Methodology for systematic literature review applied to engineering and education

Abstract

A systematic review of the scientific literature in a specific area is important for identifying research questions, as well as for justifying future research in said area. This process is complex for beginners in scientific research, especially if you have not developed skills for searching and filtering information, and do not know which high-level databases are relevant in their field of study. The method proposed leads the researcher from "My" to "The" current state of the problem; we propose an adaptation of the method by Kitchenham and Bacca, which divides the process into three sub-parts: planning, conducting and reporting results. From the approach of the research problem in the preliminary phase research questions (recommended between 3 to 5) and "mentefacto conceptual" is drawn; this last one gives originality to the method and facilitates the development of the thesaurus for searches and inclusion and exclusion criteria. Early research requires doing a basic systematic study to identify work done to review the literature in the area and, if any is found, to verify if those results yield an answer to our research questions. As part of planning the search process, general and specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined, along with some complementary inclusion and exclusion parameters. The method followed with rigor, returns to the researcher a list of impact journals in the study area, and a detail of articles that are related to each category of the research questions. A study case has been considered as a guide to expose each of the phases of the methodology in a practical way, with results that support the proposal.