Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What is Research ?
Careful search or inquiry for; endeavour to discover new facts, procedures, methods and techniques by the scientific study of a subject, course of critical investigation
(Concise Oxford Dictionary)
What is ....
An account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers Your purpose is to convey to the reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are
Research Literature...
Is a potential mountain lookout identifying : What Knowledge is well verified ? What should be considered tentative? What is without foundation? New theories that better organize disparate knowledge and better predict the future Pointers to the unknowns that would benefit further research
Research Literature....
Is a potential snake pit fill with Wishful thinking Retorics Speculation Invalid findings from poorly designed studies Duplications of attemps to mislead Whether the research literature helps you gain perspective of the problem or clouds your vision will depend on how you search, how you citique and how well you integrate previous individual studies
Function as.....
Justifications for your study it determines what has already been done that relates to your work, and what needs to be done-the knowledge gap Insurance that important variables are not left out Rational for your hypotheses Rational for your research strategies Rational for instruments & approaches to be used Facilitating discussions
Its purpose
Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in previous research Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous study Point the way forward for further research Place ones original work in the context of existing literature
Why?
To identify gaps in the literature To avoid reinventing the wheel To carry on where others have already reached To identify other people working in the same fields To increase your breadth of knowledge of your subject area To identify seminal works in your area
Why? ....(cont.)
To provide the intellectual context for your own work, enabling you to position your project relative to others To identify opposing views To put your work perspective To demonstrate that you can access previous work in an area To identify information and ideas that may be relevant To identify methods that could be relevant to your project
Scope...
Common complaint : Either you dont know when to stop or dont produce enough to be taken seriously Guidelines
Bigger does not mean better Heavily researched areas require smaller focus New research areas require wider scope
Misconception: worth of a problem is related to the amount of literature available
STOP!!
Why should I read research?? Answer... You have to learn what other people have done and how they have done it
The Solution...
Undertaking Lit.Rev.
Development of the Lit.Rev. Requires 4 stages:
Problem formulation Literature search Data Evaluation Aanalysis and Interpretation
Steps in Lit.Rev.
Searching
Assessing/Abstracting
Integrating
Search Tools
Web search engines Databases Proquest, Science Direct, ISTOR ect.
Searching....
Targeting the search
Define your topic identify synonyms, key words Determine the search tool Keep careful notes of the exact searches that you specified with each tool Scan the abstracts of the hits If initial results are not satisfactory, refine and return Snowball your search Complex searches Domain of search
Evaluation of Lit.Rev.
Is it comprehensive? Are they relevant? Are the sources primary ones? How critical is the analysis compared and contrasted? How cherent is the review write up? Is there a discussion of the implications of the review?
Scholarly is defined as
Concerning with academic study, especially research Exhibiting the methods and attitudes of a scholar Having the manner and appearance of a scholar
Quality of Literature
Is the problem clearly spelled out? Are results presented new? Was the research influential? How large a sample was used? How convencing is the argument made? How were the results analysed? What perspective are they coming from? Are the generalizations justified? What is the significance of the research? What are the assumptions behind the research? Is the methodology well justified? Iis the theoretical basis transparent?
The above forces you to make judgments and distinguish your thoughts from assessments made by others
Element of Lit.Rev.
Overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration Division of works under review into categories Explanation of ho each work is similar to and how varies from others Conclusions
Organizing your Lit.Rev. Chronological ordering is usually not the best to achieve the above There is no correct way to organize it depends on your study
It is NOT just a descriptive list of the material or set of summaries It should demonstrate your skills in two areas: Information seeking, and Critical appraisal
Example 2
To participate in the planning and implementation of their health care, patients need to improve their knowledge about their health. Consequently, education is needed at a general level to give people a better understanding about caring for their health. Such education should be rooted in the principles of adult learning, including an appropriate mix of didactic information giving active learning, problem-based learning and skills development, as well as group teaching sessions (Loveman et al., 2003; WHO, 2003). Therefore, the CBIA strategy has the potential to be developed as a model of public education for many health issues including controlling diabetes mellitus.