Although conceptual papers are non-empirical, they are still the product of research. They are written up as research papers. This site will provide you with resources to start writing your own.
To begin with, here is Question Pro's Definition, Framework, Example and Advantages of Conceptual Research. And here is an excellent article by Elina Jaakkola of the University of Turku. She discusses four approaches to designing conceptual articles: Theory Synthesis, Theory Adaptation, Typology, and Model. Like empirical papers conceptual papers also share new knowledge from selected sources of information (Jaakkola, 2020).
Begin by familiarizing yourself with the key authors and the key journals in the field.
The first step in developing a conceptual paper is to identify a topic. That means you need to find something that is both unique and necessary. Here are some AI websites that will help you trough the whole process of discovering, relating, categorising, reading and even writing your literature survey
Our World in Data will provide you with valuable statistics.
A conceptual paper aims to contribute to our understanding of a theory or phenomenon that is not yet fully explained. If you focus on a phenomenon, your concepts have a complementary value. If you focus on a theory, then your concepts have a supplementary value. A good way to find a focus is by looking at the questions that are being asked by current researchers.
Only the Questions will read an article for you and extract only the research questions.
Once you have found these, a literature analysis table is a valuable tool. Noha Omer's table is a very good example.
Soovle will help you search Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, Answers, Yahoo and Bing at the same time.
Paper Digest will summarize a paper for you reducing it to a three-minute read.
Docear helps you draw branching tree diagrams of the literature that you find.
Voyant allows you do visually analyze your text.
This video shows you how to use ATLAS-ti to analyze your literature.
The structure of a conceptual paper can be the same as any other research paper. Introduction, Literature survey, Method, Findings, Conclusions and recommendations. In a conceptual paper, of course, the findings are also a literature survey. The first literature survey tells us the extent of the problem and where to look for the solution. The second literature survey is the discussion of the findings. We prefer to call that a document analysis, rather than a literature survey. So here is what goes where.
This paper will tell you what I learned when I investigated this theory or phenomenon. I did that because although we already know X, we still don't know Y (Author who says we don't know it, year). This is what is currently happening because we don't know the stuff, and this is what will be better if we do.
We already know this (Author A) and we also know this (Author B) but we don't know this (Author C). This is because there is a breakdown in the theory (Author A, B and C) and this is what that breakdown looks like. These are the attempts that have been made at fixing the problem (Author D, E, F), and this is why their fixes don't work.
Here is the theory or concepts that I believe will help solve the problem and this is why (Author G, H).
This is how I found material to analyze. These were my inclusion and exclusion criteria. This is what I did when I did not get enough data, and this is what I did when I got too much data.
This is how I cleaned up the data, and this is how I analyzed it. These are the authors who said that I should do it this way. This is the advantage of the way I did it and these are the disadvantages (Author, Author, & Author).
This is the most important thing I found, and this is the instrument that yielded that finding. These are all the supporting findings and their instruments or sources. These are the opposite views, and this is how I explain them.
This is the second most important thing and so you go on till you are done.
Here is a quick summary of what I did, why I did it, and how I did it.
Here is a schematic that shows how I integrate the new knowledge into the existing knowledge.
So THIS is my NEW contribution and this is why you should cite me in everything you ever write in future.
These are my recommendations for future practice, and
These are my recommendations for future research.
I have very few purely conceptual papers. I found that making a hybrid paper in which you present the concept, and then pilot test it. Then the pilot test serves as an empirical component and journals that are shy of conceptual papers are more likely to publish them. I have categorised them under the four catgories of Theory synthesis, Theory adaptation, Typology and Model.
Theory synthesis is the combination of existing theories in a unique or novel way. In 2001 I wrote a position paper advocating the synthesis of Behaviourism and Constructivism into four quadrants, rather than plotting them as polar opposites. I then analyzed the discussion that followed on the initial paper, and in 2006 published this paper. You will notice that the paper contains an extensive review of the literature at the time, and then presents the integrative model, and runs a few scenarios through it.
Cronje, J.C. (2006) Paradigms Regained: Toward Integrating Objectivism and Constructivism in Instructional Design and the Learning Sciences, Educational Technology Research and Development. 54(4):387 - 416.
Dr Ronnie Aylward read te paradigms paper and suggested that, while it covers teaching and technology, it does not consider the learner. He thus proposed adding learner competency to the theory.
Aylward, R. C., & Cronjé, J. C. (2022). Paradigms extended: how to integrate behaviorism, constructivism, knowledge domain, and learner mastery in instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-022-10089-w
Using Deleuze and Guattari's Rhizome Theory and combining it with Preece's characteristics of virtual communities I developed a framework for analyzing the functioning of WhatsApp groups.
Cronje, J. C. (2021). Social distancing close together: The rhizomatic role of WhatsApp in communities. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 17(1), 1. http://doi.org/10.1504/ijwbc.2021.10032198
In 2020 I published a revised version of a model that I had devised to develop research questions. The basis of the model is Burrell & Morgan's paradigms of social research, to which I added Ackoff's pursuits of humankind and Peter Rowe's design perspectives. The paper then tests the model against articles in previous issues of the journal in which it was published.
Cronje, J. C. (2020). Designing Questions for Research Design and Design Research in e- Learning. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 18(1), 13–24. http://doi.org/10.34190/EJEL.20.18.1.002