KURSUS PENINGKATAN PROFESIONALISME INSTITUT PERGURUAN GAYA 24 26 JULAI 2006

Reviewing the Literature & Writing Literature Review Dr. Soon Seng Thah
Instructional Objectives: After studying this module, you will be able to: 1. Understand the role of literature review in edcucational research; 2. Identify sources of information for a good literature review; 3. Evaluate and organise literature review; and 4. Write a good review of literature based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

Reviewing the Literature & Writing Literature Review

Soon Seng Thah, Ph.D 1. Introduction Reviewing the current literature on the problem you are working on would provide you with an overview of the current status in this area of your interest. It would also show you how others have been able to study the sort of research you have in mind. By reviewing the literature, you can put the context of your problem in its right perspective as you highlight what others have done and discovered about similar problems. 2. Role of related literature in educational research Whether you are conducting a quantitative or qualitative research, a review of related literature is imperative. The question which arises is why is there a need to review the current literature? i. A review of literature enables the researcher to define the frontiers in the field of study. A review provides ideas about defining and operationalising key issues and variables in the area of study. It could also provide an indication of the current interest of researchers, and therefore, educators. Locating variables of interest would ensure a degree a currency in ones research area. This would allow you to know whether the problem you have in mind has already been researched. ii. A review of literature would enable the researcher to place their questions in perspective. Through the review, you are able to know whether your research is likely to contribute to the wealth of knowledge or knowledge bank and how your study may relate to other peoples study. A review would suggest how conclusions may be applied in practice, the gaps in the study and the overlaps which have been done by other researchers. A review of literature would reduce the enormous body of knowledge to a smaller number of workable conclusions. iii. A review of literature helps clarify and define the concepts of the study. A research question may be too broad or too general to research into. A review may allow the researcher to revise his/her own research questions so that final questions are more practical-oriented. Through a review of literature, the constructs of the study can be further clarified or translated in operational terms. Once these have been clarified, it would be easier for the researcher to formulate the research questions and hypotheses and show relationships among the variables. iv. A critical review leads to insight into the reasons for contradictory results in the area. Contradictory results are common in educational research, for example, Researcher As findings may be totally contradictory to Researcher Bs findings. Through a review of literature, you can know the causes of the contradiction and inconsistencies. In other words, 2

you can scrutinise the methodologies used, for example could this be due to sampling errors or analysis problems or even problems in instrumentation. v. Through review of literature, the researcher may know which methodologies have been proven to be useful and which are less promising. Not every study in ones field is conducted correctly. There are masters theses and doctoral dissertations which have been wrongly conducted. It must be pointed out that the quality of research varies greatly. Through a review, the researcher may discover the correct path and avoid the pitfalls of what have been experienced by others. vi. A review of literature would help avoid unintentional replication of previous studies. Ones research could be very similar to anothers. Through a review, the researcher will then know whether he/she should change plans and investigate different aspects of a problem. 3. Sources of Information The library is perhaps the best place to search for literature especially university libraries which subscribe to journals and web-based electronic searching services. Educational research is so broad that practically every area has been researched into. It would not be difficult to search for an area of study you are interested in be it academic achievement, school design or even education laws, etc. Educational studies are published in books, periodicals, technical reports and the unpublished ones include academic theses and dissertations. All these are available through either print media or softcopy formats (usually in PDF format). Wiersma (2000) has delineated a number of activities related to reviewing literature as shown in Figure 1.

Identify descriptors (key words or phrases) relevant to the problem

Identify sources such as an appropriate index or retrieval system

Identify titles of potentially relevant reports

Locate copies of reports to be reviewed

Delete nonrelevant reports Separate the reports in order or into categories of relevance or importance

Prepare abstracts or summaries for the reports containing relevant information

Write the review of the literature Prepare a complete bibliography

Figure 1: Flowchart of Activities in the Review of Literature (Wiersma, 2000) p.54 3.1 Basic Guides The researcher may want to look up for basic guides pertaining to educational research through the following: i. ii. iii. iv. A Bibliographic Guide to Educational Research (Berry, 1990); Core list of books and journal in education. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press (OBrien & Fabiano, 1991); Guide to reference books (Balay, Carrington & Martin, 1996); and American Reference Books Annual (ARBA) (Wynar, 1970-).

3.2 Reviews of education-related literature Reviews by experts in their respective fields provide an excellent way in locating sources of information. Among these are: i. Encyclopedia of Educational Research (Alkin,1992) This provides a critical synthesis and interpretation of reported educational research, including bibliographies and discussions of recent trends and developments; ii. International Encyclopedia of Educational Evaluation (Walberg & Haertel, 1990) This provides works on educational evaluation such as evaluations studies, curriculum evaluation, measurement theory, measurement applications, types of tests and examinations, research methodology, and educational policy and planning; iii. International Encyclopedia of Education: Research and Studies (Husen & Postlethwaite, 1994) This provides an overview of educational problems, practices, and institutions all over the world; iv. Review of Educational Research (American Educational Research Association) This provides integrative reviews and interpretation of education research literature on substantive and methodological issues. 3.3 Periodical Indexes, Abstracting Sources and Citation Indexes Periodical indexes and abstracting sources provide you with access to primary and recent sources of literature. Examples of these are as follows: i. ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Database

ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Services (IES) of the US Department of Education. The website is accessible via www.eric.ed.gov. This is the most important indexing system for educational literature and can be accessed via Internet based on subscription. This database contains over 1.1 million records from over 800 journals. ERIC covers scholarly journals, professional magazines, reports of all federally funded educational research plus abstracts, pamphlets, curriculum guides, significant papers from the proceedings of learned societies and institutes, bibliographies, exemplary course-related materials, teachers guides and programme outlines, research proposals and project reports. Each piece of literature is catalogued according to ERIC descriptors and compiled in the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (Houston, 1998). Figure 1 shows an ERIC Thesaurus Entry.

Terms not in the ERIC thesaurus for which the descriptor should be used Broader ERIC subject descriptors

Related ERIC subject descriptors

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION Jan. 1979 CIJE:1902 RIE:2447 GC:540 SN Education involving two or more ethnic groups and designed to help participants clarify their own ethnic identity and appreciate that of others, reduce prejudice and stereotyping, and promote cultural pluralism and equal participation (note: do not confuse with cross cultural training, which, prior to jan79, was frequently used for multicultural education) UF Bicultural Education Intercultural Education Multiethnic Education BT Intergroup Education RT Biculturalism Bilingual Education Bilingualism Black Studies Cross Cultural Studies Cross Cultural Training Cultural Activities Cultural Awareness Cultural Background Cultural Context Cultural Differences Cultural Interrelationships Cultural literacy Cultural Maintenance Cultural Pluralism Culture Culture Contact Culture Fair Tests Diversity (Institutional) Ethnic Groups Ethnic Relations Ethnicity Ethnocentrism Foreign Culture Global Education Heterogeneous Grouping Humanistic Education Intercultural Communication Intercultural Programs Interdisciplinary Approach Intergroup Relations Mexican American Education Migrant Education Minority Groups Multicultural Textbooks Multilingualism Social Integration

Date the descriptor was included in the thesaurus

Scope note

Figure 2: Example of an ERIC Thesaurus Entry (Extracted from Ary et al., 2002, p.71) Figure 1 tells us that multicultural education was added to the thesaurus in January 1979 and there are 1,902 related articles in the Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) and 2,447 related ERIC documents in RIE (Resources in Education). Phrases that are not ERIC subject descriptors, for which the descriptor multicultural education is used, are listed under UF (use for) and related terms that are thesaurus descriptors are listed under RT (related terms). Figure 3 shows a typical ERIC record. This record illustrates the type of information included in each entry. Each record is assigned its own accession number for the purpose of identification and for either ordering copies of the original documents from ERIC or for locating the microfiche, on-line, or hard copy of the document.

Citation 16 Accession Number EJ496492 Author Silins, Halia C. Title Leadership Characteristics and School Improvement. Source Australian Journal of Education. V38 n3 p266-81 Nov 1994 ERIC Subject Headings * Administrator Characteristics * Educational Change * Educational Improvement Elementary Secondary Education Foreign Countries * Leadership Qualities * Outcomes of Education * Principals Program Effectiveness Identifiers Canada Abstract A study investigated between school principals leadership behaviors and school outcomes in Canadian schools undertaking reform efforts. Results indicate transactional leadership behaviors were more effective than transactional leadership in enhancing school, teacher, program, instructional, and student outcomes. These findings support the importance of leadership in effective reform (Author/MSE) Publication Type REPORTS Research/Technical. JOURNAL ARTICLES. ISSN 0004 9441 Language English Clearinghouse Code Higher Education. Entry Month 199505 Figure 3: Example of a CIJE Record (Extracted from Ary et al., 2002, p.72) To search for an ERIC document, the following steps are undertaken: i. Determine the key words under which articles relevant to your study might be listed. These key words typically include the population and variables you have identified. Check the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors to find which of the key words are used as descriptors. You may need to find synonyms for the key words you have listed.

ii.

iii.

Perform the search and copy or print out the entire reference given for any title that may be useful. Search out the articles in their journals at the library. Read the abstract first to determine whether it will be useful to read the entire article.

iv. v.

ii. Indexes of Theses and Dissertations One of the best sources of information is searching through theses and dissertations. In Malaysia, theses and dissertations are available at the respective universities where these students graduate. A copy of these can also be found at the National Library in Jalan Tun Abdul Razak, Kuala Lumpur and the Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Education located at the Educational Planning and Research Division (EPRD), Ministry of Educational at Level G and 1, Block E8, Parcel E, Federal Government Administrative Centre, Putrajaya. The resources available at EPRD are immense as all researchers must submit a copy of their research report, thesis or dissertation for recording purposes. Therefore, EPRD has a good collection of these from all the local universities as well as foreign universities where Malaysians study. Many undergraduate and post-graduate students make use of the library facilities in EPRD. To make use of these facilities, the student must first obtain a letter from their respective supervisor/lecturer or deans of their faculties, then go to the library and register yourself before locating the call numbers of these reports via computer search and then take them in the open shelves. The library is open during office hours. Students are however not allowed to photostat these reports, theses and dissertations. On the international front, www.umi.com or the website for University Microfilms International (UMI) publishes and archives theses and dissertations and sell them on demand. All in all, UMI has over 2 million doctoral dissertations and masters theses. iii. Government Publications The Educational Planning and Research Division of the Ministry of Education (MOE) has a good collection of government publications pertaining to education. EPRD publishes annual education statistics of basic education indicators such as enrolment, number of teachers, number of schools, etc. These are official statistics of the MOE derived from the Education Management Information System (EMIS) databases submitted by schools and educational institutions. Besides, research studies undertaken by the MOE and international reports on education from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Unesco, etc are also available here. Students can also access the MOE website at www.moe.gov.my to obtain information on government policies pertaining to education in Malaysia. iv. Dictionaries Dictionaries provide good definitions of certain educational concepts and terms. A number of specialised dictionaries are available such as: a. Dictionary of Education (Good, 1973);

b. The International Dictionary of Education (Page, Thomas & Marshall, 1980); c. Cyclopedia Education Dictionary (Spafford, Pesce, & Groser, 1998). v. The Internet Internet usage is becoming a major source of information for researchers as it is an immense storehouse of knowledge of each and every field in the knowledge world. With the proliferation of broadband, internet searching has been greatly enhanced and articles which have plenty of graphics can now be downloaded rather quickly. One of the very useful subscription-based websites frequented by academic and professional researchers to obtain sources of information is via the Ebscohost website at www.ebscohost.com and the Proquest website at www.proquest.com. Researchers need to subscribe to these document retrieval services to gain access to the vast information available. Many universities in Malaysia provide students with access to these two websites. The Ebscohost website allows you to search for documents in ERIC besides the thousands of other electronic journals, magazine and newspaper articles. These documents may have been peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed articles are usually of high quality and recommended for academic research work. Figures 4 7 below shows the various search screens of Ebscohost.

Figure 4: Ebscohost Opening Search Screen

Figure 5: The ERIC Search Screen

Figure 6: ERIC Search Results

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Figure 7: ERIC Search Listing Perhaps the simplest way of searching for resources is through search engines such as Google (www.google.com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), Microsoft (www.msm.com), etc. These search engines allow you to locate both scholarly as well as non-scholarly works. But care must be taken because whatever is listed in these search engines need not necessarily be good documents for research citations.

Figure 7: The Google Search Engine 4. Organising Related Literature After you have done a comprehensive search of the current and past literature, you can then proceed to organise it by arranging the documents based on topics. Your literature should be systematically arranged so that pertinent sub-topics are channelled into the broader general topics for easier sorting of facts.

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You should present the literature by showing what is known in the area of concern and what remains to be investigated. You can relate this with your research questions and hypotheses. Do not merely copy chunks of information from the sources, rather you should only include those which are relevant and important to your study. Some useful tips are provided below: a. Read the most recent studies or literature in the area of your concern and then work backward through earlier works. b. Read the abstract or summary of the report first to determine whether the study is relevant to the question you are researching into. c. Skim the report to find those sections that are related to your question to save time. d. Make notes, either on file cards, in a word processing program, or in any electronic format you are comfortable with and which can be accessed, rearranged or organised easily for your review (see section on literature map below). e. Write down the references or bibliographies as you go along with your writing such as for books: Author, year published, book title, place where book was published, publisher. If you obtain from the web, you will need to include the web address, the date you access this document. Perhaps the American Psychological Association (APA) citation system is worth knowing (see Appendix A). f. To facilitate sorting of the materials it would be ideal to separate each entry in a different card, i.e. if you are using cards to record the salient points. g. Direct quotations from authors should be in quotation marks and this must be differentiated from your own paraphrases. h. Keep the search history files if you are searching through internet as it would enable you to locate a particular source more easily if need to relook at the document. If you find something useful in the web, you must always download it right away for these articles may be removed from the website or edited the next time you access them. 5. Evaluating the literature Once you have located the literature, you need to determine if it is a good source to use and whether it is relevant to your particular area of research. When evaluating the literature, you will have to ask 2 questions, first, Is it a good, accurate source? and second, Is it relevant to my research?. As to the source of literature, use the following as guidelines: a. Rely as much as possible on journal articles published where there is a panel of editors who reviews and critically evaluates the manuscripts before accepting them for publication. The panel of reviewers will be listed in the cover or the first page of the journal. Journals where the editorial boards are highly qualified and wellrespected are usually of high quality because these are refereed.

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b. Start with refereed journal articles and then proceed to non-refereed ones, then books, then conference papers, dissertations and theses, and finally non-reviewed articles posted to websites. Refereed articles can be specified as one of the search elements in Ebscohost. c. Choose research studies to include in your literature review. These studies usually follow a systematic process incorporating posing questions, collecting data, and forming results or conclusions from the data. Avoid using essays, opinion or concept papers as far as possible. d. Include both quantitative and qualitative research studies in your review, regardless of the approach (quantitative or qualitative) you might use. As to the relevance of the literature, consider the following: a. Topic relevance: Does the literature focus on the same topic as your proposed study? b. Individual and site relevance: Does the literature examine the same individuals or sites that you want to study? c. Problem and question relevance: Does the literature examine the same research problem that you propose to study? d. Accessibility relevance: Is the literature easily obtainable from the library or website? If you answer is yes to the above questions, then it can be said that the literature is relevant to your study. 6. Organising the literature After you have assessed the quality and relevance of the literature, next you need to organise it. This process involves photocopying and filing the literature. At this time you might quickly read it, take notes on it, and determine how it fits into the overall literature. You may want to construct a visual picture of the literature you have, i.e. a literature map which helps you to organise, positions your study within the literature and provides a framework for presenting research to audiences about your topic. When photostatting, downloading and filing your literature, you should develop a system to easily retrieve the information. For example, you may create folders based on sources, topic or keywords to enable you to locate them easily. Using an author index may be the most convenient method because topics and keywords you use in your literature may shift as you work through the drafts. When reading the literature, the researcher should take notes on the information so that he/she can identify important ideas about the article or material and writes rough notes on each source of information. These points may include i. the questions being addressed, ii. data collection, and iii. major results. These points can then be inserted into a written review of literature. Be careful not to use abstracts available at the beginning of the article as they may be too brief to use.

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When abstracting elements of a study from a journal article, conference paper, or dissertation or thesis, identify the following: a. b. c. d. research problem; research questions or hypotheses; data collection procedure; and results/findings of the study

When organising the literature, you may want to construct a literature map. By doing so, a conceptual picture will begin to emerge allowing you to organise the literature in your mind, identify where your study fits into this literature, and convince others of the importance of your study. Creswell (2005) defines a literature map as a figure or drawing that displays the research literature (e.g. studies, essays, books, chapters and summaries) on a topic. p. 103. This literature map may be useful for your dissertation defence as it is a good communication device which shows the current picture of the literature on the topic. Figure 8 shows a literature map with a hierarchical design by Hovater (2000) on the topic of preservice training for teachers on multicultural topics.

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Study Abroad Programs

The Need for Teaching Programs to Be Culturally Responsive Bennet, 1995; Eastman, Smith, 1991; Grant, 1994; Noel, 1995

US Programs

Possible Improvements Martin, Rohrlich, 1991; Stachowski, 1991

Attitudes Toward Study Abroad King, Young, 1994

Personal Insights of Preservice Teachers Friesen, Kang, McDougall, 1995; Mahan, Stachowski, 1991

Personal Insights of Preservice Teachers Cockrell, Placier, Cockrell, Middleton, 1999; Goodwin, 1997; Kea, Bacon, 1999

Predominantly English Speaking Cultures Mathan, Stachowski, 1990; Quinn, Barr, McKay, Jarchow, Powell, 1995; Vall, Tennison, 1992

Need for Further Study: Non-English Speaking Cultures Question: Do short term study abroad programs in nonEnglish speaking cultures help create cultural responsiveness in preservice teachers?

Conventional Programs Colville-Hall, Macdonald, Smolen, 1995; Rodriguez, Sjostrom, 1995; Vavrus, 1994

Cross-Cultural Programs Cooper, Beare, Thorman, 1990; Larke, Wiseman, Bradley, 1990

Figure 8: Literature Map based on Hierarchical Design

Source: Hovater, S. E. (2000). Preparing culturally responsive teachers through preservice teaching programs. Unpublished manuscript, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In John W. Creswell, (2005). Educational Research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 105

7. Writing the Literature Review Organising your scanned literature into a literature map would assist you tremendously in systematically depicting your thoughts and ideas. It must be pointed out that it is by no means easy to write literature reviews, particularly so for beginning researchers. Writing a literature review is different from writing an essay or paper. A literature review must be written in a technical form. In technical writing, facts must be documented and opinions must be substantiated, for example, if you say that many students are not performing well in English especially in rural schools, then you must provide facts and figures to substantiate this point or provide research findings to show this.

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When writing the literature review, you have to ensure that the following are adhered to: i. Use an appropriate style such as the APA system or the Harvard system to write complete references for your literature summaries and to develop headings for your review of literature; and ii. Be precise, concise and maintain consistency in the use of form and terms. If you are reviewing on achievement, then you must be consistent in using this term throughout the review. Do not force references that do not jive with your hypothesis. The review should flow in a manner that references least related to the problem are discussed first and the most related references are discussed last. 7.1 Using a style manual A style manual provides a structure for citing references, labelling headings and constructing tables and figures for a scholarly research report. Using this would mean following a consistent format which is imperative in scientific research. This would also facilitate understanding of the study when someone reads it. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th edition (APA, 2001) seems to be the most universally used, albeit popular among universities and researchers in educational research (see Appendix A). Besides APA, others include the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (University of Chicago Press, 2003), A Manual for Writers of the Terms Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th edition (Turabian, 1996) and Form and Style: Theses, Reports, and Term Papers, 8th edition (Campbell, Ballou, & Slade, 1990). The following are the key elements of the APA style and frequently used when writing literature review. i. End-of-Text References End-of-text references refer to those references listed at the end of a research report. In APA style, they are double-spaced and listed alphabetically by the author. The writer should include the reference list of the references mentioned in the body of the paper. The APA manual provides examples of end-of-text references in 76 different types of documents. However, three described below are the most commonly used: a. Journal article Loughran, J. (2002). Effective teacher practice: In search of meaning in learning about teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 33 43. b. Book Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (1988). The action research planner. Geelong, Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press. c. Conference paper Soon Seng Thah. (2006). Action research in education: Trend, methodology and prospect. Paper presented at the Action Research Colloquium, 5 7 March 2006, Kuching, Sarawak.

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ii. Within-Text References These refer to references cited in a brief format within the body of the text to provide credit to authors. In this context, you may cite single or multiple authors. An example of a single author citation is as follows: Craig (2004) is of the opinion that action research is undertaken for the sake of taking action. As this reference shows, the APA style requires you to only use the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication of this article. On the other hand, a within-text reference in APA style in which the author refers to multiple references is as follows: In qualitative research, the researcher analyses data concurrently with the data collection process (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Creswell, 2005; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Note that when citing multiple references, semicolons are used to separate the different sources. The authors must be listed in alphabetical order rather than chronological order based on the date of publication. If you have multiple authors, you only mention all the authors the first time you cite the work, for example, Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson & Tatham (2006) defines factor analysis as an interdependence technique whose primary purpose is to define the underlying structure among the variables in the analysis. In subsequent citations, you only mention these individuals by the first author and followed by an et al., for example, The general purpose of factor analytic techniques is to find a way to condense or summarise the information contained in a number of original variables into a smaller set of new, composite dimensions or variates (factors) with a minimum loss of information (Hair et al., 2006). Good scholarly writing requires that authors cite original sources, i.e. sources where the information came from originally rather than from a book or secondary sources that contains the reference. As an example of an inadequate model, Goh (2006), as reported in George & Kwong (2002), said that An improved model would be, using the original source, as follows: Goh (2006) said that

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iii. Levels of headings When writing your literature review, always create suitable levels of headings related to your study. These levels of headings provide clues to your reader to help them understand your study better. In APA style, the maximum number of levels of headings is 5 (see Figure 9). However, in educational research, most have only 2 or 3 levels of headings. The choice of levels would depend on the number of sub-divisions of topics you use.

CENTRED UPPERCASE HEADING (Level 5) Centred Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Level 1) Centred, Italicised, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Level 2) Flush left, Italicised, Uppercase and Lowercase Side Heading (Level 3) Indented, italicised, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period. (Level 4) Figure 9: Headings in APA 5th Edition Style When you have only two levels in a review of literature, then use Levels 1 and 3. The levels are not consecutive (i.e. Level 1, 2) when using only 2 levels. For example, a 2-level heading in APA style uses first (centred, uppercase and lowercase) and third levels (flush left, italicised, upper and lowercase such as: Review of Literature (Level 1) Introduction (Level 3) The Malaysian Smart Schools (Level 3) If you have 3 levels in your research, use Level 1 (centred uppercase and lowercase), 3 (flush left, italicised, uppercase and lowercase), and 4 (indented, italicised, first word uppercase, all other words lowercase, ending with period, the first sentence continues on right after the period). Again the levels are not consecutive (e.g. 1, 2, 3). An example of a 3-level heading in APA style is as follows: Review of Literature (Level 1) Introduction (Level 3) The Malaysian Smart Schools. The Malaysian smart schools refer to the 87 secondary schools Usually you will find Level 5 (centred and uppercase) in titles to research studies, regardless of the levels of headings in the study. In short, headings should be short typically two to five words and state exactly and succinctly the content of the passage that follows.

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7.2 Writing Strategies When writing literature review, you need to know 3 things: i. Extent of the review ii. Types of literature reviews and iii. Concluding statement of the review. i. Extent of the review You may ponder this question, How long should my literature review be? To answer this question, youll have to consider the type of research report youre writing. For dissertation and theses, you need an extensive review of literature which comprehensively covers all sources of information. For research proposals, a less than comprehensive literature would suffice. The literature review for a study establishes the framework for a study and documents of importance of the research problem. According to Creswell (2005), literature reviews for proposals run from 10 to 30 pages in length although this can vary. For a proposal review of literature in educational studies, it would be excellent if one could cite from databases such as ERIC, PsycINFO and Sociofile all these are available in Ebscohost. Another question a researcher may ask is, How far back in the literature do my references need to go?. When writing a dissertation or thesis, the search covers most published literature and the author examines sources back to the inception of the research topic. For research proposals and journal articles, use as a rough guide the last 10 years, focusing on the recent studies. However, if you have classical studies, you should cite them no matter how long they have been published particularly if these studies influence subsequent line of thought. ii. Types of Literature Reviews There are basically two types of literature review one may undertake. These are: i. Thematic review and ii. Study-by-study review. In the thematic review of literature, the researcher identifies a theme and briefly cites literature to document this theme. The writer discusses only the major ideas or results from studies rather than the detail of any single study. Writers use this approach frequently in journal articles. However, students also use this approach for dissertations and theses in postgraduate studies. You can identify this form by locating a theme and noting the references to the literature used to support the theme. The following passage illustrates a thematic approach. While experts do differ in their views on methodological issues of action research, there are several commonalities in terms of definitions of what constitute action research, such as it a systematic process in which teachers collect evidence and make decisions (Gay & Airasian, 2000), a self-reflective study involving teachers, students and principals (Carl & Kemmis, 1986) and an outcome-based model (Soon, 2006). In the above example, the writer reviews literature about the theme action research and briefly mentions the references to support the theme. The writer does not discuss each reference separately and in detail.

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On the other hand, the study-by-study review of literature provides a detailed summary of each study grouped under a broad theme. This detailed summary includes the elements of a study. When presenting this type of literature review, the writer should link summaries by using transitional sentences and organise the summaries under subheadings that reflect themes and major divisions identified via the literature mapping technique. The example below shows the study-by-study review on the racial identify model (extracted from Creswell, 2005, p. 110). Brown, Parham, and Yonker (1996) employed the White Racial Identify Scale to measure change in the white racial identity of thirty-five white graduate students who participated in a sixteen-week multicultural course. Eighty percent of the participants had previous multicultural training and most of them had had experiences with people from at least two different racial backgrounds, though the nature of these experiences is not defined. The authors designed the course on three areas acquisition of selfknowledge, cultural knowledge, and cross-cultural skills and they used a variety of teaching methods such as lectures, talks by guest speakers, and simulations. Results indicated that at the end of the course women endorsed more items than men did in the pseudo-independence stage on the White Racial Identity Scale, and men endorsed more items than women did in the autonomy stage. The authors draw a causal relationship between the course and those changes found in the group. Neville, Heppner, Louie, and Thompson (1996) also examined the change in White racial identity as well . (p.8) In the above example, the writer first described the study by Brown, Parham, and Yonker in some detail and then described the study by Neville, Heppner, Louie, and Thompson. In this way they described one study at a time, provided a description of the problem, an implied question (whether men and women differ on the scale), the data collection (i.e. 35 participants) and a summary of the results (men and women endorse the items differently). iii. Concluding statement of the review How do you end a literature review in a study? The concluding statement should summarise the major themes found in the literature and provides a rationale for the need for your study or the importance of the research problem. To summarise the major themes, you have to ask yourself, What are the major results and findings from all the studies I have reviewed? Your answer to this question will result in the identification of 3 or 4 themes that summarise the literature. Then briefly summarise each theme. Besides stating the major themes in a review, you also need to suggest why the current literature is deficient and why you need additional research on your topic. These reasons address ways the proposed study will add to knowledge and they justify the importance of the research problem. The following example of the concluding statement is extracted from Creswell (2005). The factors influencing faculty to be productive researchers found in the literature suggest three themes: early productivity (Did faculty begin

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publishing early in their careers?); mentoring (Did faculty apprentice under a distinguished researcher?); and support systems (Did faculty have adequate funding of their research?). These factors, although important, do not address the time faculty need to conduct research. When the faculty has allotted time for scientific investigations and inquiries, it helps to focus their attention, offers sustained momentum for research, and removes distracting activities that may draw their attention away from research. In the above example, the writer states three themes, and from these themes, identifies an area for future research: faculty time. Then, the author identifies three reasons for the importance of the study of faculty time. iv. Writing guidelines (after Gay & Airasian, 2000)

Gay & Airasian (2000) suggest the following guidelines when writing literature review: a. Document facts and substantiate opinions. Cite references to support your facts and opinions. Note that facts are usually based on empirical data while opinions are not. In the hierarchy of persuasiveness, facts are more persuasive than opinions. Differentiate between facts and opinions in the review. b. Technical writing is precise, so clarity of definitions and consistency in the use of terms is required. c. The review should be logically organised and aimed at a particular audience. Usually the review is aimed at a relatively nave reader, one who has some basic understanding of the topic but requires additional education to understand the topic or issue being studied. Do not assume your audience knows as much as you do about the topic and literature! They dont, so you have to write to educate them. d. Technical writing is usually done using an accepted manual of style. The manual of style indicates the style in which chapter headings are set up, how tables must be constructed, how footnotes and bibliographies must be prepared, and the like. Follow the manual consistently. e. Evade affected verbiage and eschew obscuration of the obvious. Limit big words; avoid jargon. f. Start each major section of the review with an introduction that provides a brief overview of the section. In this section, three main issues are examined. The first is This is also useful advice for introducing chapters in the report. g. End major sections or chapters with a summary that indicates the main ideas, findings or points. In addition to the above, the review of literature must include all citations which will be discussed in subsequent chapters such as in Chapter 4: Findings and Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations. In Chapter 5 you may want to relate your findings with

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what other researchers had discovered such as discussing the similarities and differences. In this case, you should already have discussed what others have discovered in your review before you dwell into the comparisons. 6. Conclusion Although quantitative and qualitative researchers must write a chapter on literature review the quantitative researcher writes a review prior to the actual study. On the other hand, the qualitative researcher may not do a literature review until their research is well under way. This is to avoid biasing their perceptions as a result of too early immersion in the topics related literature. Ultimately, what is more important is that the literature review must be systematic bearing in mind the relevance and completeness of the review. By completeness this means not overlooking at the most pertinent issues at hand.

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Gay, L.R. & Airasian, P. (2000). Educational Research: Competencies for analysis and applications. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Good, C.V. (Ed.). (1973). Dictionary of education (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Hair, J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis. (6th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Hovater, S. E. (2000). Preparing culturally responsive teachers through preservice teaching programs. Unpublished manuscript, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In John W. Creswell, (2005). Educational Research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Houston, J.E. (Ed.).(1998). Thesaurus of ERIC descriptors (14th ed.). Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. Husen, T. & Postlethwaite, T.N. (Eds.). (1994). The international encyclopedia of education (2nd ed.). New York: Pergamon Press. Johnson, B. & Christensen, L. (2000). Educational Research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Miles, M.B, & Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. 2nd Ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. OBrien, N.P. & Fabiano, E. (1991). Core list of books and journals in education. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. Page, G.T., Thomas, J.B., & Marshall, A.R. (1980). International dictionary of education. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Soon Seng Thah. (2003). Indicators that contribute towards the achievement of science in smart schools. Paper presented at the 10th National Seminar on Educational Research, Hotel Eden Garden, Johor Bahru, 29 September 2 October 2003. Spafford, C.S., Pesce, A.J., & Grosser, G.S. (1980). The cyclopedic education dictionary. Albany, NY: Delmar. Tuckman, B.W. (1999). Conducting educational research. 5th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Turabian, K.L. (1996). A manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations (4th. Ed). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Walberg, H.J. & Haertel, G.D. (Eds.).(1990). The international encyclopedia of educational evaluation. Emsford, NY: Pergamon Press.

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