Unit 4 Literature Review Patten Topic 17 Prepare to be Critical

Patten, Topic 17 -  Preparation to be Critical

First don't assume results of every study to be facts. presume they are flawed, offering degrees of evidence
some are methodologically superior to others

assess quality of each to be cited
look at sampling - weakness limits generalization of the results

measurement instrumentation
various methods of a given variable might lead to different results
look at limitations of sampling choices

applies to experiments only: often inappropriate control conditions - rewards may have effects in the natural environment different from those in a laboratory setting

are limitations discussed in last section?

Unit 4 Literature Review Patten Topic 16 Organization

Patten, Topic 16 Organization

First identify the topic, second assert that it is an important problem
ex:
this is risky for this group. evidence shows that its increasing and problems are growing.

Cite Statistics to show imporance
Start with a conceptual definition of a key variable
ex:
a is defined as x. cuurent lits says % to % of d. a is connected to f by x,x,x,
(can cite a published conceptual definition)

if started with a definition, follow with statements and statistics indicate importance

after establish importance
define key terms,
write topic by topic description of relevant research
major / minor subheadings to guide thru a long literature review

Don't write series of abstracts, instead group references together by commonality

Unit 4 Literature Review Patten Topic 15 Locating Literature Electronically

Patten, Topic 15

Journal Articles :

• major source of original reports of empirical research
• primary source of information on established and emerging theories

4 major databases in the social and behavioral sciences

1. Sociological Abstracts
2. PsycINFO
3. PsycARTICLES
4. ERIC - free, www.ERIC.ed.gov

Define Broadly, then narrow,

changing and to or

changing and to Not

Unit 4 Literature Review Patten, Topic 14 Reasons for Reviewing Literature

PattenTopics14-18andAppendixC

Examine both Theory and Research Literature

Researchers often make suggestions for further research in the last section of their report

****  Could replicate a study

modify replication - 

• new population
• improved measurement technique

resolve existing conflict (mentioned in literature)

new research almost always has its origins in existing research

Additional Benefits of Literature Review

1. identify measuring tools (successful / flawed / avoided)
2. identify dead ends
3. style and organization used by others

Well-crafted review shows

• context within which the researcher was working
• justify a study - literature establishes importance of topic
• shows how research flows from previously published research

Unit 4 Literature Review Deakin University Library

The Literature Review (Deakin University) 

• reports of primary or original scholarship, and does not report new primary scholarship itself
• 
  
• empirical, theoretical, critical/analytic, or methodological in nature
• 
  
• describe, summarise, evaluate, clarify and/or integrate the content of primary reports.
• 
  
• standard chapter of a thesis or dissertation

provide the background to and justification for the research undertaken 

6 Elements: 

1. a list; 
2. a search;
3. a survey; 
4. a vehicle for learning; 
5. a research facilitator
6. a report.

Why Do it? 

• to identify gaps in the literature
• to avoid reinventing the wheel (at the least this will save time and it can stop you from making the same mistakes as others)
• to carry on from where others have already reached (reviewing the field allows you to build on the platform of existing knowledge and ideas)
• to identify other people working in the same fields (a researcher network is a valuable resource)
• to increase your breadth of knowledge of your subject area
• to identify seminal works in your area
• to provide the intellectual context for your own work, enabling you to position your project relative to other work
• to identify opposing views
• to put your work into perspective
• to demonstrate that you can access previous work in an area
• to identify information and ideas that may be relevant to your project
• to identify methods that could be relevant to your project

Requirements:

• knowledge of the use of indexes and abstracts, 
• ability to conduct exhaustive bibliographic searches, 
• ability to organize the collected data meaningfully, 
• describe, critique and relate each source to the subject of the inquiry,
• present the organised review logically,
• to correctly cite all sources mentioned 

Unit 4 Literature Review - University of North Carolina

The Literature Review (University of North Carolina)

personal opinion not required

• summary of the sources / organizational pattern
• summary & syntheses
• summary - recap of the important information 
• synthesis -- re-organization/reshuffling / new interpretation of old material / combine new&old
• trace intellectual progression of the filed
• major debates
• evaluate the sources
• advise the reader on most pertinent or relevant

NOT an academic research paper (develop a new argument) - likely contains a literature review

literature is a foundation & support for new insight

why?

• handy guide to particular topic / overview / stepping stone
• useful reports - up to date with what is current in the filed
• emphasizes the credibility of the writer 
• solid background for investigation
• comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers

who?

• occasionally in humanities
• mostly in the sciences and social sciences
• experiment and lab reports
• a paper in itself

Clarify

• how many sources required
• types of sources
• summarize, synthesize or critique
• evaluate sources
• subheadings / background information// definitions / history

Current Sources!! Find models & narrow your topic

• Find a Focus
• Convey to Reader
• Consider Organization

First: basic categories - 

3 basic elements 

• introduction or background
• body containing sources
• conclusion / recommendation

Organization

chronology

by publication

by trend

thematic

methodology

current situation

history

methods or standards

questions for further research

Composing

Use evidence

be selective

use quotes sparingly

summarize and synthesize

keep your own voice

be cautious when paraphrasing

Revise Repeatedly

Unit 4 Conducting Literature Review - University of Toronto

The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It (University of Toronto):

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

Discursive prose,

• organize into sections
• themes 
• trends 
• relevant theory

Introduction and conclusion

• scope of coverage
• formulate the question, problem, or concept
• comparisons and relationships. 
• paragraph  
• introduce the focus of each section

purpose of literature review:

convey:

• established knowledge and ideas  
• strengths and weaknesses
• defined by a guiding concept
• your research objective, 
• the problem or issue
• argumentative thesis

demonstrate skills: 

• information seeking: efficiently identify a set of useful articles and books
• critical appraisal: apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.

also must:

• organized and directly related to thesis or research question
• summarize what is and is not known
• identify controversies
• recommend questions for further research

Answer these questions:

•  specific thesis, problem, or research question

•  type of literature review 

• theory/ methodology/ policy/ quantitative or qualitative 

•  scope  
• journals 
• books  
• government documents 
• popular media 

•  information seeking wide enough / narrow enough
• number of sources re: appropriate length

• critically analysed with set of concepts and questions 

• assess them, 

• discussing strengths and weaknesses 

• citations

•  relevant, appropriate, and useful 

Unit 3 Williamson, Chapter 3, Beginning stages of research

Unit 3 Wildemuth Chapter 5 Testing Hypotheses

p. 33
Make a statement assumed to be true, capable of verification
related to variables, not necessarily causative
Causes help us to understand and make sense of world

p. 34
develop based on direct experience
related to another phenomena
relationships hold in other arenas

Are you first to study? no methods established to measure

formulate & test hypotheses

First state it clearly as a question
examine each noun, verb, adjective for ambiguity

Null - no relationship

p. 35

Methods of formulating hypotheses
examples

• systems of search - manual, assisted, automatic - user's choice
• easier to establish relationship than cause
• click study on peripheral clues

Unit 3 Wildemuth Chapter 3 Practice Based Questions

p. 21
Practice based Questions
Information professionals base decisions on strongest evidence available

• use current literature base
• conduct their own research for suitable evidence
• to determine police, allocate resources & manage
• more than react to problems
• proactively question current practices
• seek ways to improve resources & services
• identify & use conclusions of existing studies - decisions on info practice

p. 22

why?

fill in gaps and mend seams of professional body of knowledge in order to advance

Team up with researchers in nearby universities

example: school librarian/social software developer.

Formulate question

important to core activities, of interest in local settings, appropriate level of abstractness

p. 23

watch for political issues if you are involved with stakeholders

improve services you offer

apply research results as strong evidence

link to earlier work on the same question

publish for others

3 examples

• Business students and Business and Economics Library - why increase visibility?
• Transaction log - website structure
• school library / students help

• 
  

Unit 3 Wildemuth, Chapter 2 Develop Research Question

Developing a research question
p. 11

Define your research question
clear statement will help to stay focused

question can come from 

• your own experience, 
• direct observation of situation or event, 
• discussion with colleagues or 
• exposure in the field

"recent study provides new information" 

"theory that has been proposed"

p. 12

should be personally interested & motivated to answer

"statement of what you wish to know about some unsatisfactory question"

"clarify the purposes or goals of the study" - motivation/intention

"unpack it a bit"

look at your personal perspective on it, stakeholders perspective

consider newly revealed relevant idea

cultural context

prevailing worldview

Make sure question has not already been answered by others - know what others have found

p. 13

Four important things to consider:

• Should be some uncertainty about the answer
• Is the question important?
• "symmetry of potential outcomes" - findings should be useful
• should be realistic and feasible

Components of a problem statement, iterative process, each time through clarifies

• lead-in 
• claim for originality - literature review
• justification of study's value

p. 14

"Research question is situated within a conceptual framework" 

based on your "integration of ideas from other rearchers and your own reflections on current knowledge"

concepts & relationships

Makes clear researchers:

• assumptions 
• expectations
• beliefs 
• theories

start with several questions of interest, get clear, not too broad or narrow, 

define ambiguous words

p. 15

Best question:

• clear, unambiguous and easily understood
• specific - suggest data to be collected
• answerable
• interconnected with concepts, phenomena
• substantially relevant to the field.

Question should indicate data necessary to answer

Question will guide development of methods

Spectrum of approaches from/to:

• most precise: hypotheses to be tested, fixed
• general guidance to research effort - more exploratory and open, loosely structured, evolve as they proceed, flexible

Implications for the sample to be studied

• which people, organizations, settings of interest
• questions have implications for the data to be selected
• which of my question does each method or data source addresses?
• link data collection efforts
• use analysis methods to help focus on answering question

p. 16

"keep scale of research in tune with size of problem"

access to the people? identify & locate, convince a sample to participate

equipment / resources required - financial resources

political support? - approval of mgmt? obstacles?

Funding sources - 

private, public, specialized databases, related articles, 

check what has been funded in the past

initiatives recently announced

p. 17

funding restrictions - state, areas of interest, views

phenomena of interest in ILS - strong need for high-quality descriptive studies

Unit 3 Connaway & Powell Chapter 2 Developing the Research Study

p 19

"Historically, new knowledge has been sought either by means of deductive logic or through the use of inductive reasoning"

• Deductive example: premise: all men are mortal; john doe is a man; therefore john doe is mortal.
• Inductive example: john doe is mortal, observe and decide all the observed men were mortals, conclusion: all men are mortal.

p. 20

Deductive reasons toward observations

Inductive reasons from observations

"Many scholars still consider the scientific method of inquiry to be the most valid method for resolving unanswered questions and solving problems"

• Deductive method - reasons Toward observations
• Inductive method - reasons From observations: Scientific Method of Inquiry

physical science
the sciences concerned with the study of inanimate natural objects, including 
physics, chemistry, astronomy, and related subjects.

social science
a subject within the field of social science, such as 

economics or politics.

humanities

ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, religion, art and musicology.

Criteria for basic research

reflective inquiry

procedure or research design and data collection methods

data gathering, processing and analysis

reliability and validity for quantitative studies

credibility, trustworthiness, transferability, dependability and confirmability for qualitative

Techniques to identify research topics or problems include the following:

• disagree with previous research - develop a study to test its findings and/or redesign and develop tools relevant to another area of interest and/or actual problems in real work situations. 
• Networking or sharing ideas and information
• Being curious about items of interest
• be a clear and critical reader and thinker.

p. 21/22

Outline for Research:

• 
  
• Begin with a question about something of interest
• Through literature thorough review
• Identify the problem that this question represents" (problem facing
• Place problem in broad theoretical framework
• one or more hypotheses
• obvious assumptions
• Develop a plan
• decide methodology and data collection techniques:
• Conduct experiment
• post test
• or survey
• deal with facts and their meanings
• leads to new questions

p. 23

Criteria for Basic Research

1. Universality

2. Replication

3. Control

4. Measurement

p. 26

feasibility exercise - aptitudes of researcher, availability of data, techniques used 

potentially worthwhile if it can be managed

p. 43

"Activities such as studying a subject field and reading earlier research" are "indicative of a conceptually developed research problem"

"Variables related to the problem should represent some sort of meaningful relationship"

p. 44

relationship between variables - cause or related in another way? 

topic should be something that can be enjoyed for a period of months or years (doctoral studies).

"builds on and improves or refines previous research"

should contribute or have real impact on life

should be manageable