REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

By Misbah Rehman.
M.Phil. Education
Department of Education
University of Karachi.
 

INTRODUCTION

            For any worthwhile study in any field of knowledge the research worker needs an adequate familiarity with library and its many resources. Only then will an effective search for specialized knowledge be possible. The search for reference material is time consuming but very fruitful phase of a research program. Every investigator must know what sources are available in his field of inquiry, which of them he is likely to use and where and how to find them.

            In the field of education, as in other field too, the research    worker need to acquire up to date information about what has been thought and in particular area from which he intends to take up a problem for research. But it is found that generally the extent of important, up to date information regarding educational research and ideas possessed by educational worker is very limited.

            Availability of adequate information and possession of sufficient familiarity with it, how ever are not one and the same thing. Availability of adequate information about educational thought and research does not by itself result in possession of its knowledge by the researcher. The researcher must apply himself keenly to the task. On the other hand a researcher may be very keen to possess up to date information regarding his field, and may try hard to be posted up to date, and yet fail to get enough information due to the non existence of sources of such information.  

What is a review of the literature?

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated bibliography), but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries

Besides enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two areas

1. information seeking: the ability to scan the literature efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to identify a set of useful articles and books
2. Critical appraisal: the ability to apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.

DEFINITIONS OF LITERATURE REVIEW

According to L.R.Gay,

The review of related literature involves the systematic identification, location, and analysis of document containing information related to the research problem.

According to John W.Creswell

A literature review is a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describes the past and current state of information; organizes the literature into topics; and documents need for a proposed study.

The process of reading, analyzing, evaluating, and summarizing scholarly materials about a specific topic.

 http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/literaturereviewterm.htm

A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature_review

Literature Reviews Vary at Different Stages of the Study:

1. Preliminary Literature Review - helps to phrase foreshadowed problem statements and to develop a theoretical frame,

2. Annotated Bibliography - a way to remind oneself of the literature surveyed

3. Extensive Literature Review - a theoretically framed in-depth review of all relevant literature to the study 

PURPOSES:

• It provides a theoretical background to the study.
• It reviews the means by which researcher establishes the link between what he is proposing to examine and what has already been studied. In simple words, it helps to refine research methodology.
• Through the literature review researcher are able to show his finding has contributing to existing body of knowledge in his profession.
• It enables researcher to contextualize his findings
• The literature review demonstrate the under lying assumptions (i.e. proposition) behind the research question that are the central of research proposal.
• The literature review provides the researcher with an opportunity to identify the gaps that may exist in the body of literature and to provide a rationale for how the proposed study may contribute to the existing body of knowledge.
• The literature review helps the researcher to refine the researcher questions and embed them in guiding hypotheses that provide possible directions the researcher may follow.

SOURCES OF LITERATURE:

There are generally two types of sources.

1. Primary sources literature

2. Secondary sources literature

PRIMARY SOURCE LITERATURE:

Primary source literature consists of literature reported by the individual(s) who actually conducted the research or who originated the ideas. Or we can say that direct source of information. Following are the types of direct source.

1. Periodical literature found in journals,
2. Books, monographs, yearbooks and bulletins,
3. Graduate, doctoral and other theses ,and
4. Certain miscellaneous sources-like government publications on education.

 SECONDARY SOURCE LITERATURE:

Secondary source literature, however, is literature that summarizes primary sources. It does not represent material published by original researcher or the creator of the idea. These sources also called indirect source of information.

1. Encyclopedia of education.
2. Education indexes.
3. Educational abstracts.
4. Bibliographies and directories.
5. Bibliographical references
6. Quotation sources
7. Miscellaneous other sources.

 Typically researcher will locate both primary and secondary sources. But it is best to report mostly primary sources. Primary sources present the literature in the original state and present the view point of the original author. Primary sources also provide the detail of original research better than secondary sources. Secondary sources are helpful as researcher begin his review, to explore and determine the range of material on a topic.

  How useful are the following sources?

Journal articles: these are good especially for up-to-date information. Bear in mind, though, that it can take up to two years to publish articles. They are frequently used in literature reviews because they offer a relatively concise, up-to-date format for research, and because all reputable journals are refereed (i.e. editors publish only the most relevant and reliable research).

Books: books tend to be less up-to-date as it takes longer for a book to be published than for a journal article. Text books are unlikely to be useful for including in your literature review as they are intended for teaching, not for research, but they do offer a good starting point from which to find more detailed sources.

Conference proceedings: these can be useful in providing the latest research, or research that has not been published. They are also helpful in providing information on which people are currently involved in which research areas, and so can be helpful in tracking down other work by the same researchers.

Government/corporate reports: many government departments and      corporations commission or carry out research. Their published findings can          provide a useful source of information, depending on your field of study.

Newspapers: since newspapers are generally intended for a general (not specialized) audience, the information they provide will be of very limited use for your literature review. Often newspapers are more helpful as providers of information about recent trends, discoveries or changes, e.g. announcing changes in government policy, but you should then search for more detailed information in other sources.

Theses and dissertations: these can be useful sources of information. However there are disadvantages: 1) they can be difficult to obtain since they are not published, but are generally only available from the library shelf or through inter library loan; 2) the student who carried out the research may not be an experienced researcher and therefore you might have to treat their findings with more caution than published research.

Internet: the fastest-growing source of information is on the Internet. It is impossible to characterize the information available but here are some hints about using electronic sources: 1) bear in mind that anyone can post information on the Internet so the quality may not be reliable, 2) the information you find may be intended for a general audience and so not be                 

suitable for inclusion in your literature review (information for a general audience is usually less detailed) and 3) more and more refereed electronic journals (e-journals) are appearing on the Internet - if they are refereed it means that there is an editorial board that evaluates the work before publishing it in their e-journal, so the quality should be more reliable (depending on the reputation of the journal).

CD-ROMS: at the moment, few CR-ROMs provide the kind of specialized, detailed information about academic research that you need for your own research since most are intended for a general audience. However, more and more bibliographies are being put onto CD-ROM for use in academic libraries, so they can be a very valuable tool in searching for the information you need.

Magazines: magazines intended for a general audience (e.g. Time) are unlikely to be useful in providing the sort of information you need. Specialized magazines may be more useful (for example business magazines for management students) but usually magazines are not useful for your research except as a starting point by providing news or general information about new discoveries, policies, etc. that you can further research in more specialized sources.

CONDUCTING A LITERATURE REVIEW:

Conducting a literature review follows a basic set of steps.

1. Identifying and make a list of keywords to guide search.
2. Using keywords, locate primary and secondary sources that pertain to research topic.
3. Evaluate sources for quality
4. Abstracting
5. Analyzing, organizing and reporting the literature.

1. IDENTIFYING AND MAKE LIST OF KEYWORDS TO GUIDE SEARCH:

            Most sources have alphabetical subject indexes to help researcher to locate information on topic. A list of keywords should guide literature search.

2. IDENTIFYING THE SOURCES:

A good way to start a review of related literature is with a narrow search of pertinent educational encyclopedias, handbooks and annual reviews found in libraries. These resources provide broad over views of issues in various subject area.                                                                                                                         A. searching for books on related topic in the library.                                              B. consulting computer database: the electronic catalog found in a library is an example of a database. A sort able, analyzable collection of units of information maintained on a computer. ERIC is the world’s largest database on education and is used by more than 500,000 people each year.                                           C. searching the internet and the World Wide Web: the internet links organizations and individuals all over the world. The World Wide Web is on the internet. To access the internet, need a computer with modem or cable line and a browser that connects to the web.

3. EVALUATING SOURCES: It is important to evaluate all literature sources by asking, what was the problem statement of the study? Where was the source published? When was the study conducted? And how was the study conducted?  

4. COMPARISON ACROSS STUDIES: The aim is to extract key points by comparing and contrasting ACROSS studies, instead of reading one paper after another.
Key points for a review may concern areas of similarities and/or differences in:

• Research aim(s) or hypotheses
• Research design and sampling
• Instruments and procedures used
• How data were analyzed
• Results or findings
• Interpretations

5. ABSTRACTING:    Abstracting involves creating summaries by locating, reviewing, summarizing and classifying the references. The main advantage of beginning with the latest reference on topic is that the most recent studies are likely to have profited from previous research. References in recent studies often contain references to previous studies which researcher has not yet identified. For each source work, list the complete bibliographic record; including author’s name, date of publication, title, journal name or book title, volume number ,issue number, page numbers and library call number. Briefly list main ideas. Put quotations marks around quotes taken from the source, and include page numbers. Keep all references in the format required for research report or dissertation.

6. ANALYZING, ORGANIZING AND REPORTING THE RESEARCH: The final step is actually writing review. Writing strategies at this point include using appropriate style manual formats and developing headings for the written literature review. Researcher need to consider the extent or length of the review for different types of research report. For journal articles, dissertations and theses, a thematic literature review summaries the literature by themes.       Researcher conclude a literature review by summarizing major themes and presenting reasons lead to a rationale for a study that builds naturally into the purpose statement and research questions or hypotheses.

How does a literature review differ from other assignments?

The review, like other forms of expository writing, has an introduction, body and conclusion, well-formed paragraphs, and a logical structure. However, in other kinds of expository writing, you use relevant literature to support the discussion of your thesis; in a literature review, the literature itself is the subject of discussion.

 But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

The main focus of an academic research paper is to develop a new argument, and a research paper will contain a literature review as one of its parts. In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute. The focus of a literature review, however, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions.

Qualities of a Literature Review:

 A literature review is the effective evaluation of selected documents on a research topic. A review may form an essential part of the research process or may constitute a research project in itself. In the context of a research paper or thesis the literature review is a critical synthesis of previous research. The evaluation of the literature leads logically to the research question.

1. A good literature review is a synthesis of available research.                               2. A good literature review has a critical evaluation.                                               3. A good literature review has appropriate breadth and depth.
4. A good literature review has clarity and conciseness.
5. A good literature review uses rigorous and consistent methods

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. A.I.O.U, Educational Research, course code 837

2. Creswell W. John, Educational Research, third edition, Merrill prentice hall

3. Gay L.R, Educational Research, ninth edition,

4. Kumar Ranjit, Research Methodology, second edition, Dorling Kindersley India pvt ltd

5.http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/specific-writing-assignments/literature-reviews

6. http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

7. http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/literaturereviewterm.htm

8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature_review

9. http://explorations.sva.psu.edu/lapland/LitRev/litrev.htm