Re: Research Methods: Letrature Reviews
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hugo
A literature review is a structured account of a topic area that lays the foundation for a research effort. It must be comprehensive, current and lucid. Of most importance it must be critical meaning that YOU must add comment or explanation to what you have found - in short a review is not a recitation of what has been found but and exposition of it.
It follows that from a structural point of view you need a themed list of sub-topics using headings, subheading, paragraphs, bullets, tables, diagrams and so on in order to get a coherent and lucid discourse on your chosen subject area. This is not a trivial matter and you must expect to go over it many, many times before it is completed.
A Simple Literature Review Checklist
In summary, the review is about your topic area and about you becoming sufficiently expert in it to deal with the presenting problem that you have uncovered. The intention is for you to offer a discourse that is Focused, Relevant, Authored, Measured, Evaluatory and expressed as a Dialogue. (Notice the acronym FRAMED)
Focused – this means that your whole effort is focused on the topic area and the particular aspect of it that you are pursuing. So do not be tempted to add in other things just because they might be useful, interesting, and novel or you just have nothing else to say.
Relevant – any topic area aspect will itself represent a large body of knowledge and so you must continually ask if a particular element in the knowledge domain is relevant to your particular study.
Authored - any literature review is to be written by its author. This sounds obvious but it is all too easy to fill up a review with cited quotations, paraphrases and summaries so that the ‘hand’ of the review author is not evident anywhere in the work. When this happens it is not an evaluative review at all but simple plagiarism. The author’s ‘hand’ must guide and direct the review in an evaluatory fashion so that the review is a message from the review author and not a recitation of what has been found elsewhere. Typically this is done by using your own skills and knowledge to introduce, comment, add to, modify and extrapolate from various primary sources available.
Measured – this is a matter of selecting and using the focused and relevant materials that you have found. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to pack in information in excruciatingly detail and so end up with a laboured entry that treats your readers as if they were completely ignorant of the subject area. So you need to ask honestly “is the entry a measured response to the readers information needs?”
Evaluatory – authors sift through the primary sources looking for materials to use. The essence of this sifting is an evaluatory outlook based on an awareness of your problem theme, your topic area and your own ideas. Care is needed because this process is not about searching for materials that you agree with or like in some way. Instead it is a contextualised response (based on what you already know) and that may mean you find materials that are new to you, materials that make you change your own knowledge base and even materials that completely replace what you previously thought of as solid.
Dialogue – a review is a form of argument. Good arguments are based on a strong theme and try to explain to, and convince your readers about something. So it is best if you think of it as a kind of dialogue in which you challenge them about your review theme and content.
excellent many thanks!!! I think some people have a misconception a lit review is simply a 'review' of what others have said - i.e. quotes and quotes from lots of authors...
Re: What happens when you think?
This example might help you see what difference it makes to your data if you are being inductive or deductive.
Ways of thinking and what they imply
Deductive (rationalism) - this way of thinking means you are using your mind to form a theory about a given situation and why it is as it is before you have collected any data.
Analogy - Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime would be deductive if he worked out rationally (in his mind so had a theory) how the crime was committed. He would then collect evidence to TEST his theory.
Inductive (empiricism) - this way of thinking means you will rely on the data when you eventually get it to explain a situation. If you like it implies you have no fixed ideas on solution but will decide these when you get the data
Analogy – Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime would be inductive if he waited until he had all the data and then used the data (empirically) to infer (you can say guess) how the crime was committed.
Here is a fuller example with a hint of realism:
Suppose I am a teachers and I have the problem of students coming late to seminar sessions and I want to collect data about it with a view to finding a solution because coming late is annoying and disrupts classes.
If I am deductive I might suggest the theory that coming late is due to cultural norms. Because I have this theory ALL my data is going to be about cultural norms because I set out to TEST the theory to see if it is true. So I am “forced” to define only data about culture: country of origin, religion, family values, previous schooling, male/female relationships, respect for elders, etc
If I am inductive I have no theory because implicitly I cannot decide what is causing this problem or its possible solution so in effect I just have to guess what data might be useful. So I am “forced” to define (almost randomly) data about: age, course, religion, values, respect, lodgings, transportation, the weather, friends, other classes and so on.
Notice that sometimes the data will be the same or similar but your UNDERLYING motive for its choice will be be different.
PS Just to be a bit silly if I were testing Ohms law which is a theory about resistance, voltage and current then those are the values I collect and can use to test the theory. It would be utterly stupid to collect any other data.
Re: What happens when you think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hugo
This example might help you see what difference it makes to your data if you are being inductive or deductive.
Ways of thinking and what they imply
Deductive (rationalism) - this way of thinking means you are using your mind to form a theory about a given situation and why it is as it is before you have collected any data.
Analogy - Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime would be deductive if he worked out rationally (in his mind so had a theory) how the crime was committed. He would then collect evidence to TEST his theory.
Inductive (empiricism) - this way of thinking means you will rely on the data when you eventually get it to explain a situation. If you like it implies you have no fixed ideas on solution but will decide these when you get the data
Analogy – Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime would be inductive if he waited until he had all the data and then used the data (empirically) to infer (you can say guess) how the crime was committed.
Here is a fuller example with a hint of realism:
Suppose I am a teachers and I have the problem of students coming late to seminar sessions and I want to collect data about it with a view to finding a solution because coming late is annoying and disrupts classes.
If I am deductive I might suggest the theory that coming late is due to cultural norms. Because I have this theory ALL my data is going to be about cultural norms because I set out to TEST the theory to see if it is true. So I am “forced” to define only data about culture: country of origin, religion, family values, previous schooling, male/female relationships, respect for elders, etc
If I am inductive I have no theory because implicitly I cannot decide what is causing this problem or its possible solution so in effect I just have to guess what data might be useful. So I am “forced” to define (almost randomly) data about: age, course, religion, values, respect, lodgings, transportation, the weather, friends, other classes and so on.
Notice that sometimes the data will be the same or similar but your UNDERLYING motive for its choice will be be different.
PS Just to be a bit silly if I were testing Ohms law which is a theory about resistance, voltage and current then those are the values I collect and can use to test the theory. It would be utterly stupid to collect any other data.
Hi Hugo,
Thanks for your post. A question; was my Last post totally off the radar in relation to deduction/induction. On another note HOW important is it to have this understanding before conducting research?? I mean regardless of weather you knew beforehand or not you would be 'doing' it regardless right?? I hope that makes sense!
Re: Research Methods: A priori
Thought I might add another word on the induction/deduction theme based on what someone said to me yesterday. He was trying to explain logic and empiricism and he said: "If I go out in the sun then my logic will tell me if it is hot" but is this correct?
Well no it is not, his senses tell him it is hot not logic. The issue is that if I stood by him in the sun I might say "no it is not hot". How can this be, the data (the heat from the sun) is identical for both of us but he says it is hot and I say it is not - is one of us, must one of us be wrong?
This is like induction, we have to go out into the sun and gather as it were data and when we have that data we make inferences from it and although the data is the same those inference might be different. Here we might go and ask 100 people if it is hot but even then all we can say if "most people think it is hot (or not)" but we still have nothing that is unequivocal and will be true forever.
The deductive end of things or we can say rationalism is the power of unaided reason. Here I can work something out in my head sitting in my armchair at home without ever having to go and collect data. This kind of insight is known as 'a priori' meaning roughly I know (I can predict) what will happen before it does, without any experience of the real world. Another way of saying this is that we can form a 'theory' of how things will happen and in research we then go out and collect data, not to make an inference, but to test if the theory is true.
Einstein for example predicted that time would go slower if speed increases but there were no observations and no data to help him do that, he worked it out in his own mind. Indeed it was to be another 12 years before anyone was able to experimentally test the theory and show it to be true.
One final word of caution here. There are scientific theories such as Ohms law or Archimedes principles that are natural laws that hold for everyone, everywhere and no one can avoid them for all time as far as we know. However, we also talk about nominal theories or laws that can change over time. For example, I might have a nominal theory that everyone who reads this message has red hair and I can test that but it is obvious that even it turns out to be true today no one with any mind at all would think it will hold forever.