Assignment Number 4

Review of Literature

Objectives

Upon completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

1. Describe the purpose of the "Review of Literature" section of the research study.
2. Cite several sources of material for the "Review of Literature."
3. Present several common organizational schemes for arranging the "Review of Literature" section of the research study.
4. Describe several of the common errors made in reviewing the literature.
5. Select and properly use a method for reporting research information.

Reading Assignment

• Pyrczak and Bruce, pp. 45-77 (6th edition); pp. 45-78 (7th and 8th editions).
• Lang and Heiss, pp. 19-24, 74-76, 138, 143-145 and 153-154.
• Isaac and Michael handout, pp. 39-43, 239-240.
• Tuckman, pp. 43-64.
• Material presented on the web.

Evaluation

1. Describe the purpose for the "Review of Literature" section of a research study.
2. Cite three (3) sources of material for the "Review of Literature".
3. Present two (2) common organizational schemes for arranging the "Review of Literature" section of the research study.
4. Describe four (4) of the errors which are commonly made during a review of the literature.
5. Select one technique for citing a reference in the text of a review of literature (Campbell's, APA, etc.). State its formal name, show an example of how it is used and write bibliographic entries for a book, periodical, and research paper using the above reporting technique.

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

1. In the initial stages of research, it is essential that the researcher survey the literature for (1) other research studies and (2) authorative writings related to the problem under investigation.

2. The purposes of the review of literature include the following:
    
   1. Discovering important variables,
   2. Distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done,
   3. Synthesizing and gaining perspective,
   4. Determining and supporting meaning and relationships,
   5. Establishing the context of a problem,
   6. Establishing the significance of a problem.

I hope you can see the relationship between the review of literature and the introduction and background and significance in Chapter I, Introduction.

3. Generally people organize a review of literature according to:
    
   1. Variables or descriptors (concepts) cited in the problem statements; or
   2. Descriptors in the research goals, e.g.,
      1. Hypotheses or
      2. Objectives or Questions

Sometimes methodologies or instruments are also reviewed in this chapter.

4. What do you do when there are too many entries listed under a topic (Turney and Robb, p. 50)?

The researcher who selects a topic in an area in which much has been written has a problem of selecting only those studies that are most relevant to his research project, i.e.,

1. Is the date recent enough to make the study relevant?
2. Does the title or subtitle seem to indicate that the report would provide relevant data?
3. Does the source have a bibliography that could be helpful in locating further material?

5. What do you do when there are too few entries listed under a topic (Turney and Robb, pp. 50-51)?

The researcher who selects a topic on an area in which little has been written has the problem of locating material that indirectly relates to his research project, i.e.,

1. Are there elements of this research study that might have been previously researched in another field, i.e., attitudes of soldiers and compare these to policemen.
2. Does the scope of the project relate it to other sciences (that is natural, physical, social, and so on), so that a review of the literature in these areas might prove fruitful, i.e. change of farmers compared to teacher's methods).
3. Have scholars in the field projected some ideas related to this project?
6. Major steps in conducting a literature search.
    
   1. Choosing interest areas and descriptors (taken from problem and research goals).
   2. Searching for relevant titles and abstracts (published articles, unpublished articles, and research studies).
   3. Locating important supporting materials.
      1. It is too expensive and time consuming to deal with all the titles yielded by the various searches.
      2. The researcher must be selective, choosing those titles that seem most relevant for further examination.
      3. Consulting the abstracts, where available, help the researcher identify the potentially most useful and relevant articles.
      4. Once determined, these articles must be located and reviewed.
      5. Of all sources, journal articles are the most concise and technically the best because of the high requirements for journal publication.
   
   
7. Review and Abstracting literature.

After selecting and reading, the following should be done with each important piece of literature, preferably on note cards:

1. Copy complete reference heading including library call number.
2. Identify and briefly summarize the purpose and methodologies used in the article.
3. Then prepare note cards on specific material you wish to cite. Try to paraphrase instead of direct quotations. Cite author, year and page of information that is cited. You will need this for your references.
    
8. The beginning researcher often views the writing of a related literature report as simply a compilation of as many research studies as possible that have any remote relationship to the investigation, i.e., Rogers states, Jones found, etc.

   Consequently the report seems simply to be a listing of the findings of these studies. There is no transition, and often broken thoughts occur. The Review of Literature should flow, tell a story.

   Sub-headings should be used to assist with the flow.

   The review should always begin with an introductory paragraph telling what is to come; all chapter should start this way.

   Use an outline to guide your writing.

   The acceptable way to reference materials is by paraphrasing and crediting source, not using long quotes.

9. Common errors made in reviewing the literature include those cited on page 6 of Isaac and Michaels.

10. Major sources for obtaining research data.
    1. Books (former card catalog, now Infoline at ODU). They provide a good summary of raw material and is an excellent place to begin.
    2. Journal Articles are probably the best source of highly critiques information and the latest knowledge. They can be found through
       Readers Guide to Periodic Literature
       Education Index
       Current Index to Journals in Education (part of ERIC)
       ProQuest

    3. ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center). Contains unpublished educational research and educational journal articles.
       Information can be reviewed in hard copy, manually.

       Manuals cited in six month segments.

       Look under specific descriptors. They are referenced by subject, author and institution. Also an abstract of each entry can be read.

       ERIC computer searches can be done in the Automated Reference Services area of the library. You can select descriptors and get either titles or titles and abstract.

       The more descriptors you submit, the less titles that will be reported; less descriptors result in more titles but less specific to your needs.

    4. Abstracts contain better references since they have been referred. Abstracts list summaries of journals written on a topic by year.

       Examples include: Exceptional Child Education Resources (200 journals), Psychology Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Child Development Abstracts and Dissertation Abstracts.

       Dissertation Abstracts International contains Education in Catalog IIA on Humanities.

    5. Indexes list journal articles by topic and year, i.e.,
       Education Index (200 journals),
       Current Index to Journals in Education (ERIC)

    6. Reviews - focus on research related to specific areas. They summarize and organize the information, e.g.,
       The Encyclopedia of Education
       Encyclopedia of Educational Research
       Handbook of Research of Teaching

    7. Newspapers
       New York Times
       Los Angles Times
       Chicago Tribune

    8. Government Documents, all types of funded projects, i.e., SCANS.

11. Chapter II layout diagram

    Chapter II  Review of Literature     Title of First Section

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    COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY GRADUATE STUDENTS
    1. COMMON ERRORS IN FORMULATING A RESEARCH STUDY
       1. Puts off selection of a problem until he has finished all or most of his courses.
       2. Uncritically accepts the first research idea that he thinks of or that is suggested to him.
       3. Selects a problem that is too vague to investigate meaningfully.
       4. Prepares fuzzy or untestable hypotheses.
       5. Fails to consider methods or analysis procedures in developing his tentative research plan.

    2. COMMON ERRORS IN REVIEWING THE LITERATURE.
       1. Carries out a hurried review of the literature in order to get started on the research project. This usually results in overlooking previous studies containing ideas that would have improved the student's project.
       2. Relies too heavily upon secondary sources.
       3. Concentrates on research findings when reading research articles, thus overlooking valuable information on methods, measures, and so forth.
       4. Overlooks sources other than education journals, such as newspapers and popular magazines which often contain articles on educational topics.
       5. Fails to define satisfactorily the topic limits of his review of the literature. Searching too broad an area often leads to the student becoming discouraged or doing a slipshod job. Searching too narrow an area causes him to overlook many articles that are peripheral to his research topic but contain information that would help him design a better study.
       6. Copies bibliographic data incorrectly and is then unable to locate the reference needed.
       7. Copies far too much material onto note cards. This often indicates that the student does not have a clear understanding of his project and thus cannot separate important from unimportant information.

    3. COMMON ERRORS IN GATHERING RESEARCH DATA.
       1. Pays insufficient attention to establishing and maintaining rapport with his subjects. This often leads to refusals to cooperate or to a negative attitude that can reduce the validity of test and other measures.
       2. Weakens his research design by making changes for the administrative convenience of the schools from which he draws his subjects.
       3. Fails to explain the purposes of measures used in the research to teachers and administrators. If a teacher thinks a test or measure is silly or worthless, her attitude is quickly sensed by pupils and leads to poor cooperation.
       4. Fails to evaluate available measures thoroughly before selecting those to be used in this research. This often leads to the use of invalid or inappropriate measures.
       5. Selects measures to use in his research of such low reliability that true differences are hidden by the errors of the measure.
       6. Selects measures to use in his research that he is not qualified to administer and score.

    Borg