The Literature Search Methods of Academics

Abstract

Literature review allows having access to information related to the subject of interest, seeing the research previously conducted on the same subject and comparing the results. In this way, it also becomes possible to see how, where, by whom a study was conducted in the past on the subject of interest. The purpose of the current study is to define the ways of literature review employed by academicians in detail. To this end, the current study was conducted with the participation of a total of 99 academicians (45 females and 54 males) working in the Education Faculty of Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University in the spring term of 2017-2018 academic year. The current study was designed in the survey model and the data were collected by using the “Ways of Literature Reviews Employed by Academicians Survey” developed by the researchers. As a result of the study, it was concluded that while the academicians see themselves highly competent in reviewing international literature, they see themselves more competent in reviewing national literature than reviewing international literature. The academicians stated that they mostly use and make reference to international resources in their studies and that they prefer the Internet first and most in their reviews. The academicians most prefer international and national articles in their reviews. Moreover, while the academicians make use of date bases the most, they prefer detailed search in search engines. In addition to these, the academicians most prefer TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM as the national data base while they prefer EBSCO as the international data base.

Keywords

• Literature
• Literature review
• Academic review

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