Discuss why literature review is necessary in educational research

Introduction
A critical summary and an assessment of the current state of knowledge or current state of the art in a particular field.

The ability to carry out a literature review is an important skill for any student. It will provide you with a context in which to place your assignments regardless of the module you are studying. Practically any assignment in any module you take will involve reading what other people have written on the subject of your assignment, gathering information to refute or support specific arguments, and writing about your findings. For small scale projects, (like module assignments), you will not be expected to provide a definitive account of the state of research in your selected topic. You will be required to provide evidence that you have read a certain amount of relevant literature in the topic, that you have understood that literature, and that you can summarize the material you have read in a coherent way. The literature review is precisely that summary.

In order to do a literature review you will need to spend time reading the literature relevant to the topic you are researching. Understanding the literature in your research topic will prevent you from repeating previous errors, or redoing work which has already been done. It will also give you insights into aspects of your topic which might be worthy of exploration and future research.

(1a) Discuss why literature review is necessary in educational review research

There are several purposes to writing a literature review.

You need a good literature review because it:

·         demonstrates that you know the field. This means more than reporting what you've read and understood. Instead, you need to read it critically and to write in such a way that shows you have a feel for the area; you know what the most important issues are and their relevance to your work, you know the controversies, you know what's neglected, you have the anticipation of where it's being taken. All this would allow you to map the field and position your research within the context.

·         justifies the reason for your research. This is closely connected with demonstrating that you know the field. It is the knowledge of your field which allows you to identify the gap which your research could fill. However, it is not enough to find a gap. You have also to be able to convince your reader that what you are doing is important and needs to be done.

·         allows you to establish your theoretical framework and methodological focus. Even if you are proposing a new theory or a new method, you are doing so in relation to what has been done.

To provide the reader with an up to date account and discussion of the research findings in a particular topic. This might sound pretty esoteric but you will find that in writing a literature review you will learn about the ways other people have constructed their own research projects. Seeing what others have done might help you understand your own assignment. You might be able to see the methods that other more experienced researchers have used and you might decide to follow on their footsteps and copy their methodological approach.

You might also be able to detect conflicting points of view expressed by different authors. These conflicting points of view might be the indicators of diverging theories within the same topic. You need to be aware of these conflicting theories as well as of the arguments supporting these theories in order for you to assess their value and make up your own mind on the topic. Being aware of the theories will help you later in your life as a student when you will have to design a larger research project like your dissertation.

You might also be able to discuss relevant research carried out in the same topic. It is important to be able to discuss relevant research because very often it is very difficult (as students and as researchers) to keep abreast of everything that is published every year in a topic. The job of the writer of the literature review is to summarize and discuss the major documents published in that topic over a stated period of time. The discussion will take into account the methods and the results or findings of the most relevant research. The reviewer will assess whether the methodology is appropriate and whether the results seem valid. The reviewer therefore evaluates the quality of the research as opposed to merely listing documents. 

• It demonstrates to a Ph.D. committee that the student has read a large amount of statistical literature to prove that the student is aware of the wide range of research in theory and methodology related to the proposed research topic.

• It provides proof to a Ph.D. committee that the student has an deep understanding of the published statistical research related to the topic of the dissertation.

• It should convince the Ph.D. committee that the student can communicate this understanding of the statistical literature and its relationship to the proposed research.

• It should support the originality and relevance for the Ph.D. research problem.

The reviewer may also discuss material published in other fields which are related to the main topic. This process is very important since very often research in the social sciences is multidisciplinary, i.e. knowledge gets generated from many disciplines and needs to be integrated. For example in order to be able to research and write a literature review on a question like ‘Why do teenagers smoke? ‘ The reviewer might need to read material from journals in psychology, medicine, and sociology. 

(1b) Discuss the procedures involved in literature review:

You need to read. You need to read because it will give you ideas, and because it might improve your writing style. You need to develop some basic reading strategies. You need to decide:

• where to read 
• what to read 
• whom to read 
• how to find what you need to read 

and the steps in carrying out a literature review are:

•         Define the research topic

•         Compile and prioritize a list of keywords

•         Identify sources of information

•         Read, evaluate, analyze all the works

•         Discuss findings and conclusions with others -- important for understanding context, gaps in previous research

•         Divide works into supportive and antithetical positions

•         Identify relationships between works in the literature

•         Articulate how these apply to your research

Your University or College library might be your first port of call in deciding where to read, but as you progress in your course you might need to read in other libraries. You might also chose to photocopy material from these libraries and read it at home. The advantage of using photocopies is that you can underline the material and make notes. 

The question of what to read is more tricky. Books, journals, reports, popular media, computer-based material, internal reports, letters, conference proceedings etc. You will probably need to read all these when you are constructing a literature review. 

When you try to determine whom to read you need to be aware that anyone can be mistaken in their interpretations or their opinions. It is therefore important that you can be able to ascertain how authoritative is the person that you are reading. You should also be able to ascertain their motivation in writing. This might help you determine if the person has a biased perspective on an issue. You should be guided on what to read (at least as a starting point ) by your module coordinator(s) and seminar tutors however, that is only initial guidance, after that you should be capable of finding your own material.

Once you have set-up your basic reading strategies, you will need to be able to understand what you read. This is slightly more complicated than it seems because you will need to be able to develop tricks to scan a lot of documents very fast, and decide if a particular document is good enough to merit careful reading. It takes practice to be able to look at a document in the library and determine if it is good enough for you to spend serious time reading it. Have a look at the table of contents and index of the book. Look at the introduction and concluding chapter . Scan some of the topics from the index and determine if the material is adequate. These hints will give you a superficial knowledge about the content of a document, however you will not be able to write a literature review based on superficial knowledge. You will have to read enough to know enough about what has been written and summarize it in an intelligent fashion. In other words, you need to know enough to be able to be critical about it. Once you select a document for serious reading, you will need to summarize and criticize it.

REFERENCE:

http://www.uk-student.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=40

Aveyard, H. (2010) Doing a Literature Review in Health and Social Care: A Practical Guide, 2nd edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Hart, C. (1998) Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage.

Jesson, J., Matheson, L. and Lacey, F.M. (2011) Doing your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques. London: Sage.

Machi, L.A. and McEvoy, B.T. (2009) The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Ridley, D. (2008) The Literature Review: A Step-by-step Guide for Students. London: Sage.