The first step of completing any type of secondary research is building a good question. This can be challenging and multiple iterations of a question may need to be considered and test searched before you land on the perfect one.
Things that can impact question development:
You'll want to craft a clear and concise question that is answerable but is also of interest to your own learning.
Check out the following for great visuals on the process of question development, including what not to do.
Zhi Foo Y, O'Dea RE, Koricheva J, Nakagawa S, Lagisz M. 2021. A practical guide to question formation, systematic searching and study screening for literature reviews in ecology and evolution. Methods Ecol Evol; 12(9): 1705-1720. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13654
Remember to ensure that your question is not too broad and not too specific - that it is just right. Sometimes this is very challenging to do and you might need to do a few scoping searching in a database to see how much is available on a topic. For more check out the Teachers of Evidence-Based Health Care Goldilocks webpage.
When you are first starting to plan the scope of your analysis, you should consider what your eligibility criteria will be. This will include all of your inclusion and exclusion criteria for your topic and takes into consideration the parameters of your assignment.
When you are outlining your eligibility criteria, you should think about criteria that could be used both as limiters in the databases, but also as evaluation criteria for when you are reading and narrowing your resources.
Inclusion criteria are elements of resources that must be present in order to meet the needs of your topic, assignment, or focus. These elements must be present for you to consider using them in your final synthesis.
Some examples include:
Exclusion criteria are elements of resources that if found would disqualify them from being used in your final synthesis. Sometimes these are closely related to your inclusion criteria, and may not be easily added to your search. Exclusions elements may need to saved for the evaluation stage of your review and considered while reading the full-text of the resources.
Some examples include:
Studies are not always clear on what research design they are using. You'll need to evaluate different elements of the study to determine whether it is quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods.
When a study is gathering and analyzing numerical data to discover patterns or calculate statistical relationships, it is most likely quantitative. Typically they are tackling large sample sizes.
Examples of quantitative research include surveys, polls, and experiments.
When a study is focusing on non-numerical data collection and is targeted at gathering a depth of information, it is most likely qualitative. Typically they are looking at small sample sizes to ensure a study of depth on a topic.
Examples of qualitative research include observations, interviews, and content analyses.
Studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods in one study are called mixed-methods. These can sometimes provide a more complete picture of a research study topic.