Module 1

Module 1 Objectives

Module Objective: Provide an overview of the desk review purpose and process.

By the end of the module, the learner will have achieved the following learning objectives:

• Learning Objective 1: Learner will be able to explain the purpose of a desk review.

• Learning Objective 2: Learner will be able to distinguish between a desk review and other secondary research approaches.

• Learning Objective 3: Learner will be able to define different types of desk research.

What is a Desk Review?

A desk review is a form of secondary research. Unlike primary research, in which the researcher is uncovering new information and creating new knowledge, secondary research focuses on information that has already been acquired and documented. Secondary research is used to present an overview of the current state of knowledge in a field. It can also be used to highlight areas or gaps in existing information where additional primary research is needed.

It is wise to complete a desk review as an initial step in:

• • Proposal research and development

  • Program design

  • Qualitative or quantitative primary research activities

  • Community assessments (reviewed in WI-HER's Data Collection for Community Assessments training)

  • Program reporting

Why complete a desk review?

As secondary research, a desk review serves a very specific purpose. A desk review can rarely completely replace primary research activities. However, it can provide an overview of relevant policies, programs, and primary research that has been completed on your specific topic. Desk reviews are especially helpful if there are a large number of reputable sources that have already written on your topic (you will learn more about assessing the quality of sources in Module 2). To be helpful, information presented in a desk review should be directly relevant to your topic and purpose.

Desk reviews may also help you justify primary research activities; if you can demonstrate a lack of literature on your topic or in your location of interest, you will be more successful in advocating for primary research. This primary research, or field research, will provide an opportunity to collect more specific information related to the work you are doing. For additional information about field research, you can access WI-HER's Data Collection for Community Assessments training.

What is Desk Research?

As the name implies, desk research is research that can be undertaken from your desk. This is why desk research is considered secondary research – it does not require leaving your desk to pursue the acquisition of new information.

There are two types of desk research:

1. Internal Desk Research: Refers to the review of data, reports, tools, or other resources developed by your organization (either publicly available or not). Depending on the context, it could also include internal information from partner organizations. However, not all information housed within your organization or a partner organization is considered internal. If you are reviewing materials that were produced or created from outside your organization that are kept on record in your organization (for example, an encyclopedia or a copy of a presentation from another organization), you are conducting external desk research.

2. External Desk Research: Refers to the review of data, reports, tools, or other resources that exist outside of your organization. Module 2 will cover how to find this information from reputable sources.

Other Secondary Research Formats

There are a number of other forms of secondary research with slightly different functions than a desk review, such as literature reviews, systematic reviews, and scoping reviews. The following sources will allow you to explore these common types of secondary research.

Desk Review Process

Pre-Writing: The Research Framework

Before beginning the desk review, it is important to determine the focus of the review and its scope. For example, you may need to perform a desk review focusing on education systems in Argentina, but within the scope of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, and Math). The focus and scope of your review may be well established based on your project, or it may be pre-determined by your client or research partners, but there may be flexibility. There will also need to be standards established relating to research parameters and style, which will be covered in later modules.

The purpose of the desk review should guide its development. Desk reviews may be used for internal knowledge development for your organization to inform proposal design or activity design. When responding to a request for proposals, the desk review can help identify prior work and opportunities for your organization to develop innovative solutions. The review may also be published for an external audience as a standalone document or as part of a larger report. Desk reviews may also be used as a preface for the presentation of primary research or fieldwork, providing background to the situation and pointing out the gaps in current knowledge future research or fieldwork will then cover.

The introduction of your desk review will include the purpose and rationale for your desk review. It is helpful to establish a clear vision for your desk review with precise limitations on its focus. You should identify a clear research question you would like to answer, and you should identify the aims or objectives necessary to answer this question. This research framework should guide your entire desk review process, and you should return to this framework throughout your research and writing to ensure the information you collect is relevant to the framework. For example, if you are writing a desk review on maternal health in Rwanda, your research framework may look like this:

• • • Research question: What are the factors facilitating or hindering maternal health in Rwanda?

      • Aim 1: To describe the current development context in Rwanda, with a focus on health and gender.

      • Aim 2: To understand access to and utilization of maternal health services, including family planning, antenatal care, delivery, postpartum care, and neonatal care.

      • Aim 3: To review the quality of primary health care services, with an emphasis on services affecting maternal health.

      • Aim 4: To understand extrinsic sociocultural factors impacting maternal health, including marriage practices, childbearing practices, and economic situations.

Beginning the Writing Process

The review should begin with an outline that highlights key topics and sub-topics that need to be researched to address the main focus and aims of the review. You may need to complete initial key document reviews on your topic before you know what key sections will make up (or be included in) your outline. The WI-HER Desk Review outline, below, provides a helpful outline to begin conceptualizing the format for a desk review. When developing the outline, consider the major topics that are relevant to your area of focus. To return to the example of maternal health in Rwanda, you may develop an outline covering the following topics:

• • 1. Rwanda: Country Overview

    2. Women’s access to and utilization of care

    3. Quality of primary health care services

    4. Gender-based violence

    5. Child marriage and early pregnancy

    6. Women’s employment and economic independence

The topics you include in your outline should be directly related to your chosen topic, and you should continue to relate each section to your research framework. For example, when discussing women's employment, the information presented should be framed in the context of maternal health. To ensure relevance, you may discuss how childbearing affects employment or earnings or what policies exist for paternity leave or childcare.

During the outline phase, it is also helpful to identify key pieces of information that will be necessary in each section. For example, if providing a brief overview on general health context, it is important to determine what information is most relevant to include; in a desk review relating to maternal health, statistics on antenatal care and maternal mortality will be critical, and other health statistics may not be as useful for inclusion.

After developing an outline, you will have a better understanding of what types of resources you will need to gather. It is important to be thorough in the research process while maintaining efficiency. The research process will be discussed in greater detail in the next module.

The length of the desk review, and the amount of time you should dedicate to the review, will vary widely by project. Some reviews may not need as much information, and sources for certain topics may be more easily accessible or prolific. It is important to establish both the length of the desk review and the timeline for its completion when initially planning your project and developing the outline to ensure you complete an appropriate amount of research and writing. Define clearly with your client and with your colleagues the scope, limits, and timeline for the desk review project. Identify some benchmarks to keep you on track and to mark check-in moments that convene the group to voice challenges and confirm consensus that the targets are still on track. A typical desk review should range between 10 and 15 pages in length. You should likely not exceed 20 pages in length unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e., large project scope).

WI-HER Desk Review Outline

The WI-HER Desk Review outline, below, was developed based on desk reviews completed in a variety of focal areas. The outline can be easily adapted for a variety of contexts and provides insight into how to structure a desk review and identify important areas of focus.

You may find it useful to download the outline and adapt it for your own use.