SUB-MODULE 3

ESTABLISHING THE THEORETICAL AND

EMPIRICAL BASIS OF THE RESEARCH
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of the session, the learner should be able to:
1. Identify the uses of the review of related literature in research;
2. Describe the steps involved in conducting a review of related
literature
3. Discuss important guidelines to be remembered in conducting
and writing-up the results of the review of related literature;
4. Describe how to formulate the conceptual framework for the
research he/she wishes to undertake
 1. WHAT IS A REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE?

• It is a survey of scholarly materials (journal articles,

books, thesis and dissertations, conference proceedings,
reports, etc.) relevant to the area of research being
proposed

• It provides a concise description and critical evaluation of

work which has already been done on the research area
of interest
 1.1 QUESTIONS WHICH ARE ANSWERED IN THE
LITERATURE REVIEW
• What is already known about the research area being proposed?
• What are the existing theories related to this research area?
• What are the known characteristics of, and relationships among the
main factors or variables related to the proposed research area?
• What research designs or methods were used and which of these seem
unsatisfactory?
• What and where are the inconsistencies or other shortcomings in our
current knowledge and understanding of the proposed research area?
• What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradictory or too limited?
• What views need to be further studied or tested?
• Why is there a need to study further the research problem?
• What contribution can the present study be expected to make?
 1.2 USES OF THE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
1. Provides background information about previous studies conducted
 Who has done previous work in the research area considered?
 What important ideas, theories, questions and hypotheses have
already been investigated and tested?
 What research methods (design, variable definition, instrumentation,
etc.) were utilized?
 What problems were met and how were they resolved?
2. Helps the researcher in:
 determining if the proposed research is actually needed
 narrowing down or refining the topic and research objectives initially
formulated
 generating hypothesis or questions to be studied further
 1.2 USES OF THE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
3. Guides the researcher in the development of the conceptual framework for
the research
 Identification of relevant variables
 Direction/nature of the relationship between relevant variables
4. Provides values of important parameters needed in formulating the design
for the proposed research
 anticipated values of, and variances of important parameters to be
estimated which are needed for sample size determination
 non-response rates
5. Provides comparative data which the researcher can refer to later in the
discussion of results and conclusions of the study
 1.3 STEPS IN CONDUCTING A LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Formulate the research problem and objectives
• The research problem and objectives determines the coverage of
the literature review
2. Conduct the literature search
• Search across multiple databases and information resources
using various search engines (ex., HERDIN, Medline, PubMed,
Google Scholar, etc.)
3. Read the literature side by side with the search process
• What you read will guide your subsequent searches and refine
your topic, ending up with a circular process for steps 1,2,and 3
4. Note down important questions, issues, hypotheses which were
mentioned by the literature reviewed or which came to your mind as
you read them.
• These questions, issues, hypothesis can be used later in your
research, when you discuss the implications of your findings and
recommend new research directions supported or suggested by
your findings
 1.3 STEPS IN CONDUCTING A LITERATURE REVIEW
5. Keep a record (what, where, when) of the literature reviewed
• It is better to record too many references initially than to spend and waste the
time later to relocate or search for documents earlier reviewed
• Can use a citation manager software (ex., Zotero, EndNote, RefWorks, etc)
Most frustrating and time-consuming question to address related to steps 4 and 5:
“Saan ko nga ba nabasa yon?”
6. Organize, analyze and evaluate the literature reviewed
• Take notes as you read each document, recording the following information:
 purpose/objectives of the study
 summary of content
 Research design/methods used in the study
 Important findings
• Organize results into common themes. This can be done by using index cards
or presenting them in tabular form
• Integrate/synthesize findings
 1.3 STEPS IN CONDUCTING A LITERATURE REVIEW
7. Prepare a write-up of the literature review
• The write-up can consist of several sub-sections, with previous
studies organized according to common themes (ex., magnitude of
the problem; factors related to the problem: etc.)
8. Create the bibliography or the list of references, whichever is needed
• Reference lists (in MLA style called “lists of works cited”) contain a
complete list of all the sources (books, journal articles, websites,
etc.) that have been cited directly in a document. That means that if
there are in-text citations for a source, there is a reference list entry,
and vice versa.
• Bibliographies, on the other hand, contain all sources that have been
used, whether they are directly cited or not. A bibliography includes
sources that were used to generate ideas or „read around‟ a topic,
but were not referred to directly in the body of the document.
 1.4 OUTLINE OF THE WRITE-UP ON THE REVIEW OF
RELATED LITERATURE (RRL)
1. Introduction
• Describes the content (what is chapter is about?), structure (how is the
chapter organized?) and scope (What are the boundaries?) of the RRL
2. Body of the literature review
2.1 Presentation
• What has been done before?
2.2 Discussion and evaluation
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the previous studies?
• What are common areas of agreements and disagreements?
2.3 Summary and relationship of findings to proposed research
3. Conclusion
• Summary and highlights of most important points from various sub-
sections
• Relate/connect findings to current research being proposed
 1.5 IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT THE
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE:
a. The literature to be reviewed must not only be related to the topic of the research,
but more so, on the specific objectives actually covered
b. There are no hard-set rules regarding the number of literature to be included in the
RRL, how old or new are the materials to be covered, or the proportion of local
compared to international studies to be presented. These are all dependent on the
topic of the research and how well it has been studied locally and abroad.
c. It is important to ensure the accuracy of the information you presented in your RRL
(ex., correct bibliographic citation; attributing findings to the correct authors etc.)
The bibliographic citation should be complete enough to enable a reader to track
down the article if they wish to do so
d. If the research being proposed is pioneering, and no previous studies have been
done in the area, this has to be mentioned in the review of related literature to
provide additional basis/justification for the conduct of the proposed research.
 2. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
• The conceptual framework is a written or a visual presentation which explains
graphically, in narrative form, or both, the main variables being studied in the
proposed research
• It serves as:
 An organizing framework for descriptive studies
 A representation of how the different variables are inter-related to each
other in analytic studies
• In the research process, the development of the conceptual framework is done
after the review of related literature, and before the formulation of the research
objectives
• There must be consistency between the conceptual framework presented and
the research objectives to be investigated
 2.1 INPUTS NEEDED IN DEVELOPING THE
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

 Experiential knowledge of the researcher

o Technical knowledge
o Research background.
o Personal experience.

 Literature review:
o Prior „related‟ theory – concepts and relationships that are used to represent
the world, what is happening and why

o Prior „related‟ research – how people have tackled „similar‟ problems and
what they have learned

o Other theory and research - approaches, lines of investigation and theory that
are not obviously relevant/previously used.
2.2 CONVENTIONS/USUAL PRACTICES IN DEVELOPING
THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
• In building the framework:
 Start with the dependent /outcome variable or endpoint for
intervention

 Identify potential independent variables deemed to affect the

dependent/outcome variable based on empirical or theoretical
evidence

 Identify intervening, confounding , antecedent or mediating

variables whose effects may alter the relationship between the
dependent and independent variable
2.2 CONVENTIONS/USUAL PRACTICES IN DEVELOPING
THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

• Variables are presented in boxes while relationships are

represented by arrows

• Logical presentation of concepts is from left-to-right or top-to-

bottom

• Concepts are labelled briefly and concisely

 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
EXAMPLE 1: EFFECT OF PROGRAM EXPOSURE ON PRACTICE

KNOWLEDGE

CONFOUNDING
VARIABLES PROGRAM
(Ex. Socio-
economic EXPOSURE
status, PRACTICE
education, sex,
age, etc) ATTITUDES
EXAMPLE 2: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR A RESEARCH ON
NUTRITION EDUCATION FOR MOTHERS OF PRESCHOOLERS

INPUT ACTIVITIES OUTPUT OUTCOME IMPACT

• No. of IEC • Number of • Number of • Change in • Change in
Materials nutrition
mothers mothers’ the
printed on education knowledge, prevalence
child feeding classes on trained on
attitudes and of
• No. of trained child feeding proper practices on malnutrition
health conducted for child child feeding among pre-
workers mothers feeding schoolers
assigned to
conduct
nutrition
education
classes for
mothers