Chapter 8: A Mixed Methods Approach to Conducting Literature Reviews for Stress and Coping Researchers: An Interactive Literature Review Process Framework

Research in education has received substantial criticism for not being useful (Ball & Forzani, 2007) and lacking in rigor. This is especially the case in the field of stress and coping, which has been criticized for having a lack of methodological rigor (Onwuegbuzie, Jiao, & Collins, 2007). In fact, the authors of one education research method textbook (i.e., Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007) have advised students to use caution when evaluating published research studies because the quality is “unfortunately, not high” (p. 111). Federal mandates (e.g., No Child Left Behind [NCLB] Act of 2001 [NCLB, 2001]; Education Sciences Reform Act [ESRA] of 2002 [ESRA, 2002]) imply that qualified researchers are needed to conduct scientifically based research (Eisenhart & DeHann, 2005).