Systematic Approaches to Literature Reviewing

The Literature Review ? “Literature reviews …… introduce a topic, summarise the main issues and provide some illustrative examples. ” Agree?Disagree?

 If they are to be considered a reliable source of research evidence, literature reviews should record provide the reader with sufficient to be able to judge whether all of the relevant literature is likely to have been found, and how the quality of research considered was assessed. 1 Agree?5Disagree? 10 The Literature Review ?

Discussion  What is a Literature Review?  Why do we do Literature Reviews?  What are the main challenges?

Literature Matters connection to findings coverage working understanding critical appraisal Holbrook, A., Bourke, S., Fairbairn, H., & Lovat, T. (2007). Examiner comment on the literature review in Ph.D. theses. Studies in Higher Education, 32(3), 337–356. doi: / “importance of coherent argument” “more than acknowledge the literature and pull it together… includes ‘working understanding’ ‘critical appraisal’ ‘ connection to findings’ and disciplinary perspective’”

Literature Matters disciplinary perspective scholarliness Knowledge of range of literature DEMONSTRATES

Systematic Review  Means you need to be:  Critical  Evaluate what you read  Analyse  Extract differing information from what you read  Synthesise  Show relationships between studies/sources; differing definitions, concepts, theories etc.  Evaluate  Methodological approaches/tools and techniques used

Systematic Review – Objective is to produce more than a summary  A review of a clearly formulated question  That uses systematic and explicit methods  To identify, select and critically appraise relevant research,  And to collect, analyse, synthesise and evaluate the research that is included within the review.

Systematic Review  Need to apply the same level of rigour to reviewing research evidence as you will apply to producing your research evidence

Workflow for Literature Reviews  Search  Assess  Read  Write

How do I start? Start with an area you are interested in or need to find out about. Look for hot topics, trends, emerging ideas, key questions, key issues.

Example  Suppose I have searched for a topic I’m interested in:  Education  Higher Level  Computer Science  Teaching and Learning Approaches  For some purpose  What are key issues of interest ?  To Ireland, Third Level in Ireland, DIT in particular

Peer Tutoring In Computer Science Programmes In Tertiary Education and its Effects On First Year Student Retention. Clear context, clear statement of scope

Locating and Finding Research Where do I start? Need to decide what I need to tell the reader about. Breaking my topic into pieces So what do I want to find out? Student retention In 3 rd level Peer Tutoring Effects on students Combine the results to make a case

Locating and Finding Research Student retention What do I mean by this, why is it a problem, why are people interested in it Why do students drop out For third level computer science Why are people interested, what is the level of problem in the area Why do student drop out

Locating and Finding Research Peer Tutoring What is it How can it help students – all ways How can it help student retention in particular

Where do I start?  Previous Theses  Review Papers  Journal Papers  Conference Papers  Supervisor

Phase 1- Identify the Research  A broad but defined, systematic sweep  Defined search terms  record recall and precision  Recall is the ratio of the number of relevant records retrieved to the total number of relevant records in the database. It is usually expressed as a percentage.  Precision is the ratio of the number of relevant records retrieved to the total number of irrelevant and relevant records retrieved. It is usually expressed as a percentage.  Defined search arena  e.g. databases, citation indices, reference lists from primary and review articles, grey literature, conference proceedings, research registers, the internet, individual researchers/practitioners  Other broad search limits, e.g. language, date, TIPS! Document the search protocol and record what research was found Systematically manage the search output, e.g. using zotero, endnote

Phase 2- Selection  Select from research using criteria related to your research question  Develop inclusion or exclusion statements, these might relate to purpose of the paper, study outcomes, research design, methods used, population worked with etc.  E.G. Review paper  E.G. Paper by key author  E.G. Year long studies  E.G. Pure computer science programmes only TIPS! Document the statements and their purpose (might be pragmatic or research related)

Search Log DateDatabaseKeywordsResults 1/11/13 2pmACM Digital LibraryPeer, tutoring, undergraduate 10 articles 4/11/13SpringerLinkPeer tutor*, “computer science” 5 articles 1 book 10/11/13ScopusStudent retention, undergraduate 0

Running the search  How many titles and abstract can you check?  How easy will it be to decide to accept or reject a record?  Record the reason for rejection for “Excluded research”

Don’t stop searching when you’ve stopped searching

3. Critical appraisal of studies “Assessing the quality of methodology is a critical part of the systematic review process” No standard approach but there are hierarchies in fields of study

Critical appraisal of research What would be appropriate to consider when critically appraising research in your area?

25 4. Collect data & analyse  Evaluate  Synthesise results of literature review  Tables to compare  Descriptive

AuthorYearAimMethodsConclusionsCritique

Write up literature review - Structure  Background  Purpose/Research question  Method  Findings  Discussion  Implications/Recommendations

Voice – Guide the Reader Through 1. Assess the value of the literature 2. Explain the context research takes place 3. Emphasise limitations of existing research 4. Tell a story

Writing Style Introduction What I will show you? Why? Body Why this area? Don’t leave reader to fill gaps Conclusion What we have seen? How this is relevant to research?

Evaluation and Literature Review  Towards the end of your dissertation you will refer back to literature review  Do your findings confirm those of others?  Does your work extend that of others?  Does your work provide new meaning to the work of others?  Does your work break new ground?  Does your work raise issues about the methodological choices made in previous studies?  Does your work challenge existing ideas on your subject?

Comprehensive Literature Review Coherent synthesis of past and present research in the domain of study Source: Dr Hazel Hall, Napier University What are the main conclusions on previous research in this area? What are the key areas of debate in this area? Which aspects of this work are of most relevance to my study? What are the key concepts in this area? What have been the main research questions? Where is existing knowledge “thin”? How is this topic approached by others? Where are the gaps in literature? What are the main perspectives on this topic in previous research? Do parallel literatures exist for this topic? Which discussions? Which sub- themes? Which writers? Which work is subject to challenge? Who are these “others”? Which existing work could be extended? In which subject areas has the topic been studied?

Challenges in Conducting Literature Reviews  Where Knowing where to start, (e.g. wide then narrow, or narrow then wide?) and what to include  Knowing when to stop literature searching  Knowing when to stop “perfecting” the review  Knowing how far to venture into the literature of associated domains  Your supervisor will help you through these