Transcript Sample Title Slide

Systematic Approaches to Literature
Reviewing
The Literature Review ?
“Literature reviews …… introduce a topic, summarise the
main issues and provide some illustrative examples.”
Agree?
Disagree?
The Literature Review ?

If they are to be considered a reliable source of research
evidence, literature reviews should record provide the
reader with sufficient to be able to judge whether all of
the relevant literature is likely to have been found, and
how the quality of research considered was assessed.
1 Agree?
5
Disagree? 10
Discussion



What is a Literature Review?
Why do we do Literature Reviews?
What are the main challenges?
Literature Matters
“importance of coherent argument”
“more than acknowledge the literature and pull it together… includes ‘working
understanding’ ‘critical appraisal’ ‘ connection to findings’ and disciplinary
perspective’”
working
understanding
critical
appraisal
connection
to findings
coverage
Holbrook, A., Bourke, S., Fairbairn, H., & Lovat, T. (2007). Examiner comment
on the literature review in Ph.D. theses. Studies in Higher Education, 32(3),
337–356. doi:10.1080/03075070701346899
Literature Matters
DEMONSTRATES
disciplinary
perspective
scholarliness
Knowledge of range of literature
Systematic Review

Means you need to be:

Critical


Analyse


Extract differing information from what you read
Synthesise


Evaluate what you read
Show relationships between studies/sources; differing definitions,
concepts, theories etc.
Evaluate

Methodological approaches/tools and techniques used
Systematic Review – Objective is to produce
more than a summary




A review of a clearly formulated question
That uses systematic and explicit methods
To identify, select and critically appraise relevant research,
And to collect, analyse, synthesise and evaluate the
research that is included within the review.
Systematic Review

Need to apply the same level of rigour to reviewing
research evidence as you will apply to producing your
research evidence
Workflow for Literature Reviews




Search
Assess
Read
Write
How do I start?
Start with an area you are
interested in or need to
find out about.
Look for hot topics, trends,
emerging ideas, key
questions, key issues.
Example

Suppose I have searched for a topic I’m interested in:





Education
Higher Level
Computer Science
Teaching and Learning Approaches
For some purpose


What are key issues of interest ?
To Ireland, Third Level in Ireland, DIT in particular
Peer Tutoring In Computer Science Programmes In Tertiary
Education and its Effects On First Year Student Retention.
Clear context, clear statement of scope
Locating and
Finding Research
Where do I start?
Need to decide what I need
to tell the reader about.
Breaking my topic into
pieces
So what do I want to find
out?
Student
retention
Peer
Tutoring
Combine the
results to make a
case
In CS @
3rd level
Effects on
students
Locating and
Finding Research
Student retention
•
What do I mean by this,
why is it a problem, why
are people interested in it
•
Why do students drop
out
For third level computer
science
•
Why are people
interested, what is the
level of problem in the
area
•
Why do student drop out
Locating and
Finding Research
Peer Tutoring
•
What is it
•
How can it help
students – all ways
•
How can it help student
retention in particular
Where do I start?





Previous Theses
Review Papers
Journal Papers
Conference Papers
Supervisor


A broad but defined, systematic sweep
Defined search terms




Defined search arena


record recall and precision
Recall is the ratio of the number of relevant
records retrieved to the total number of
relevant records in the database. It is usually
expressed as a percentage.
Precision is the ratio of the number of relevant
records retrieved to the total number of
irrelevant and relevant records retrieved. It is
usually expressed as a percentage.
e.g. databases, citation indices, reference lists
from primary and review articles, grey literature,
conference proceedings, research registers, the
internet, individual researchers/practitioners
Other broad search limits, e.g. language, date,
Phase 1- Identify
the Research
TIPS!
Document the
search protocol
and record what
research was
found
Systematically
manage the
search output,
e.g. using zotero,
endnote






Select from research using criteria
related to your research question
Develop inclusion or exclusion
statements, these might relate to
purpose of the paper, study outcomes,
research design, methods used,
population worked with etc.
E.G. Review paper
E.G. Paper by key author
E.G.Year long studies
E.G. Pure computer science
programmes only
Phase 2- Selection
TIPS!
Document the
statements
and
their purpose
(might be
pragmatic or
research related)
Search Log
Date
Database
Keywords
Results
1/11/13 2pm
ACM Digital Library
Peer, tutoring,
undergraduate
10 articles
4/11/13
SpringerLink
Peer tutor*, “computer
science”
5 articles
1 book
10/11/13
Scopus
Student retention,
undergraduate
0
Running the search



How many titles and abstract can you check?
How easy will it be to decide to accept or reject a record?
Record the reason for rejection for “Excluded research”
Don’t stop searching when you’ve stopped searching
3. Critical appraisal of studies
“Assessing the quality of methodology is a critical part
of the systematic review process”
No standard approach but there are hierarchies
in fields of study
Critical appraisal of research
What would be appropriate
to consider when critically
appraising research in your area?
4. Collect data & analyse


Evaluate
Synthesise results of literature review


Tables to compare
Descriptive
25
Author
Year
Aim
Methods
Conclusions
Critique
Write up literature review - Structure






Background
Purpose/Research question
Method
Findings
Discussion
Implications/Recommendations
Voice – Guide the
Reader Through
1.
Assess the value of
the literature
2.
Explain the context
research takes place
3.
Emphasise
limitations of
existing research
4.
Tell a story
Writing Style
Introduction
What I will show you?
Why?
Body
Why this area?
Don’t leave reader to fill gaps
Conclusion
What we have seen?
How this is relevant to research?
Evaluation and Literature Review

Towards the end of your dissertation you will refer back
to literature review






Do your findings confirm those of others?
Does your work extend that of others?
Does your work provide new meaning to the work of others?
Does your work break new ground?
Does your work raise issues about the methodological choices
made in previous studies?
Does your work challenge existing ideas on your subject?
Comprehensive Literature Review
Do parallel
literatures exist
for this topic?
In which
subject areas
has the topic
been studied?
What are the key
concepts in this area?
How is this topic
approached by
others?
Who are
these
“others”?
Which
discussions?
Which aspects of this
work are of most
relevance to my
study?
Which subthemes?
What are the
main
perspectives
on this topic in
previous
research?
Coherent synthesis
of past and present
research in the
domain of study
What have been the
main research
questions?
What are the main
conclusions on
previous research in
this area?
Where are the gaps in
literature?
Which existing
work could be
extended?
Where is existing
knowledge “thin”?
What are the key
areas of debate in this
area?
Which work is
subject to
challenge?
Which writers?
Source: Dr Hazel Hall, Napier University
Challenges in Conducting Literature
Reviews





Where Knowing where to start, (e.g. wide then
narrow, or narrow then wide?) and what to include
Knowing when to stop literature searching
Knowing when to stop “perfecting” the review
Knowing how far to venture into the literature of
associated domains
Your supervisor will help you through these