Lecture 04 – Literature Review

MT7013 Research Methodology

2018/2019 Batch
Lecturer: W.P.W Anjalika
Maritime Transportation Management and Logistics Department

Introduction

The phrase ‘’Review of literature’ consists of two words. Review and Literature. The word
literature has conveyed different meaning from the traditional meaning. The term literature refers
to the knowledge of a particular area of investigation of any discipline which includes theoretical,
practical and methodological assessments. The term review means the assessment and organize
the knowledge of the specific area of research. The task of review of literature is highly creative
because researcher has to synthesize the available knowledge of the field in a unique way to
provide the rationale for his study.

According to W.R Brog

“The literature in any field forms the foundation upon which all future work will be built. If we
fail to build the foundation of knowledge provided by the review of literature our work is likely to
be narrow and simple and will often duplicate work that has already been done better by someone
else.

Literature review develop the theoretical foundation to your study. When you read literature, you
can identify research problem. The information obtained from books, journals needs to be sorted
out under the main themes and theories. Further you find out unanswered questions or gap.

Until you have develop theoretical foundation, you cannot effectively review literature. Literature
pertinent to your study ay deal with two types of information. (Universal and General) and it is
very specific.

Examples: If you want to study the relationship
review the literature about,
• Fertility theories
• Trends in fertility
• Factors affecting fertility
• Fertility indices and critiques of them
• Methods of controlling fertility.
between fertility and Mortality, you should
Mortality theories
Trends in Morality
Factors affecting Mortality
Fertility indices and sensitivity

Above example implies that, literature give theoretical framework and it should be a critical
review, rather than just reporting what others have done.
Need of review of literature

The purpose of literature review is three fold:

1. To survey the current state of knowledge in the area of inquiry
2. To provide guidance for study
3. To identify gaps in knowledge in that research area.

1. To survey the current state of knowledge in the area of inquiry

(a) Guide to identify a research problem
One of the early steps in planning the research work is to review research done
previously in the particular area of interest because, it is very essential for every
investigator to be up- to- date in his information about the literature, related to his
own problem already done by others. It is considered the most important pre-
requisite to actual planning and conducting the study.

(b) Avoid the replication

Literature review avoid the repetition of the study of findings to take an advantage
from similar or related literature as regards, to methodology, techniques of data
collection, procedure adopted and conclusions drawn.

2. To provide guidance for study

1. It provide sources to identify the research problem, and facilitates to select an own
research problem.
2. Literature help to study theories and select the most appropriate theories which
facilitates to secure variables.
3. Literature provide base to develop research model and formulate the hypothesis.
4. It provides the rationale for methodology.(sample, how they measure constructs,
variables and data analyzing techniques)

3. To identify gaps in knowledge in that research area.

Literature helps to identify the research gaps providing guidance how a research is significant
in theoretically, empirically and methodologically.

Identifying the sources for Literature review

• Backtracking from recent articles

• Google/ Citation index and Jstor
• Speaking to experts in the field
• Creating the tentative outline for the chapters
• Constructing and working hypothesis / maintaining materials
Principles and Procedures for the review of literature

1. Study the theoretical base for the variables (Both dependence and independence)

It is generally advisable to get first and over all view by consulting a general source, such
as a text book which is more likely to provide meaning and nature of the concepts and
variables or theoretical framework of the field. Textbooks usually provide theoretical
aspects of the problems. It is very essential to develop deep understanding about variables
and the field.

2. Study empirical base for the problem

After developing the insight about the general nature of his problem, the investigator
should review the empirical researches of the area. The best reference for this phase is the
journal articles. Key points to review an articles are,
1. Understand the research problem and objectives
2. Study the theories used
3. Research model and hypothesis
4. Research approach (Qualitative or quantitative)
5. How to measure variables
6. Sample and analytical tools
7. Key findings
8. Contribution to the knowledge, policy recommendations
Articles (A least 25 journal articles which are most relevant to your key wards) are
summarized in a tables accordingly and review each points to understand the existing knowledge
gaps. Then identify how your research is significant in theoretically, empirically and
methodologically.

Author Objective Methodology Empirical Hypothesis

and Title result and
variables
Theories Quali.or Analytical Key Gaps
used Quanti. tool finding

Writing review of literature

Generally review of the literature is the second chapter of your thesis. It has three parts.
1. Theoretical literature
2. Empirical literature
3. Methodological literature

In the first part of the literature chapter, you need present theoretical base for your dependent and
independent variables.
Second part of the literature review present empirical literature. The purpose of literature review
is not to write down research abstracts one by one which is usual practice of the researcher of today
(M, 2017). It is most difficult and creative job on the part of research. For empirical research,
traditional classification is studies conducted developed and developing countries, and studies
conducted in rural and urban areas. However you can classified empirical literature according to
your specific objectives.
Third part of literature chapter is present the methodological literature. Using the table as discussed
above and classify methodologies according to research approaches, sample, measurement of
variables, analytical tool etc. then present the significant of your research methodology.

Process of preparing Literature Review

Step 01: Sort out research articles according to the priorities based on how related they are
to your study.
(a) Top Priority: mark at corner as 1,2nd priority
(b) File them properly: according to priority given
(c)
Step 02: Fact sheet Literature review

Author Objective Methodology Empirical result

and Title
Theories Quali.or Analytical Key Gaps
used Quanti. tool finding

Step 03: Write your review with your own English

1) Read articles and start converting the points into sentences in paragraph.
2) (i) Finding of author A supports or Opposite to finding of Author B and C
(ii) Highlight any differences between the studies
3) Bearing in mind the objective of the study

Step 04: Conducting the Literature Review

1) Summaries the strengths and weaknesses of the studies
 2) How strengths and weaknesses (gaps) lead you to develop your hypothesis and your
research framework.
3) Identify new elements in your study.

Step 05: Ongoing Literature Review. It is continuous process through your research