Tag: Literature Review

Literature reviews

Side Note: This particular post was on my to-do list for a long time.

A literature review as a process containing a deep consideration of the current literature, to aid in identifying the current gaps in the existing knowledge, as well as building up the context for your research project (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2006).  The literature review helps the researcher to build upon the works of other researchers, for the purpose of contributing to the collective knowledge. Our goal in the literature review will be undermined if we conduct any of the following common flaws (Gall et al., 2006):

  1. A literature review that becomes a standalone piece in the final document
  2. Analyzing results from studies that are not sound in their methodology
  3. Include the search procedures used to create this literature review
  4. Having only one study on particular ideas in the review, which may suggest the idea is not mature enough

For a literature review, one should be learning their field by reviewing the collective knowledge in the field by studying:

  • The beginning of {your topic}
  • The essence of {your topic}
  • Historical overview {your topic}
  • Politics of {your topic}
  • The Technology of {your topic}
  • Leaders in {your topic}
  • Current literature findings of {your topic}
  • Overview of research techniques {your topic}
  • The 21st century {your topic} Strategy

Creswell’s (2014), proposed that a literature map (similar to a mind map) of the research is a useful way to organize the literature, identify ideas with a small number of sources, determine the current issues in the existing knowledge, and determine the reviewers current gap in their understanding of the existing knowledge.  Finally, Creswell in 2014, listed what a good outline for a quantitative literature review should have:

  1. Introduction paragraph
  2. Review of topic one, which contains the independent variable(s).
  3. Review of topic two, which contains the dependent variable(s).
  4. Review of topic three, which provides how the independent variable(s) relate to the dependent variable(s).
  5. Summarize with highlights of key studies/major themes, to state why more research is needed.

Cresswell’s is generally a good method, but not the only one.  You can use a chronological literature review, where you build your story from the beginning to the present. In my dissertation, my literature review had to tie multiple topics into one: Big Data, Financial forecasting, and Hurricane forecasts.  I had to use the diffusion of innovation theory to transition between Financial and Hurricane forecast, to make the leap and justify the methodologies I will use later on.  In the end, you are the one that will be writing your literature review and the more of them you read, the easier it will be to define how you should write yours.

Here is a little gem I found during my second year in my dissertation: Dr. Guy White (2014) in the following youtube video has described a way to effectively and practically build your literature review. I use this technique all the time.  All of my friends that have seen this video have loved this method of putting together their literature reviews.

References

Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Intros and Lit Reviews

Simply put, quantitative methods are utilized when the research contains variables that are numerical, and qualitative methods are utilized when the research contains variables that are based on language (Field, 2013).  Thus, each methods goals and procedures are quite different. This difference in goals and procedures drives differences in how a research paper’s introduction and literature review are written.

Introductions in a research paper allow the researcher to announce the problem and why it is important enough to be explored through a study.  Given that qualitative research may not have any known variables or theories, the introductions tend to vary tremendously (Creswell, 2014; Edmondson & MacManus, 2007).  Creswell (2014), suggested that qualitative methods introductions can begin with a quote from one the participants; stating the researchers’ personal story from a first person or third person viewpoint, or can be written in an inductive style.  There is less variation in quantitative methods introductions because the best way to introduce the problem is to introduce the variables, from an impersonal viewpoint (Creswell, 2014).  It is through gaining further understanding of these variables’ influence on a particular outcome is what’s driving the study in the first place.

The purpose of the literature review is for the researcher to share the results of other studies tangential to theirs to show how their study relates to the bigger picture and what gaps in the knowledge they are trying to solve (Creswell, 2014).  Edmondson and MacManus (2007) stated that when the nature of the field of research is nascent, the study becomes exploratory and qualitative in nature.  Given their exploratory nature, in qualitative methods, the researchers write their literature review in the form that is exploratory and in an inductive manner (Creswell, 2014).  Edmondson and MacManus (2007) stated that when the nature of the research is mature, there are plenty of related and existing research studies on the topic, a more quantitative approach is more appropriate.  Given that there is a huge body of knowledge to draw from when it comes to quantitative methods, the researchers tend to have substantially large amounts of literature at the beginning and structure it in a deductive fashion (Creswell, 2014).  Framing the literature review in a deductive manner allows the researcher at the end of the literature review to state clearly and measurably their research question(s) and hypotheses (Creswell, 2014; Miller, n.d.).

To conclude, understanding which methodological approach best fits a research study can help drive how the introduction and literature review sections are crafted and written.

References

  • Creswell, J. W. (2014) Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches (4th ed.). California, SAGE Publications, Inc. VitalBook file.
  • Edmondson, A. C., & McManus, S. E. (2007). Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1155–1179. http://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2007.26586086
  • Field, A. (2013) Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (4th ed.). UK: Sage Publications Ltd. VitalBook file.