REVIEWING THE LITERATURE
A.
PURPOSE OF THE REVIEW
Review of related literature must be
included in every serious research, for example: final project, thesis, and
dissertation. It is a necessary or significant part of the research process.
The
concepts and ideas are the first step to begin the research and related to one
another through hypothesis or we often say the temporary answer of the
research. The hypothesis must be proved
by the answer based on the real data and we call the findings of the research
as a new concept by the researcher. The
ideas and concepts originally come from the researcher’s mind, but from those
in which become expanded are supported by the literature as the reference to
help the reinforcement of the researcher in conducting the research. The are
some functions of related literature review, such;
·
we will know whether the variables in
which come from ideas have proven important or unimportant in a given field of
study
·
the result of information about work
that has done and it is should meaningfully extended or applied
·
it is used as the status of work in a
field n terms of conclusions and applications
·
to prove that the research we will
conduct is meaningful and as a supported information of variables that the
researcher’s hypothesis will be answered as the expectations
Discovering
important variables
It
is not easy to create a problem in which researchable, the scope of interest
and resources that extend the field in meaningful ways must be collective with
variables selection. The researcher must be able to specify the interest of the
study in what aspects the researcher want to do such teacher education or
method to improve the students’ ability but the variables have not been clear
yet, and notice that the variables must have a potential importance. Review of
related literature is really helpful ideas about defining variables because it
is correlated each other both in concept and important practical so that the
variables can be identified easily.
Distinguishing
what has been done from what needs to be done
To
avoid repeating the research of what has been done before, the original
research is called for in situations where plagiarism can be eluded. The
research in the past should be viewed as a comparison or as a continuing work
which not yet been answered by the researcher before. It can be put in first
point of literature review that the researcher can name it as a previous study.
The examination of the previous study may suggest a lot of directions to the
further research or it can be as alternative explanations when the researcher
has a lack of explanation about the study or research.
Synthesizing
and gaining perspective
Many
references mean much value that the researcher have perspective in expanding
the ideas through related literature because having summarize of that will give
much value to bring the research up to date. So the results of the study make a
new theory in which can be applied to practice and it surely will be useful. In
synthesizing and gaining perspective here, the researcher always tries to
choose so many information as possible related to their study and makes the
body of knowledge to a smaller workable conclusions and it is practically be
able to be used by subsequent researcher. From the process of synthesizing and
gaining perspective, it will give the researcher a field direction that may be
a value in expanding the body.
Determining
meanings and relationships
The
large task is variables must be named, defined, and joined into problems and
hypothesis in order to make both more meaningful and it can be manageable. Composing
original meaning or definitions of variables by own links would become
disorganized and it is difficult especially for novice. Variables in the chosen
area must be explored, examined, and reviewed in order to construct a context
and a case for the further investigation that has important value and it
becomes a meaningful study. The researcher needs a review in order to determine
questions about the phenomena so it can explain the readers well. That
treatment will give a good result whereas the researcher will provide
meaningful definitions, hypothesis proposition, and provide the ideas to
construct the study itself.
B.
LITERATUR REVIEW SOURCES
ERIC
ERIC
is an abbreviation for Educational Resources Information Center. Eric is the
world’s largest digital library of education. The function of ERIC is to
provide a comprehensive, easy, searchable, internet based bibliographic, and
full text database of education research and information for educators,
researchers, and general public. This is very useful for improving teaching process
and making an education decision. ERIC provides bibliographic records like
citations, abstracts, and other pertinent data of journal articles and other education
related materials. The main component of ERIC is its collection of grey
literature (library and information science term) in education which the form
is largely available in full text in Adobe PDF format. A variety of publication
types are journal articles, books, research syntheses, technical reports,
dissertations, policy papers and other education-related materials.
ABSTRACTS
ERIC
is not the only one that provides the sources, but the center for Vocational
and Technical Education from Ohio state university has a collection called
AIM/ARM (Abstracts of Instructional and Research Materials). Abstracts can be
found both of ERIC or AIM and etc. Abstract is the important source while it is
a major research source in education of the doctoral dissertations.
INDEXES
An
index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations
on a database table at the cost of slower writes and increased storage space. Titles
cataloged according to headings or descriptors are provided by an index. An
index doesn’t provide any abstracts or other descriptions of the documents.
REVIEWS
A
report on and synthesize the study that has been finished in a location over
period of time is called Review. It agglomerates the same topic whereas the
content is categorized, explain and discuss the findings and it provides
generalizations and conclusions. We can reviews in review journals, handbooks,
yearbooks, and encyclopedia.
JOURNALS and BOOKS
Journals
are many publications issued at stated intervals, such as magazines, or
scholarly journals, academic journals, or the record of the transactions of a
society, are often called journals. Books mean any other sources in which will
support the researcher’s work. Books here refer to works of literature or a
main division of such a work. Both of journals and books are usually the main
sources in educational research including the original work, or raw materials
like reviews. These sources need to be led by abstracts and reviews.
C. CONDUCTING
A LITERATURE SEARCH
What
should you do after you have known about the major sources of educational
literature? May you confuse to choose the sources in conducting literature
search? What should be in done first? What step you carry out to make your
literature search covering whole aspect as a research? Here are the following
step you should carry attention is using those sources to conduct a literature
search. Hope it will give kind of bright
thing in popping up your mind. At least, it will kind of guidance for you not
to get trapped in any obstacles during your research. Actually, the things will
be involved in this literature search are; (1) choosing interest areas and
descriptors, (2) searching for relevant titles and abstracts, and (3) locating
important primary source document. To make obviously understanding for what
have been mentioned above, it will be revealed one by one.
1. Choosing
interest area and descriptors
Some
interesting area in your research should be explored more detail in giving a
clear explanation. It will make others easier in get what you mean. It will be
the plus point for your research because other will pay more for what they are
going to read. You should add more explanation based on the literature which
can represent both your dependent variables and independent variable. That is
why you should be sharpening in providing the literature. Literature searching
requires a direction and a focus. It will set you the goal. You will be guided
by what you have thought because all of you discuss will be directed on the
reference you choose. Therefore you should focus on your literature into the
goal of your research. If you will focus on the education research, you can
find the reference in the area of education. You should provide the reference
both of the dependent and independent variable. Make sure that it has been
covered by your explanation from the paraphrase of your literature. You should
be able to explain implicitly and explicitly. For the example;
·
American Educational Research Journal
(Washington, D.C: American Educational Research Association, 1964)
·
Educational Administration Quarterly
(Colombus, Ohio: University Counsel for Educational Administration, 1965)
·
The Elementary School Journal (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1900)
From
those examples, it has been proven that the focusing of the research is for the
education. You can suppose that a researcher was designing a study focusing on
incentives for changing the teaching behavior of elementary school teachers as
a function of their personality. So the researcher should be focused on the article simultaneously contained the
descriptor of the grade of the school plus various combination of the following
descriptors: behavior change, changing attitudes, change strategies, change
agents, intervention, incentive systems, locus of control, credibility,
beliefs, psychological characteristics, reinforcement and diffusion. All of the
result should be relevant to the study under consideration. The major sources
of the literature should be in various combination or descriptors and relevant
in concepts (for example, reinforcement and behavior change) and variables (for
example, personality and locus of control). Generate as many relevant
descriptors as possible. Be sure to consider the potential variables of your
study as a basis for selecting descriptors. So your research will have a good
quality to be presented or published because for all of the questions have been
mentioned and revealed in detail as in the literature.
2. Searching
for relevant titles and abstracts
Which
titles of the literature research will be fit into your literature? Does it
cover all of your need in guiding you in explaining some phenomenon you will
reveal? Titles will also be a problem in carrying out your research. Does it
represent your whole research? Does it complete in providing for all of sources
you question? Frankly, a good search should include three major categories of
documents; (a. Published articles, b. unpublished articles, and c.
dissertations). As you have been explained about ERIC, the search of it is a
must because it not only provides access to the file of unpublished documents
but also can include the journal that is published. While the journal article
titles could be located via a manual search using the index. It will make it
more tedious. The next you should go on locating for what you have found into a
library which contain ERIC file and conducting a computerized search. After
that you can carry out a dissertation search. If you have categorized for what
you have found, you can make it easier in finding them in computerized system
by providing a set of key word and relevant titles. So when you look for
directly you will be helped automatically. The last step in the general search
process is to locate a number of the handbooks, yearbooks and reviews. You have
to write orderly in giving easy access in finding it for other.
3. Locating
important primary source documents
Titles
and even abstracts provide limited information about past work. So you have to
be sure that you are selective enough in choosing the title that seem most
relevant for further examination. Consulting the abstracts, where available,
will help the researcher identify the potentially most useful and relevant
articles. Once determined, these articles must be located or obtained. Of the
three types of documents – unpublished reports, dissertations and journal
articles – their quality and hence value are in the reverse order of their
listing. Journal articles are the most concise and technically best because of
the high requirements for journal publication. Dissertations are lengthy but
are supervised by faculty committees. Unpublished reports while usually lengthy
are typically the poorest in judged quality of the three although conversely of
the greatest usefulness to the fractioned. Hence, journal sources should be
examined most closely and completely. Primary documents provide not only
potentially useful methodologies and findings but also additional references to
relevant articles. This inter-connectedness of significant articles on a
topical area enables the researcher to backtrack form one relevant study to
others that preceded it. hence, one researcher builds a study on his or her
previous work as well as on that of other researchers, creating a burgeoning of
work in an area. Finding your way into this collection of interlocking research
often unlocks the whole collection for your discovery and review.
D. REVIEWING
AND ABSTRACTING
Before
we are going to review and make abstract of what you research, we should make
sure that our article we have written is settle down not just only in literary
but also usefulness side. Does it give whole issues or not? Is it relevant or
not? Is it understandable or not? Can it be responsible enough or not? After we
are sure thoroughly reading a document or article, it is time for you to make
an abstract. Abstract is like the representatives of whole research. So it
should cover what you will say in your research. It is useful to prepare your
own abstract to summarize the methodology and findings in a way that is most
germane to your own needs and interest. A 5 X 8 inch index card is recommended
for this purpose (as well as a suitably sized, metal index card file box to
keep the cards in; dividers labeled by subtopic should also be used to organize
the contents of the file).
Because
abstract is one of the important element in your research, so you should make
it generously. The core of abstract itself should be headed by the full
reference exactly as it will appear in your final reference list. The abstract
itself should be divided into the following three sections; (1) purpose and
hypotheses, (2) methodology, (3) findings and conclusions. You will probably
not use all of this information in writing your review; but since you do not
know what and how much you will need, it is wise to have it at all. Identify
the purpose of the study being reviewed, and summarize it in a sentence or two.
Then locate the hypotheses or research questions, and write these verbatim if
they are not too long. If they are lengthy, summarize them. Underline the names
of each of the variables. In the second paragraph of the abstract, briefly
describe the methodology, including sample characteristics and size, methods
for measuring or manipulating the variables, design, and statistics. The final
paragraph should include a brief summary of each finding and a clear and
concise statement of the conclusion.
Because
you will ultimately want to categorize the study in your literature review
write-up, it is useful at this time to generate a category system – usually
according to your variables or to the descriptors used in locating the study.
Write this category name at the top of the card, and file it accordingly for
easy use. Do not trust to memory for recalling important details of the
article. Because you will be reviewing may studies, their details will become
blurred in your memory. Any information thought to be important should be put in
the abstract. So completing your abstract by whole of your important materials
are in research will make you qualified in research.
E. IN
CONCLUSION
Eventually
we have already known how to make our literature search in tedious way. We can
categorize and organize systematically. It will help us in focusing on the area
we do with the research. It will give you several of evidence about the fact
you will reveal. So the literature search is very systematic and aims at both
relevance and completeness. By completing
the fact in a form of paraphrase will make you tight in arguing your
explanation relating with the research. By doing systematic way, it will help
your literature in easy accessing your source of your thought. An effort should
be made not to overlook any material that might be important to the purpose of
the review. Certain findings may be fortuitous, but on the whole is better to
plan on being systematic rather than lucky. It will be brief for you yourself
to manage what you will appear on your research. The process begins with the
smallest traces of past work, namely, titles, then expands to more detailed
abstracts and then to complete articles and documents themselves. By doing in
procedural way, not just only the researcher who will be helped easily to enjoy
your research but also the reader will be easier in getting the implicitly
purpose of your research. Finally, these
complete sources are reduces to relevant review abstracts that you yourself
write in preparation of a review article if that is your purpose. Make it sure
you have mapped it into your purpose of your research. The final reduction
produces a set of references, which appear at the end of your report. The
sequence of way will make the level of understanding get one step closer to the
goal.
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