structures of a conscio
us experience.
Axiology, or the idea that values influence the way that knowledge is acquired, includes s
ocial and cultural norms either for the researcher or for the ideas or persons (i.e., respond
ents)
researched.
Verstehen, the German term for understanding, is used to reference the aim of human scie
nceincluding the method used to understand in a social, historical, and cultural context
(Schwandt, 2007).
Epistemological Beliefs: Knowing
One traditional explanation of knowing is that a person knows information to be true when: (a) a
person is certain of the information; (b) the information, in fact, is true; and (c) that the person is
justified in believing the information is true. Ayer (1956), one of the most influential philosopher
s inthe 20th century, explained that these three conditions are the necessary and sufficient conditi
ons
for knowledge. Concerning your beliefs and knowing, you might hold that the only true basis for
knowledge is empirical evidence derived from your own sensory experiences, or that reason is th
e
supreme influence in your knowing.
our epistemology, or your negotiation of being sure of what you know, affects what you accept a
s
valid evidence—what you are willing to believe about the sources that you investigate in a literat
ure review. Your
epistemological beliefs affect the significance that you ascribe to empirical evidence, reason, int
uition, and information sources and the risks that you will take when you synthesize that knowle
dge. By
listing a few ways that you are sure that information is true and how you recognized information
as
being true, you have just identified your epistemological belief system. This is one of the pieces
of
your worldview.
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Axiological Beliefs: Values
The concept of values is as diverse as is the unique composition of each person. Although people
, ingeneral, have traits much like each other, each person’s expression is bound by a specific DN
A
genetic code. Likewise, we might have beliefs that might be common to the beliefs of a sister,
brother, spouse, or best friend; yet, values take our beliefs into different areas such as moral and
nonmoral values, traditional values, objective and subjective values, and absolute and relative val
ues. As a result of investigating our axiological beliefs, or the worth of beliefs, either personal or
societal,
we begin to recognize another piece of our worldview.
We have been discussing the nature of knowing, and ways that people, in a social context, develo
p
beliefs. As a result, people all approach life and life tasks through different perceptions, thinking,
knowing, and doing—or overall worldview.
Research Philosophical Stance: The Way We Explore
Perhaps even more subtly, a research philosophical stance influences the decision made by a
reviewer regarding whether to include a certain type of study (e.g., qualitative) in the set of select
ed
sources that inform the literature review, and how much emphasis to place on studies that represe
nt this genre, if selected. Also, research philosophy influences the way that the literature reviewe
r
contextualizes information gleaned from the sources selected. As we have discussed the ideas of
what we know, how we know, and the values that contribute to our overall worldview, it is
important to recognize that philosophical debates have been a part of our history dating back to
ancient times that witnessed the emergence of protorationalists (absolutists who looked for certai
nty in entities; e.g., Plato [429–347 bce]; Socrates [470–399 bce]), sophists (ontological relativist
s; e.g., Protagora [490–420 bce]), and proto-empiricists (realists whose goal was to obtain unders
tanding of what humans see and experience in
their everyday lives; e.g., Aristotle [384–322 bce]) (Johnson & Gray, 2010). These three sets of p
hilosophers differed with respect to their
philosophies and theories of (universal) truth, with proto-rationalists viewing truth as unchanging
, sophists viewing truth as being changing and relative, and
proto-empiricists deeming intersubjectivity to be a facet of truth (Johnson & Gray, 2010).
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Selecting a Topic
A topic area also might stem from practical problems that you encounter in your everyday work
environment, with the search for solutions culminating in viable topics coming to the fore. Or an
attempt to address a practical problem in your home or familial environment might lead to potent
ial topics emerging. For example, you might recall that in Chapter 1 Tony’s father experiencing a
brain aneurysm led to Tony conducting a thorough review of the literature to decide which of the
several brain surgery options provided to his family by the brain surgeon his father should under
go.
Considering how the literature reviewer utilizes prior conducted research from traditionsquantitat
ive,qualitative, or mixed researchas well as opinion papers, conceptual articles, and other sources
(which we explain as MODES in Step 5), the literature reviewer should be cognizant to incorpor
ate, at least to some extent, each of these sources. Typically, in quantitative research, the research
problem is associated with explaining, predicting, or describing a phenomenon. In qualitative
research, most often, the problem is associated with events or phenomena and tends to explore
what or why a phenomenon is occurring. As such, mixed research leads to an investigation of
research problems as a combination in varying degrees of both traditions.
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Organizing the Process
In Step 1, you should organize your electronic filing system and create your electronic artifacts.
For
your electronic workspace, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the concept of using fol
ders to store sources and working drafts of your manuscript. The following screenshots display h
ow we created folders. In the first screenshot (Figure 4.4), we created a folder titled: The CLR.
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Conclusions
After reading the content of this chapter, or Step 1: Exploring Beliefs and Topics, remember the
saying: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” In Chapter 1, we discussed the three research traditions, ho
w
the quest for knowledge can be expressed in many ways, and the common reasons for the literatu
re
review. In Chapter 2, we provided the cornerstone of the literature review processthe literature
revieweras a culturally progressive, ethical, and multimodal explorer. Next, Chapter 3 extended t
he
definition and understanding of the new and comprehensive literature review as a tool for researc
h, a method, a mixed method, and a methodology—yielding a meta-framework. All of these chap
ters were foundational for beginning the seven steps of the CLR. In
this chapter, we presented the first of the seven steps, which determines the direction that you wil
l
take for all of the subsequent steps because beliefs influence the way that we interpret literature.
To close this chapter and at the end of each chapter relating to the seven steps, we offer reflectio
n questions to help compose some of your thoughts for journaling or discussion points. Before m
oving on, review some of the main ideas presented in this chapter.
Worldview is a philosophical stance that provides a basic set of beliefs for guiding a liter
ature reviewer’s actions and includes research beliefs, discipline-specific beliefs, and topi
c-specific beliefs.
A culturally progressive stance includes maintaining a high degree of self-awareness for
understanding how your own background and other experiences might serve as assets or l
imitations when searching and interpreting literature and other sources of
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information, as well as striving to develop cultural awareness and beliefs, cultural knowle
dge,and cultural skills.
You can negotiate an author’s bias and your own bias by keeping an open mind and critic
al
reflection.
By approaching the selection of a topic by considering your field of interest and the
academic community, you will build the body of knowledge for future inquiry by other lit
erature reviewers.
The literature review is typically linked to a problem statement.
Spending some time discussing your potential topic area with other academic scholars in
your field is helpful.
The CLR process is not static and, in fact, for a culturally progressive reviewer who is cri
tically thinking, the process is iterative—moving in cycles.
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