Literature Review

A literature review is a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describes the past and current state of information on the topic of your research study. It also organizes the literature into subtopics, and documents the need for additional research. In the most rigorous form of research, educators base this review mainly on research reported in journal articles. A good review, however, might also contain other information drawn from conference papers, books, and government documents (Creswell, 2012).

Depending on how the literature review is structured, it may be considered “research” in and of itself (see Meta-analysis and Meta-synthesis below). More frequently, though, literature reviews serve the purpose of summarizing the research for varying purposes.

Types of literature reviews include (Tompkins & Folks, 2012):

    • Traditional or Narrative Literature Review
    • Critiques and summarizes a body of literature
    • Draws conclusions about the topic
    • Identifies gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge
    • Requires a sufficiently focused research question
    • Weaknesses of this type of review include:
    • A large number of studies may make it difficult to draw conclusions
    • The process is subject to bias that supports the researcher's own work.
    • Systematic Literature Review
    • More rigorous and well-defined approach
    • Comprehensive
    • Published and unpublished studies relating to a particular subject area
    • Details the time frame within which the literature was selected
    • Details the methods used to evaluate and synthesize findings of the studies in question
    • Goal: To provide a thorough and fair means of identifying, evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to a particular topic area in a way that has scientific value.
    • Meta-analysis
    • A form of systematic review (reductive)
    • Takes findings from several studies on the same subject and analyzes them using standardized statistical procedures
    • Integrates findings from a large body of quantitative findings to enhance understanding (study=unit of analysis)
    • Draws conclusions and detect patterns and relationships
    • Meta-synthesis
    • Non-statistical technique
    • Integrates, evaluates and interprets findings of multiple qualitative research studies
    • Identifies common core elements and themes
    • May use findings from a range of types of studies
    • Involves analyzing and synthesizing key elements
    • Goal is to transform individual findings into new conceptualizations and interpretations

References:

Creswell, J. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantiative and qualitative research. Boston: Pearson.

Tompkins, P. & Folks, V. (2012). Action research toolkit. Oakland, CA: Reach Institute for School Leadership