Review of Literature

Preparing a Research Proposal:
Literature Review

By KHO CHUNG WEI

In this topic, you will:

• Locate primary and secondary sources using academic databases.

• Organize findings into a literature map to visualize the relationship between existing studies and the proposed research.

• Synthesize literature into a thematic summary rather than a series of isolated abstracts.

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Word Cloud

Literature review is a...

What is a literature review?

• a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents

  that describes the past and current state of information on the topic of your research study

• ​organizes the literature into subtopics and documents the need for a proposed study

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Open Ended

Why do we need to conduct a literature review before embarking on a research project?

Why do we need to do a literature review?

• to document how your study adds to the existing literature

• ​to convince your proposal approval panel that you know the literature on your topic and that you can summarize it

• ​to provide evidence that educators need your study

• to build your research skills of using the library and being an investigator who follows leads in the literature​

• to ​learn how other educators compose their research studies

• to help you find useful examples and models in the literature for your own research​

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Purpose of review

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Open Ended

How do you usually search for and use the literature when you are doing your assignments?

Steps of writing a review

1. Identify key terms to use in your search for literature.

2. Locate literature about a topic by consulting several types of materials and databases, including those available at an academic library and on the Internet.

3. Critically evaluate and select the literature for your review.

4. Organize the literature you have selected by abstracting or taking notes on the literature and developing a visual diagram of it.

5. Write a literature review that reports summaries of the literature for inclusion in your research report.

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Step 1: Identify key terms

Narrow ​your topic to a few key terms using one or two words / short phrases

Strategies

• ​Write a 'working title' and select two or three key words in the title that capture the central idea of your study

• ​Ask a short general research question and select two or three words that best summarise the primary direction of your study

• ​Use words that the authors report in the literature

• ​Look in a catalog of terms for words that match your topic in online databases

• ​Look for key words in the titles of journal articles in the past 5 years

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Step 2: Locate literature

Strategies

• Use academic libraries, including interlibrary loan service

• ​Use mostly primary source literature (work written by the individual(s) who actually conducted the research, e.g. research articles, dissertations)

• ​Use secondary source literature (work that summarises primary sources, e.g. handbooks, encyclopedias, reviews)

• Search different types of literature​

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Step 3: Critically evaluate and select literature

Ask:

1. Is it a good, accurate source?

• ​Refereed journal articles > non-refereed journal articles > books > conference papers > dissertations / theses > non-reviewed articles on websites

• ​Include both quantitative and qualitative research studies

2. ​Is it relevant?

• ​Topic, problem, question and time relevance

• ​Individual and site relevance

• ​Accessibility relevance

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Task

Based on the ESL issue that you have identified:

1. List down the key terms.

2. Locate ​the literature.

3. Critically evaluate and select the literature.

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Step 4: Organise the literature

1. Reproducing, ​downloading, filing

• Manual vs software (Mendeley, EndNote)​

2. ​Taking notes and abstracting studies

• ​Summarise each source of information systematically (Research problem, RQ, data collection procedures, findings)

3. Constructing a literature map

• ​A figure / mind-map that displays the research literature on a topic

• Helps to organise the literature in your mind, ​identify where your study fits into this literature, convey to others the current picture of the literature on the topic

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Step 4: Organise the literature

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Step 4: Organise the literature

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Step 4: Organise the literature

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Step 4: Organise the literature

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Step 5: Write a literature review

Use a style manual, e.g. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition (APA 7)

​

​Writing Strategies

• ​Extent of the review (how long, how far back)

• ​Types of literature review (thematic, study-by-study review, research synthesis - integrates the literature into a unified statement about the research problem)

• ​Concluding statement of the review (summarise the major themes, suggest reasons why the current literature is deficient and why need more research in the topic)

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Multiple Choice

Which of the following shows a thematic review of the literature?

Multiple Choice

Which of the following shows a study-by-study review of the literature?

Conceptual Framework vs Theoretical Framework

Theoretical Framework

• Typically presented in written form

• Just one major theory OR a collection of different interrelated theories

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Conceptual Framework

• A ​written or visual representation of an expected relationship between variables / key factors you want to study

• A synthetization of interrelated components and variables which help in solving a real-world problem​

• Researcher’s understanding/exploration of either an existing framework/ model or how existing concepts come together to inform a particular problem

• A tool (linked concepts) to help facilitate the understanding of the relationship among concepts or variables in relation to the real-world

• Each concept is linked to frame the research project

• ​​Based on a literature review of existing studies / theories about the topic

• Often visual​, but can be in narrative form - should be explained and cited​

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Conceptual Framework

Purposes​:

• To explain or predict the way key concepts/variables will come together to inform the problem/phenomenon

• To give the study direction/parameters

• To help the researcher organize ideas and clarify concepts

• To introduces your research and how it will advance your field of practice

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Conceptual Framework

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Multiple Select

The sample conceptual frameworks in the previous slide can be found in...

• qualitative research only

• quantitative research only

• mixed method research only

• both qualitative research and quantitative research

• both quantitative and mixed method research

Conceptual Framework

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Multiple Choice

The sample conceptual frameworks in the previous slide can most probably be found in...

• an action research

• a quasi-experiment

• a survey

• a case study

Conceptual Framework

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Multiple Choice

The sample conceptual frameworks in the previous slide can most probably be found in...

• an action research

• a quasi-experiment

• a survey

• a case study

Conceptual Framework

How to develop a conceptual framework​:

1. ​Identifying the key concepts used by other studies. Use the gap in the literature to either support a pre-identified problem or craft a general problem for study.

2. ​Pull out variables, concepts, theories, and existing frameworks explained in the relevant literature.

3. ​Think about how some of those variables, concepts, theories, and facets of existing frameworks come together to shape your problem.

4. ​The research you’d like to conduct will help shape what you include in your framework.

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Conceptual Framework

How to develop a conceptual framework​:

5. ​Create a graphic representation of your framework.

6. Write out how the variables could influence your research project.

7. May need to revise the conceptual framework along the way.

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Task

Based on the ESL issue that you have identified:

1. List down the key terms.

2. Locate ​the literature.

3. Critically evaluate and select the literature.

4. Organise the literature.

5. ​Take notes and abstract the studies.

6. ​Construct a literature map.

7. Develop the conceptual framework for your study.

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