Bauko Catholic School

Practical Research 1
Hand out # 3
Background of the Study
-Explains the area of the research to set context for the issues/problem at hand;
-Shows the current information regarding the issues/problem, previous studies, and its relevant history; and
-Tries to build on gaps in literature that has led to your study.
Background of the Problem/Study should contain, Comprehensive discussion of the
(a.) nature,
(b.) extent and
(c.) salient features of the identified problem or issue
(d.) Elaboration of the different aspects of the research setting showing in depth and critical analysis of the
situation
Needed Supports:
1.Literature/Previous Studies
2.National and Local Publications
3.Local/International Trends
4.Numerical Data (Graphs/Tables)

Considerations BEFORE WRITING:

a. “What do I want to inform the reader?”
b. “What are the conditions, settings, and situations with respect to the topic and who are directly and
indirectly involved?”
c. “Why should readers pay attention to the topic, why should they are about the topic, and why is there a
need to focus on the topic?”
d. “Have I reviewed the literature, do I have the basic knowledge of the study and do I know the key issues
surrounding your study?”

Considerations during ACTUAL WRITING:

1.“How this problem started? What are causes and factors affecting this problem?”
2. The opening paragraph features the general information of the problem, the explanation how things should
be happening then present the reasons why things are happening.
3. It should justify the presence of gap between what is expected and what is in the context
4. It should provide context to the information discussed throughout the research paper. Background
information may include both important and relevant studies either it supports or refutes the study.
5. In stating the context of the problem, there are some helpful phrases suggested here:
“It is known that….”;
“Researchers have demonstrated…”;
“Debate exist about….”;
and “….is controversial because…”.

Problem Statement
-gives an overview of the research.
-This provide the direction and overall picture of what a researcher aims to achieve.

Writing Problem Statement

1. TPOTS( The purpose of the study is…….)
2. Verb( What are you going to do)
- identify, describe, compare, evaluate, determine the cause etc.
3. Key word/ phrases
-Who are you going to researched
- What is going to be researched?
Example:
The purpose of the study is to determine the performance level of an individual for the selected freshmen
students of Mountain province State Polytechnic College Tadian Campus for the School Year 2012-2013 in
solving word problems in algebra.

Research Question
-Are also called sub-problems
-It identifies or directs you to the exact aspect of the problem that your study has to focus on.
-Aims at investigating specific aspect of the research problem.

Guides in writing Research question

1.Divide the problem statement by topics or issue
2.Divide the problem statement by groups of people

Example:
The purpose of the study is to determine the performance level of an individual for the selected freshmen
students of Mountain Province State Polytechnic College Tadian Campus for the School Year 2012-2013 in
solving word problems in algebra.

Specifically it seeks answer to the ff. question

1. What are the twenty selected and validated word problems in algebra?
2. What is the level of performance of an individual for the selected freshmen students from MPSPC Tadian
Campus during the SY 2012-2013 in solving word problems in algebra?
3. What is the level of performance of individual for the selected freshmen students in solving word problems
in algebra according to department?

Review of Related Literature/literature Review

-Is the process of studying what has already been written on a particular topic.
-It is an analysis of man’s written or spoken knowledge of the world. You examine representation on man’s
thinking about the world to determine the connection of your research with what people already know about
it.
Purpose of Review of Related Literature
1. To obtain background of your research
2. To relate your study to the current condition or situation of the world
3. To show the capacity of your research work to introduce new knowledge
4. To expand prove or disapprove the findings of previous research studies
5. To increase the understanding of the underlying theories principles or concepts of your research
6. To explain technical terms involve in your research study
7. To highlight the significance of your work with the kind of evidence it gathers to support the conclusion of
your research.
8. To avoid repeating previous studies
9. To recommend the necessity of further research on a certain topic.
Style or Approach of RRL
1. Traditional review of Literature
- To do a review of literature in a traditional way is to summarize present forms of knowledge on a specific
subject.
- Your aim here is to give an expanded or new understanding of existing work.
Traditional review is of a different type
a. Conceptual Review
- Analysis of concepts or ideas to give meaning to some national or world issues.
B. Critical Review
- focuses on theories or hypotheses and examines the meaning and results of their application to
situations
C. State of the Art Review
- make the researcher deals with the latest research studies on the subject
D. Expert Review
-Encourage a well-known expert to the RRL because of the influence of a certain ideology, paradigm, or
belief on him/her
E. Scoping Review
- prepares a situation for future research work in the form of a project making about community
development, government policies, and health services among others.
2. Systematic review of literature
-As indicated it is systematic which means methodical
-A style of RRL that involves the sequential act of review of related literature
Steps:
a. Have a clear understanding of the research questions.
- The research question tells you what to collect and where to obtain the data you want to collect.
b. Plan your manner of obtaining data
c. Do a literature search.
d. Determine which data, studies, or sources of knowledge are valuable
e. Determine the methodological soundness of the research studies.
f. Summarize what you have gathered from various sources of data.
Standard Traditional Systematic

Purpose To have a thorough and clear understanding To meet a certain objective, based on
of the field. a specific research question
Scope Comprehensive, wide, pictures Restricted focus
Review Design An indefinite plan, permits creative and Viewable process and paper trail
exploratory plan
Choice of Purposeful selection by the reviewer Prepared standards for studies
studies selection
Nature of Inquiry based technique Involving several With a thorough search for all studies
studies studies
Quality Reviewers view Assessment checklists
appraisal
Summary Traditional Graphical and short summary answer.
The Process of Review of Related Literature
Stage 1: Search for the Literature
Looking for sources of knowledge, data, or information to answer your research question or support your
assumption about your research topic.

3 basic types of Literature sources

1. General Reference- direct you to the location of another source
2 . Primary sources -that directly report or present a person’s own experience
3. Secondary source- report or describe other people’s experiences or world views
* Secondary sources of knowledge gives the most number of materials such as the internet, books, peer-
reviewed article in a journal, published literary reviews of a field, theses, dissertation, conference proceedings,
leaflets and poster, research study in progress, and other library material

Tips on how to select materials for literature review

1. Material should be relevant or related to the topic or problem that you are studying.
2. The materials should be recent as possible. However, old materials that are pioneers in the topic may
sometimes be included.
3. Gather materials from varied sources such as previous studies, journals, books, and magazines. Additionally,
you may take advantage of the information available online; however, you must be extra careful when using
online sources. Make sure that you use credible websites. (For some tips on how to identify credible websites,
you may go to
https://uknowit.uwgb.edu/page.php?id=30726

Stage 2. Reading the Source Material

-You can only benefit much from your reading activities if you confront the reading materials with the help of
your Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). On top of these, you should have the ability to criticize or evaluate,
apply and create things about what you have read. Hence reading or making sense of the source materials
does not only make you list down ideas from the materials but also permits you to modify, construct or
reconstruct ideas based on a certain principle theory, pattern method, or theme underlying your research.

Stage 3. Writing the Review

- You do a great deal of idea connection and organization to form an overall understanding of the source by
paraphrasing or summarizing it.
- In doing either of these two, you get to change the arrangement of these ideas, and structure of the
language and format of the text using appropriate organizational techniques of comparison- contrast,
chronological order, spatial relationship, inductive-deductive order, and transitional device.
- Also make effective changes not only to language structure and format but also to the quality of ideas
incorporated into the summary or the paraphrase as well.
- This means that in writing the review base on the focus, theme, or theory underlying your research, you are
free to fuse your opinions with the author’s ideas. (Corti 2014)

*One cardinal principle in research is acknowledging or recognizing the owners of any form of knowledge you
tend to include in your research paper. Doing this practice signals not just honesty and courtesy to learned
people whose ideas lend information to your paper but also indicates your appreciation for their contribution
to the field (Hammersely 2013)

Ways on how to express your appreciation or recognition of people’s ownership of borrowed ideas (Sharp
2012)
1. Acknowledgement
- The beginning portion of the work that identifies individuals who have contributed something to the
production of the paper.
2. References or Bibliography
- a complete list of all reading materials including books, journals, periodicals, etc. from where the
borrowed ideas come from.
3. Citation or In-text Citation
- References within the main body of the text specifically in the review of related literature

Patterns/Ways of doing Citation

1. Summary
- The citation is a shortened version of the original text that is expressed in your own language
- Making the text short, you have to pick out only the most important ideas or aspects of the text
2. Paraphrase
- This is the antithesis of the first one because here instead of shortening the form of text, you explain
what the text means to you using your own words.
3. Short direct quotation
- only part of the author’s sentence, whole sentence, or several sentences not exceeding to forty words is
what you can quote or repeat in writing through this citation pattern.
Note: Since this makes you copy the exact words of the writer it is necessary that you give the page where the
readers can find the copied words.
Ex.
Contexts are influenced by these four factors: “language, culture, institution, and Ideologies.” (Aranda, 2015,
p.8)
4. Long Direct Quotation or Block Quotation or Extract
-Citation patterns that make you copy the author’s exact words numbering from 40-100. Under the APA, the
limit is eight lines, placed at the center of the page with no indention, the copied lines look like a composed
stanza of a poem.
Example:
The latest study by (Hizon, 2015) reveals the social nature of language. Stressing this nature of language
he says;

Language features result from the way people use language to meet their
social needs. In their interactions, they use language to describe, compare
agree, explain, disagree and so on. Each language function requires a certain
set of language feature like nouns for naming, adjectives for comparing, verbs
for agreeing, preposition for directing and conjunction for connecting ideas.(p.38)

5. Tense of verbs for reporting

- Active words are effective words to use in reporting author’s ideas. Present their ideas in any present,
simple past, or present perfect tense.
- APA system however, prefers the use of present perfect tense.
Ex.
Present tense: Marcos explains
Past tense: Marcos explained
Present perfect tense- Marcos has explained

Purpose of Citation
1. To give importance and respect to other people for what they know about the field.
2. To give authority, validity and credibility to other people’s claims, conclusion and arguments.
3. To prove your broad and extensive reading of authentic and relevant materials about your topic.
4. To help readers find or contact the source of ideas easily.
5. To permit readers to check the accuracy of your work
6. To save yourself from plagiarism.

Styles of Citation
1. Integral Citation
- This is one way of citing or referring to the author’s metal ideas appears in your work.
- Claim, asserts, state are some common verbs used in expressing the author’s mental position, attitude,
stand or opinion.

2 most commonly used Integral Citation

a. American Psychological Association (APA)
- Commonly used within social sciences discipline
- follows the author date system of citation (last name of the author and the date of publication of work
appear in the text)
Ex.
( Avilla 2009)

* Complete bibliographic information should appear in the “reference list” page

Note: in APA citation style, the page number is used only if you are directly quoting the material, or making
reference to an entire book, article or other works.
Guidelines in Using APA Citation
1, Work by a single author
-The last name of the author and the year of publication are placed in the text when the name of author is
part of the narrative, only the date is placed in the parentheses. When both information are in the
parentheses, the year is separated from the surname with a comma
Ex.
Santos (2014) asserted that education alleviates poverty
….education alleviates poverty (Santos, 2014)
2. Work by two authors
Name of both author in the signal phrase or in the parentheses each time you cite the work.
-Use the word “and” between the authors name within the text and use the ampersand in the parentheses
Ex.
Santos and Reyes (2014) explained that…..
…..as explained (Santos & Reyes, 2014)

3. Work by Three to Five Authors

-List all the authors in the signal phrase or parentheses the first time you cite the source, used the word “and”
between the author’s names within the text and use the ampersand in the parentheses.
Ex.
David, Garcia and Isabelo (2014)
(David, Garcia, & Isabelo, 2014)
Note: in the subsequent citations, only used the first author’s last name followed by “et al.” in the signal
phrase or in the parentheses.
Ex.
(David et al., 2014)
4. Six or more author
- use the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in the signal phrase or parentheses
Ex.
David et al.(2014) argued……
(David et al., 2014)

5. Unknown Author
- if the work does not have an author, cite the source by its title in the signal phrase
- Titles of books and reports are italicized or underlined
- Titles of articles, chapters and web page are in quotation mark
Ex.
A similar study was done of students learning format research papers “Using APA,”
2001)
Note: In the rare case the “Anonymous” is used for the author, treat it as the authors name (Ex. Anonymous,
2001). In the reference list use the name “Anonymous as the author.

6. Organization as the Author

If the author is an organization or a government agency, mention the organization in the signal phrase or in
the parenthetical citation the first time you cite the source.
Ex.
First citation: According to the National Institute of Chemistry (2013)…..
….. (National Institute of Chemistry, 2013)
Second Citation: (NIC, 2013)
B. Modern Language Association (MLA)
-commonly used with in the liberal arts and humanities discipline
-MLA format follows the author- page method of in-text citation (instead of the author’s surname and date of
publication, this style uses the authors last name and the page numbers from which the quotation and
paraphrase in the citation was lifted and the complete bibliographic information appears on the “work cited
page”
-The authors name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses the quotation or the paraphrase,
but page numbers should always appear in the parentheses not in the text of your sentence

1. Author’s name in text

Palomar emphasize that (20-21)
2. Author’s name in parentheses
This is given an emphasis (Palomar 20-21)
3. Multiple Authors:
This formula (Avilla and Santos 9) proved
….. To be tested (Garcia and Reyes 24)
4. Organization as Author
(National Institute of Chemistry, 40-42)