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Raising a new Generation of Leaders

ECN 416: Applied Statistics

Department of Economics and Development Studies

Module Six: Basic Elements of Undergraduate Research Project

(Part 1- Introduction and Literature Review)
Lecturer: Dr. Henry Okodua
 Outline Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Meaning of Research
• Selecting a good Research Topic and Title
• Defining the Statement of Research Problem
• Potential of the Research Problem - Evaluation criteria
• What is a Research Question?
• Review of the Related Literature
• Some Guidelines for Literature Review
• Locating Available Literature
• Gap Spotting in Literature Review
• Acknowledgement

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 Meaning of Research Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Research simply means going beyond personal experiences,

thoughts, feelings and opinions in conducting an investigation
so as to discover something new.
• Research is undertaken to achieve at least, one of the
following:
• Explore an idea
• Probe an issue
• Solve a problem
• Make an argument that compels us to turn to outside help

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 Meaning of Research (cont.) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Research could be primary or secondary

• Primary research involves the study of a subject through
first hand observation and investigation
• Primary sources of information include statistical data,
historical data, works or arts, etc.
• Secondary research involves the examination of studies
of other researchers,
• Secondary sources of information include books, journal
articles, scientific debates, literary works, etc.
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 Meaning of Research (cont.) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Research can either be descriptive or experimental in broad terms.

• Descriptive research relies on observation as a means of collecting
data
• It attempts to examine situations in order to establish what is the
normal or trend. That is, what can be predicted to happen again
under similar circumstances
• Observations are written down or recorded in some way in order to
be subsequently analysed
• In experimental research, researchers try to isolate and control
every relevant condition which determines the event being
investigated so as to observe the effects when the conditions are
manipulated

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 Selecting a good Research Topic and Title Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Selecting a research topic implies deciding on the

general area of study or investigation
• The general area of study should be motivated by
some criteria that include:
• Area must Sustain the student’s interest & stimulate
his or her imagination
• Area must be within the student’s range of
competencies
• Area must be manageable in size
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 Selecting a good Research Topic and Title Covenant University Executive Advance

(cont.)
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Area should have potential to make a contribution to

body of knowledge
• Must be based on available and obtainable data
• Simple enough to allow the student to demonstrate his
or her independent mastery of both the subject and
method
• From your selected topic of study, pinpoint a particular
area of needed research related to your topic
• It is this particular area of needed research that
becomes your working title for the research
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 Defining the Statement of Research Problem Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• A research problem is the main issue you would like to address,

investigate, or study, whether descriptively or experimentally.
• It is the focus or reason for engaging in your research.
• It is typically a topic, phenomenon, or challenge that you are inter-
ested in and with which you are at least somewhat familiar.
• Without adequately defining the problem, researchers may find
themselves going off on a “goose chase” to tackle a vague
phenomenon, trying to deal with symptoms rather than root causes,
and wasting time, becoming frustrated, or even making the actual
problem worse.

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 Defining the Statement of Research Problem (cont.)
Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• It is usually very helpful to narrow down the main

issue of interest by thinking about the kind of
information that the researcher wants to find out.
• In other words, a topic has to be specific enough to
be clearly defined and yield helpful results from a
later literature search.
• A research problem that is correctly defined makes
the student better prepared to write good research
questions.

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 Potential of the Research Problem - Covenant University Executive Advance

Evaluation criteria
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Will findings make a contribution to body of

knowledge?
• Will findings make a difference for others?
• Will findings lead to definition of new problems
or other research?
• Is the problem really researchable?

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 Potential of the Research Problem - Covenant University Executive Advance

Evaluation criteria (cont.)

2016-2017 Academic Session

• Does the researcher have adequate knowledge

and experience in the problem area?
• Is the required information or data available to
the researcher?
• Can the study be completed in the allotted time
frame?
• Is the problem simple enough for a first study?
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 What is a Research Question? Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• A research question is a way of expressing your interest in a

problem or phenomenon.
• Research questions are not necessarily an attempt to answer
the many philosophical questions that often arise in schools,
and
• They are certainly not intended to be an avenue for grinding
personal axes regarding classroom or school issues.
• A researcher may have more than one research question for a
study, depending on the complexity and breadth of the
proposed work.

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 What is a Research Question? Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Each question should be clear and specific, refer to the

problem or phenomenon, reflect an intervention in
experimental work, and note the target population or
participants
• Identifying a research question will provide greater
focus to your research or clarify the direction of your
investigation, whether the research is descriptive or
experimental.
• Quite significantly, a well-written research question will
also shed light on appropriate research methods.

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 Review of the Related Literature Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• It makes some sense to begin by stating what a

literature review is not.
• A literature review is not just a description of a
series of papers;
• It is not a mere catalog or annotated bibliography of
papers written on a subject.
• It is not a series of paragraphs, each recapping or
summarizing a particular paper or set of papers, in
no particular order.

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 Review of the Related Literature Covenant University Executive Advance

(Cont’d)
2016-2017 Academic Session

• A good literature review is an account of previous research

that is carefully constructed to tell a particular story.
• The story is usually this:
• Here is what previous researchers have done on my subject;
• Here are the things I consider beautiful about that research;
• Here is something unsatisfactory or incomplete or troubling
about that research;
• Here is how I am going to redress what is unsatisfactory or
incomplete or troubling about that research.

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 Review of the Related Literature Covenant University Executive Advance

(Cont’d)
2016-2017 Academic Session

• To put it differently, a literature review is a story

hinging on a however or an although (or any
other equivalent word),
• Whether explicitly stated or not;
• It is a discussion that “turns” on a word or
observation that signals to the reader a
problem and a solution to the problem.
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 Review of the Related Literature Covenant University Executive Advance

(Cont’d)
2016-2017 Academic Session

• The literature review sets out the issues that

motivate your paper
• It demonstrates your familiarity with what
others have written on the topic.
• The reviews usually proceed chronologically or
thematically.

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 Review of the Related Literature Covenant University Executive Advance

(Cont’d)
2016-2017 Academic Session

• A review should do at least four things.

• First, it should analyze critically, and organize, a
body of research.
• Second, it should put your own study in the context
of other studies.
• Third, your review should highlight your study’s
contribution.
• And fourth, it establishes you scholarly “bona fides”
by showing you have done your homework.
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 Some Guidelines for Literature Review. Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Begin with comments about the body of research as a whole.

• This should be your assessment of the literature as a whole.
• Have there been many studies, or few studies?
• Do the studies focus on methodological issues, or data issues, or
some other issue?
• Have the studies been mostly empirical, or theoretical, or both?
• Have they focused on a similar set of questions?
• Is there a general consensus on the major issues in the literature?
• What are the landmark studies?
• Who are the leading authorities?

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 Some Guidelines for Literature Review (Cont’d)
Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Organize your review according to themes (data,

methodology, results, etc).
• Begin paragraphs with a sentence that puts in
explicit context what follows.
• Explain the merits, and the shortcomings, of the
existing studies.
• Explain how your study will make a contribution.

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 Locating Available Literature Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• The number of scholarly articles written on economics is

large and is growing larger by the year.
• Many students begin researching a topic in economics
by searching Google Scholar or some other general
electronic database.
• There is nothing wrong with that method if one has an
understanding of the research on the topic as a whole:
• An understanding of who the leading authorities are,
what the important issues have been, how research on
the topic has evolved.
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 Locating Available Literature (Cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Unfortunately, very few students/inexperienced researchers

have such an understanding
• A search of the electronic bibliographic database, EconLit is
advisable instead
• But the number of articles is not the only source of grief a
novice researcher will face;
• There is also the task of identifying which articles are really
important—that is, which articles are by leading authorities
and published in the leading journals
• And the articles that are of secondary or even tertiary
significance
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 Locating Available Literature (Cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• In short, a young researcher is bound to encounter an

overwhelming amount of materials with little knowledge
or experience to help him sort through it.
• If that’s the case, narrowing or refining one’s topic helps
a lot.
• In economics, there are four common dimensions along
which to narrow a topic:
• Time period, demographic group, geographic region,
and event or policy action.
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 Locating Available Literature (Cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• But even if refining a topic significantly reduces the number of

potentially relevant articles on the subject, there is still the challenge
mentioned at the outset:
• The challenge of understanding the body of literature as a whole.
• Who are the leading authorities and what are the leading journals
that deal with the subject?
• What have been the important issues and points of dispute?
• What important questions remain to be addressed?
• In what direction is research on the topic going?
• Do sufficient data and models exist?

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 Locating Available Literature (Cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Fortunately, there are resources that will help you answer

those questions.
• There are several economics encyclopedias, for example,
whose entries are often reviews of the literature;
• They outline a topic as an area of economic inquiry and
research.
• The most useful are The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
(periodically updated), and
• The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral
Sciences (also periodically updated).

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 Locating Available Literature (Cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• In addition to defining the topic, the entries often

take readers on a tour of the important articles and
point out the significant issues as they have evolved
over time.
• They usually end with a substantial bibliography.
• For longer treatments of the literature and
overviews of a topic, students should consult the
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) and the Journal
of Economic Perspectives (JEP).

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 Gap Spotting in Literature Review Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Whether it is “improving” an existing model, using

richer data, or asking a slightly different question, most
research in economics operates on the margins of an
existing body of work.
• Every good research work must strive to establish a
niche for itself.
• Establishing a niche implies gap spotting or spotting a
problem or deficiency in the current literature.
• This refers to the gap or problem or deficiency that your
study will address.
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 Gap Spotting in Literature Review (cont’d)
Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Gap spotting in the existing body of related

works necessarily requires paying special
attention to:
• The questions asked, the data used, and the
models and estimation techniques employed.
• Finding out the major issues.
• Why the subject is important.
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 Gap Spotting in Literature Review (cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• What problems previous researchers have

encountered.
• How they attempted to circumvent or minimize
them.
• What are the standard models used in the
literature?
• Are the results consistent from study to study, or are
they mixed?
• Where is more research needed?
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 Gap Spotting in Literature Review (cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• As economists become more and more familiar with a

body of literature, they begin to understand ways in
which the existing studies can be improved or
extended.
• They begin to notice opportunities to “make a
contribution” to the literature.
• A contribution can take many forms;
• The most common involve some adjustment to one or
more of the three elements just mentioned: the question,
the data, or the model and technique.
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 Gap Spotting in Literature Review (cont’d) Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• An economist may, for instance, use the same model and data
that a previous paper uses but ask a different question.
• Or s/he may use the same model and ask the same question
but test the model with different data.
• Or s/he may take the same data but test a different model,
one perhaps with different assumptions or variables.
• Or an economist may develop a theoretical model of an
economic phenomenon that differs from other models.
• There can be many more “contributions” than those
mentioned here.

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 Acknowledgement Covenant University Executive Advance
2016-2017 Academic Session

• Most of the contents of this presentation were

extracted from:
• Dudenhefer, P (2009). A Guide to Writing in
Economics. EcoTeach Center and Department of
Economics, Duke University
• Students are advised to read this material for a
deeper understanding of the topic.
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