Nine Building Blocks to the Literature Review (Adapted from Mertens, 1998) Identify the research topic/focus. Review secondary sources. Develop a search strategy. Conduct search. Read and prepare bibliographic information and summary notes. Critically review (evaluate) research literature. Obtain and read primary sources and note and summarize the key points in the sources (this is a recursive process). Synthesize main themes from the literature to develop conceptual/theoretical framework, research questions, and/or hypothesis. Write several drafts to the literature review (get feedback).

Resources General reference sources are sources used to locate other sources. Primary sources are publications in which researchers report the results of their investigations. Secondary sources are publications in which authors describe the work of others.

1. Identify the research topic/focus Be flexible in conceptualizing the problem. Start with a broad idea and narrow it as you go through the search (ideas change as you see what was done before). What are your interests? What have you observed, experienced? What challenges are in your professional practice? For what areas are there research findings? What paradigm of research do you align with?

2. Review secondary sources Find a good literature review on your topic written by someone else. Check out journals that contain reviews: e.g., Review of Educational Research, Harvard Educational Review, Psychological Bulletin. Check out books that contain reviews: e.g., The Annual Review of Psychology, Research in Race and Ethnic Relations.

3. Develop a search strategy Determine the databases and other resources that you will search, decide the keywords for your search, narrow down on the type of literature (e.g., the last 10 years, written in English). Use preliminary sources: databases, abstracts, and indexes that contain bibliographic information, WWW (discussed in Lesson 3). Identify primary research articles by looking at reference lists found at the end of relevant articles or books (known as the Ancestry Approach, Cooper, 1989). Use personal networking: talk to people doing work in your focus area. They can direct you to more literature and be invaluable resources.

4. Conduct search Tips: In the ERIC database, truncate a term. E.g., the term “sex?” would include sex, sexual, sexes. “Deaf?” would include deaf, deafness, deafened. Use ‘and’ ‘or’ ‘not’ and ‘xor’. E.g, “deaf? Or hearing-imp?” would find references containing either deaf, hearing-impaired, hearing impaired, or hearing impairment. Read the library’s online instructions about using the particular database. Use additional databases or indexes (e.g., PsychINFO may yield different references).

5. Read and prepare bibliographic information and summary notes Scan quickly to make sure it is a good resource. Be complete and accurate in recording the bibliographic information (electronically or manually). If you do it in APA style, this step can save you time later! Prepare summary notes on each resource.

Tip: Five Essential Points for Reviewing Literature Take note of the: Problem Hypotheses Procedures Findings Conclusions that researchers should record when taking notes on a study

6. Critically review (evaluate) research literature Use the Literature Review Evaluation List to evaluate the quality of others’ research and literature reviews as well as your own.

7. Find primary sources and identify key points (this is a recursive process) You will find that authors cite works of other authors; for significant works, you will want to find the original (primary) source and read it. Similar to the ancestry approach, this allows you to review, first hand, what has been done.

8. Synthesize: develop conceptual/theoretical framework, research questions, and/or hypothesis Choice of theoretical framework influences research question, the way the research is conducted, and implications. For example, Mertens et al. (1994) identified that IQ deficit theory and cultural deficit theory reflect postpositivist paradigm, cultural difference theory reflects constructivist paradigm, and power inequity theory reflects emancipatory paradigm. The framework is a conceptual template, an organizing structure, to compare and contrast findings/results.

9. Write several drafts to the literature review (get feedback) Review Chapter 2, Tools of Research in the course text: Guidelines for Writing. Guidelines for conducting a literature search, focusing your research efforts, and organizing the information you have collected, and more, are provided in Chapter 4 of the Leedy and Ormrod (2005) course text. A sample Review of Literature from Dissertation Analysis 2 in Chapter 4 of Leedy and Ormrod (2005) is also well worth reviewing and re-reviewing!

Tip: Literature Review Report Introduction: Presents topic broadly, develops ‘buy in’ to the importance and significance of the topic, describes the search strategy and how the review/report is organized. The body of the review with themes/ideas derived from the literature. A summary including researcher’s conclusions (critical thinking of the review) and what the review accomplished. Bibliography/references.

References Cooper, H. M. (1989). Integrating research: A guide for literature review (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2005). Practical research: Planning and design (pp. 43-84). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Mertens, D. M. (1998). Research methods in education and psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mertens, D. M., Farley, J., Madison, A., & Singleton, P. (1994). Diverse voices in evaluation practice: Feminist, minorities, and persons with disabilities. Evaluation Practice, 15(20), 123-120.