Ideas that Can't Be Researched Empirically The point in this section is that empirical research (i.e., research that is based on the collection of observable data) cannot provide answers to “ultimate,” “metaphysical,” or “ethical” questions. If a question is asking which value is true or correct, empirical research can’t offer the solution. For example, is school prayer good? Should homosexuals be allowed to legally marry? Should the teaching of Christianity (and no other religion) be provided in public schools? These are moral and legal issues which cannot be directly addressed or resolved by empirical research in the social or behavioral sciences. John Dewey made the point that empirical research can provide answers about how to get to valued endpoints, but he took the valued endpoints for granted (e.g., democracy, equality, education for all). So do not expect to conduct an empirical research study that will "show whether school prayer should be adopted." Review of the Literature After you have identified your research idea, and identified a general problem that sounds interesting to you, the next step is to become familiar with the published information on your topic. Conducting a literature review will help you to see if your topic has already been researched, help you to see how you might need to revise your research idea, and show methodological techniques and problems specific to your research problem that will help you in designing a study. Most importantly, after conducting a thorough literature review, your specific research questions and hypotheses will become clearer to you. A literature review can take a different form in qualitative and quantitative research: • In qualitative research (which often means exploratory research), little prior literature may be available. Furthermore, too much review may make a researcher "myopic." Literature is especially important during the later stages (e.g., interpreting results, discussion) of exploratory research. Still, for much qualitative research, we recommend that a literature review is conducted to see what has been done and to provide sensitizing concepts. Then when data are collected, the researcher can use strategies (discussed in chapter 10) to minimize the researcher’s biases. • In quantitative research, the researcher directly "builds" on past research. Therefore, review of prior research must be done before conducting the study. In quantitative research, the literature review will help you to see if your research problem has already been done, show you data collection instruments that have been used, show designs that have been used, and show theoretical and methodological issues that have arisen. Sources of Information There are several major sources of information for you to use when conducting a literature review. • Books is a good starting point. It gives you an overview and a summary of relevant research and theory. • Journals is another excellent source. Journals provide more recent information than books and provide full length empirical research articles for you to carefully examine. • Computer databases are excellent sources for locating information. The most important computer database in education is ERIC. Other important databases are PsycINFO or PsycLIT (for psychological research), SocioFILE and Sociological Abstracts (for sociological research), and Dissertation Abstracts (for summaries of doctoral dissertations in education and related fields). We strongly recommend that you do not limit your search to a single computer database. Also, we strongly recommend that you do not search only for full-text articles because this will eliminate most of the best published research.