Research Methodology

1. Chapter 4
The Critical Literature Review

2. Introduction (p.51)
We explained that a first review of the academic
literature will help you to:
• narrow down the broad problem.
• develop a clear and specific problem statement.
The process of critical literature review:
• identification of published and unpublished work
from secondary data sources.
• evaluation of this work in relation to the problem.
• documentation of this work.
There are two pitfalls you have to be aware of
when you document the literature review:
misrepresenting others and plagiarism.

3. • A literature review:
" the selection of available documents (both published and
unpublished) on the topic, which contain information, ideas, data
and evidence written from a particular standpoint to fulfill certain
aims or express certain views on the nature of the topic and how it is
to be investigated, and the effective evaluation of these documents
in relation to the research being
proposed“.
•a literature review ensures that:
1.The research effort is positioned relative to existing knowledge
and builds on this knowledge.
2.You can look at a problem from a specific angle it shapes your
thinking and sparks useful insights on the topic of your research.

4. 3.You do not run the risk of "reinventing the
wheel", that is, wasting effort on trying to
rediscover something that is already known.
4.You are able to introduce relevant
terminology and to define key terms used in
your writing.
5.You obtain useful insights of the research
methods that others have used to provide
an answer to similar research questions.
6.The research effort can be
contextualized in a wider academic
debate.

6. Resources
of
literature
Review
(Data)
Textbooks
Journals
Theses
Conference
Proceeding
Unpublished
Manuscripts
Reports
News
papers
The
internet
Data Sources
Searching for
literature
Evaluating the
literature
Documenting the
literature review
The process of critical literature review:

7. How To Approach The Literature Review
Data Source
 Textbooks
are a useful source of theory in a specific area.
advantage:
• cover a broad range of topics.
• cover a topic much more thoroughly than
articles can.
textbooks offer a good starting point from which to find more
detailed sources.
A downside:
they tend to be less up to date than journals.

8. Journals
both academic and professional journals are important
source of up- to-date information.
peer- reviewed: this means that the articles have been
subject to the scrutiny of experts in the same field before
being accepted for publication.
• Review articles (that may or may not contain a meta-
analysis: a type of data analysis in which the results of
several studies are combined and analyzed as if they were
the results of one large study)
• summarize previous research findings to inform
the reader of the state of existing research.
• Review articles are very useful become they provide an
overview of all the important research in a specific area.

9. Journals
• Research article are reports of empirical research,
describing one or a few related studies. The concept
background section of a research article provides a
compact overview of relevant literature. research article
also provide a detailed description of the purpose of the
study, the method(s) used, and the results of the study.
• articles in professional journals are valuable source of
recent developments in the field and of facts and figures.
what's more, they may provide you with a feel for the
practical relevance of a problem.

10. Theses
• PhD theses often contain an exhaustive review of the literature in a specific
area. Most PhD theses include several empirical chapters. These chapters
often have the same structure and characteristics as academic journal
articles.
• Note that not every empirical chapter of a thesis is eventually published in an
academic journal.
Conference proceedings
• can be useful in providing the latest research, or
research that has not (yet) been published.
• very up to date, and for this reason this information source is quite valuable
if you are working in a relatively new area.
• Not every manuscript presented at a conference is eventually published in an
academic journal; hence you must critically assess the quality of this
information source.

11. Unpublished manuscripts
•The APA defines an unpublished manuscript as any
information source that is not "officially" released by
an individual, publishing house, or other company.
• Examples of unpublished manuscripts may include
papers accepted for publication but still 'in press,"
data from an unpublished study, letters , manuscripts
in preparation, personal communications (including e-
mails). Unpublished manuscripts are often very up to
date.

12. Reports
• Government departments and corporations commission or carry
out a large amount of research. their published findings provide a
useful source of specific market, industry or, company
information.
Newspapers
•provide up-to-date business information. They are
useful source of specific market, industry, or
company information.
• Note that opinions in newspapers are not always
unbiased.

13. The Internet
• The amount of information that can be found on the internet is
enormous.
• you can search for (the details of) books, journals and journal
articles, and conference proceedings, as well as for specialized data
such as company publications and reports.
• note that the internet is unregulated and unmonitored.
• developing an Internet page is easy and cheap.
• For this reason, the Internet provides exceptional challenges in
determining the usefulness and reliability of information. A source
that may help you to assess the quality of online information is
Cooke (2001).
• You can also find useful information on the Internet. Search engines
such as Google and Yahoo! can help you to find relevant
information.

14. Searching for literature
• Previously, one had to manually go through several bibliographical indexes that are
compiled periodically listing the journals, books, and other sources in which published
work in the area of interest could be found.
• With modern technology, locating sources where the topics of interest have been
published has become much easier. Almost every library today has computer online
systems to locate published information.
• Computerized databases provide a number of advantages:
1. they save enormous amounts of time.
2. they are comprehensive in their listing and review of references.
3. gaining access to them is relatively inexpensive.
• Most libraries have the following electronic resources at their
disposal:
 Electronic journals: Your library is probably subscribed to journals that are published or
made available online
 full-text databases: provide the full text of the article.
 Bibliographic databases: display only the bibliographic citations.
 Abstract databases: also provide an abstract or summary of articles.
•

15. Evaluatingthe literature
To assess the quality of recent research (indeed, in this case you cannot use the
number of citations as an indicator of the quality of an article) you could ask the
following questions:
1. Is the main research question or problem statement presented in a clear
and analytical way?
2. Is the relevance of the research question made
transparent?
3. Does this study build directly upon previous research?
4. Will the study make a contribution to the field?
5. Is there a theory that guides the research?
6. Is the theory described relevant and is it explained in an
understandable, structured, and convincing manner?
7. Are the methods used in the study explained in a clear manner (description
of methods)?
8. Is the choice of certain methods motivated in a
convincing way (Justification of methods)?

16. Evaluating the literature
9. Is the sample appropriate?
10. Are the research design and/or the questionnaire appropriate for this study?
11. Are the measures of the variables valid and reliable?
12. Has the author used the appropriate quantitative and or qualitative techniques?
13. Do the conclusions result from the findings of the study ?
14. Do the conclusions give a clear answer to the main research question?
15. Has the author considered the limitations of the study?
16. Has the author presented the limitations in the article?
The quality of the journal (peer-reviewed)
the impact factor of the journal (the average number of citations)
some criteria for assessing the value of articles or books are: the relevance of the issues
that are addressed in the article or book, the importance of a book or article in terms of
citations, the year of publication of the article or book, and the overall quality of the article
or book

17. Documenting the literature review
•Documenting the literature review is important to
convince the reader that the researcher is
knowledgeable about the problem area and has
done the preliminary homework that is necessary to
conduct the research.
•A literature review is intended to synthesize (and
not necessarily to summarize) relevant research on
your topic. To synthesize is to combine two or more
elements to form a new whole.

18. ETHICAL ISSUES (p.59)
THERE ARE TWO IMPORTANT PITFALLS THAT YOU HAVE TO BEWARE OF:
1. Purposely misrepresenting the work of other authors that is, their
viewpoints, ideas, models, findings, conclusions, interpretations, and
so on.
2.Plagiarism the use of another's original words, arguments, or ideas
as though they were your own, even if this is done in good faith,
out of carelessness, or out of ignorance.

19. Two other reasons to take plagiarism very seriously
are provided by (Jzermans and Van Schaaijk (2007)).
They point out that:
1. Plagiarism makes it is difficult for the reader to
verify whether your claims about other authors and
sources are accurate.
2.You are participating in a scientific debate. You need to
make your position in this debate clear by designating
the authors whose work you are building on or whose
ideas you are challenging