A Framework for Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis for the Review of the Literature

Onwuegbuzie, Leech, and Collins (2012) demonstrated how the following 5 qualitative data analysis approaches can be used to analyze and to synthesize information extracted from a literature review: constant comparison analysis, domain analysis, taxonomic analysis, componential analysis, and theme analysis. In a similar vein, Onwuegbuzie and Frels (2014) outlined how discourse analysis can be used. Thus, the purpose of this article is to provide a framework for using another qualitative data analysis technique to analyze and to interpret literature review sources--a process that we call a Qualitative Comparative Analysis-Based Research Synthesis (QCARS). Using a real review of the literature, we illustrate how to conduct a QCARS using a qualitative comparative analysis software program. Keywords: Literature Review, Review of the Literature, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Qualitative Data Analysis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis-Based Research Synthesis The literature review has become the most common way of acquiring knowledge and oftentimes sets the direction for a study. Traditionally, two branches of a literature review have appeared in journals and other works: the narrative literature review and the systematic literature review. The narrative review typically summarizes and critiques literature on a topic, yet also typically does not provide information about how studies were selected. Conversely, a systematic literature review is a critical assessment of all research on a topic and defines in advance ways that the review might be replicated. In common practice, consumers of research and researchers alike rarely acknowledge the type or the amount of weight placed on the literature review in a particular study. As declared by Boote and Beile (2005), "A thorough, sophisticated literature review is the foundation and inspiration for substantial, useful research. The complex nature of education research demands such thorough, sophisticated reviews" (p. 3). More specifically, Onwuegbuzie, Collins, Leech, Dellinger, and Jiao (2010) identified reasons for conducting a literature review. Figure 1 presents a typology of reasons for a literature review that comprises some of the most common motives that researchers use to conduct literature reviews. Unfortunately, many authors have difficulties both conducting and writing quality literature reviews--whether they be beginning researchers (Boote & Beile, 2005) or emergent or even experienced researchers (Alton-Lee, 1998; Onwuegbuzie & Daniel, 2005). For example, Onwuegbuzie and Daniel (2005), who examined 52 manuscripts submitted to a nationally refereed research journal, Research in the Schools, over a 2-year period, reported that 40% of the submitted manuscripts contained inadequate literature reviews, and that the authors of these manuscripts were more than six times more likely than were their counterparts to have their manuscripts rejected for publication. Although virtually all doctoral students are required to complete multiple research methodology courses (e.g., research methodology courses, statistics courses, measurement courses, qualitative research-based courses) as a necessary part of their degree programs (Leech & Goodwin, 2008), very few students are fortunate enough to take a literature review course--as documented, by Onwuegbuzie, Leech, and Collins (2011), who reported that only four of the 175 National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)-approved graduate-level school psychology programs (2.3%) offered a literature review course. This lack of formal and systematic instruction on conducting literature reviews was observed by Cooper (1985), more than one quarter of a century earlier, when he concluded that, "Students in education... can take five or six statistics or methods courses without ever directly addressing the problems and procedures of literature review" (p. 33). In addition to the lack of literature review courses, there are much less published works that focus on the literature review than on any other component of the empirical research process--whether it be the quantitative, qualitative, or mixed research process. …