Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
TOPIC 4
TOPIC 4:
LITERATURE REVIEW
Dr. Nor Azizah Salleh
INTRODUCTION
What is literature review? Why is it important? How do you proceed to do literature review? Literature review is a process of studying related literature and past research, in most cases, published scholarly papers related to ones topic of study. An indispensable part of research, it is generally undertaken across discipines for the following reasons: To map the field of study so that the researcher will get the big picture in terms of knowledge, theories and principles. To determine if the researchers selected topic is workable in light of what has been said about and around the topic. To discover gaps in the body of knowledge that the researcher intends to fill out. To learn more about the kinds of instruments the researcher may use or adapt for the purposes of his or her research. To find out more about the limitations of related previous studies.
In a nutshell, good review of literature will make you knowledgeable of your research areas and will guide you in the research process.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of the topic, students should be able to: 1. conduct literature review; 2. distinguish between primary and secondary sources of literature review; 3. distinguish between riview of related literature and review of related research; 4. critically evaluate the relevant literature; and 5. integrate and synthesise existing literature.
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Literature Review
4.1
We will now discuss the steps you may take in reviewing the research. How do you proceed? Find out the sources: Indices of thesis abstracts in science or social science, educational journals, educational books, encyclopaedias of education, Malaysian research reports: EPRD/ BPG/ Higher-learning institutions, proceedings of research seminars, ERIC (Education Resource Information Index), and the internet (refer to Appendix 1). If you are new in this area, you can go to the library of higher-learning institutions and get assistance from the librarian. You may use the internet that has a lot of education research information such as ERIC search. Searching data through the internet is fast and easy. Having collected the publications or data, you can then scan for relevant articles suitable for your research topic. Classify them according to their importance. Read and record the findings. Make abstracts, which include authors name, title of article, research subject, the methodology, findings, result and conclusion. Record the source of the article because you will later need it for citation and references for your proposal (author, year, title of article, publisher and place of publication. Remember! Doing literature review entails more than listing theories and past research. It should be a critical account of the related theories and findings. Look for similarities or contradictions of the theories and findings from the literature and past research and ask yourself how these similarities or contradictions came to be in the first place. This should help your study even more.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
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Sources of Literature 1. Educational journals: local universities and abroad 2 3 4 5 6 7 Thesis Academic exercises Educational books Encyclopedia of education Proceedings of educational seminars or conferences. ERIC
Content Edited research report, short and systematically written. Good reference. Full account of research report by graduate students. Undergraduate mini-thesis in Malaysia. Principles and theories on various educational disciplines. A comprehensive account of various educational topics; good for a beginner in research. A compilation of seminar papers; some are research-based; a source of primary data. Worldwide database for research reports, journal and non journal articles, and teaching learning documents;URL:http//www.eric.ed.gov/ Good source of documented educational of research by Malaysian educationist. You can search for specific research topics using specific key words; there are many current articles.
8. EPRD research reports of the Ministry Education Malaysia. 9 Internet sources: http://www.yahoo.com http://lycos.cs.cmu.edu/ http://www.excite.com
The following paragraphs will help you obtain a better understanding of the research area.
You, as a researcher, need to have a very strong knowledge of the topic you choose. This means that you must know the common concepts used in your area. Let us imagine your study is on cooperative learning and your research question is Can cooperative-learning inculcate love, cooperativeness, cleanliness and rationale? To answer this question, you would need to read up on the concept of cooperative-learning, active learning and small group-work which are distinct but inter-related. Based on reading past research and textbooks on approaches to learning, you will have a better idea of cooperative-learning, its elements and what differentiates it from ordinary group work used by school teachers. Likewise, you would need to explain the meaning of each value in the context of noble values (that is nilai murni) set by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia. As well, you would need to read up on the techniques of teaching these values to students. In short, literature review facilitates your explanation on the important variables of your research topic.
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Ask yourself if there are models related to your research topics. In teaching, there are a number of models or approaches. As an example, in teaching science to children aged between 10 and 15, you may prefer the guided discovery model than that of pure discovery.
4.2
Any researcher worth his/her salt would be compelled to find out what other researchers (local and international) have examined vis--vis the topic you have decided to research. Sources of data can be obtained from journals, theses, research reports, books and proceedings of seminars based on research. The internet provides research knowledge on many disciplines.
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Researchers doing research in Malaysian public schools need permission from the Ministry of Education. The Ministry keeps copies of the research reports, which are available at the Educational Planning and Research Development Unit (EPRD). Educational seminars and conferences are often conducted by various educational institutions. If your research problem has not been done by many Malaysians, you would have to refer to studies from abroad. Often there are more studies from the western countries.
4.3
After you have collected past studies with topics similar or related to your intended research, scrutinise carefully the scope of study and the research methodology. There are qualitative and quantitative studies with distinct research designs. Methods of studies are many, for example experiment, survey, case study and ethnography. By comparing and contrasting them, you can see their strengths and weaknesses. You can look at the differences in the instruments used. This can help you to choose what is best for your own research. At the
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undergraduate level, you may want to see the scope of their study to gauge your ability to finish work in a given time. As an illustration, supposing you would like to do a study on the effectiveness of using cooperative learning in enhancing Oral English in school. You have collected many past studies; you can make tables to facilitate the way you see things objectively as illustrated in Table 4.2 which is based on real studies in the 1990s. Instruments of studies are important, so you should pay particular attention to them: their validity and reliability and appropriateness to your study. Some instruments may be good but they may not measure what you want to measure, for example an oral English test would be different from a writing test. Your research questions and your specific objectives will determine the kind of instrument you would want to use.
Effectiveness of cooperative learning (CL) for English class. (Khairiah Hasni, 1996)
Effectiveness of CL on Malay Language achievement for year 3 remedial students. (Alimah Ausidiah, 1996)
Effectiveness of CL in enhancing low achievers Malay language writing ability. (Madhusoothanan a/l Narayanan, 1999)
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Please look carefully at the table on cooperative learning studies in Table 4.2. There are four columns namely: topic, subject, methods and instrument, and data analysis. The studies are all on cooperative learning in languages (English and Malay language) and follow similar pattern of research design. Yet, if you look carefully and compare each column with another, you can see differences. Can you name the differences? Can you make a conclusion on cooperative learning based on your observations?
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qualitative research would be very different from that of the quantitative. The former will be giving narrative accounts, or interpretations of interviews and observations based on nonmathematical terms. The latter would illustrate tables such as ANOVA or t-test or Chi square or just descriptive analysis. All these would help you consider the data analysis for your research, as well as how you will be making inferences and conclusion.
These optional activities are planned to help you in your literature search and preparing a proposal. 1. Find a few articles of interest to you in local or international journals and study how they are written. the problem statements the research designs instruments. the data analysis 2. A student read a thesis and discovers a very good instrument in terms of validity and reliability. He decides to pick up a research problem based on the instrument found. What do you think of his decision? Is it wise? Why? A student does not wish to read literature from foreign countries. What do you think he will miss? Search for topics in your research area by surfing for information on the Internet. Specify the variables or main terms in your topic and print your results. Go to the University library and ask about ERIC search.
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SUMMARY
This topic explains the importance of literature review in research. The literature review will help researchers to gain the understanding of the research area, particularly the understanding of concepts, theories and models. Review of related past research will expose researchers to various research designs, sampling procedures, research instruments, methods of data analysis, limitations, findings and recommendation for further research.
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