Blog reflection 3

1.    The Literature Review - Role and Strategies

What is a literature review?

It is a network of articles and major works written on a topic.

Understanding how the articles are related and connected and turning the network into a cohesive review is the main task of a review writer.

a. Why do we need a literature review in the first place?

To me, the main goal of the review is making sure that the topic of my research can and should actually be researched. In other words, whether it is worth studying. It also helps determine ways in which the scope of research can be limited to the area of interest.

b.  How to start working on Literature Review?

Creswell suggests starting with a draft title to the study – he calls it ‚the road sign’ in research. It can be a short title such as :

My study is about learning strategies for vocabulary development in young adult learners.

Or it can try and pose a question: What is the best way for adults to learn vocabulary?

Once we’ve got the topic specified, we can start to review literature around it.

Newby (2010) proposes the following steps in undertaking the literature review:

1. Define the review in terms of the research issue: choose, explore and focus a topic (as I learn more about the topic, I can tweak it a bit)
1. Present an argument why this issue:  ie because there is a gap in our knowledge or understanding;  or there’s an unfinished business
2. We should have an idea of the themes we want to explore
3. Answer these:

Why is this an issue?

Is there a political dimension?

When did this issue first arise?

Who has an interest in the topic? – Stakeholders: teachers, parents

2. Conduct the review: Read article, critique what I read:
1. Where does the literature review contribute to understanding of the issue
2. Has the LR identified an interesting or a novel data source?
3. How does it relate to my questions?
4. examine the quality of conclusions

3. organise, summarise and synthesise:
1. record the references and summarise what they say and how they contribute to the themes.
2. Look for conflicts, controversies
4. Write the paper: support the case, do not simply summarise the literature you’ve read but synthesise, identify the gap and convince the reader why the research is worthwhile, comment on credibility and results of other studies.An argument can also be: my area of research is underresearched.

c.  What format?

- in a proposal – could be a brief summary of major literature of the research problem

- in a research article based on a quantitative or qualitative study it usually is either a separate section or it is threaded throughout the paper

2. The Role of Theory

I started reading about the role of theory and wasn’t sure at first what the link between theory and literature review would be.

A question posed by Newby helped understand this a bit better:

How can theory influence research?

1. Either by being the objective of this research
2. or by attempting to develop theory through our research

I can take a theory or an aspect of it and test it in my research – see if it works.

In my case, it could be vocabulary acquisition with adults – a theory which says ...... I could perhaps find a weakness in it and try to prove the opposite?

In quantitative studies, the researcher uses theory deductively, and by placing it towards the beginning of the proposal, tests it or verifies it rather than develops it.  He collects data to test it and reflects on the results. This theory becomes a framework for the study, an organising model for the research questions and hypotheses and for the data collection procedure.

Writing a quantitative theoretical perspective

1. Find a theory in literature related to the discipline
2. Explore prior studies and theories
3. Choose one overarching theory that explains the central hypothesis or major research question
4. Ask the rainbow question that bridges the independent and dependent variables
5. Script out the theory section:

The theory that I will use is ________ (name of theory). It was developed  by _ and used to study ___(topics where one finds theory being applied).

This theory indicates that _____(hypothesis). As applied to my study, this theory holds that I would expect my independent variables ____ to influence or explain the dependent variables ________ because _____(rationale based on the logic of theory).

Writing a qualitative theoretical perspective: inductive approach

1. Collect information and data (from interviews, observations)
2. ask open-ended questions of participants, record fieldnotes
3. analyse data to form  themes or categories
4. look for broad patterns, generalisations from themes or categories
5. pose generalisations or theories from past experiences and literature