Research Methods Lecture 3

1. Research MethodsLecture 3 March 27, 2013 RS and GISc Institute of Space Technology

2. STEP 1 • Reviewing Literature • Formulating Research Problem • Identify Variables • Constructing Hypothesis Formulating a Research Problem

3. 1. Literature Review • Functions of literature review in research • How to carry out literature search? • How to review selected literature? • How to develop theoretical and conceptual frameworks? • How to write literature review?

4. What is meant by reviewing literature? • Going through existing literature • To get a know how of your area of interest • Comparing your findings with others

5. Functions of Literature Review • Provides theoretical background to your study • Helps to establish links between what you are proposing to examine and what has already been studied • Enables to show how your findings have contributed to the existing body of knowledge in your profession. • Helps to integrate research findings into existing body of knowledge

6. Literature Review can help in four (04) ways.. • Bring clarity and focus to your research problem • Improve your research methodology • Broaden your knowledge base in your research area • Contextualize your findings

7. Makes valuable contribution in almost all operational steps

8. How to review literature? • If you have a specific problem, focus around your research problem • Otherwise, review literature in your broad area of interest

9. Steps in conducting literature review • Search existing literature in your area of study • Review the selected literature • Develop a theoretical framework • Develop a conceptual framework

10. 1. Existing literature • Compile a bibliography • Books • Journals • Internet

11. Books • Search by key words or use subject indexing • Title, TOC • Select 10-15 books and review their bibliography • After final selection make an annotated bibliography • Endnotes

12. Journals • Provide most up to date information • Do the same as you have done in book searching • Searching can be done through • Hard copies in libraries • Citation or abstract indices to read abstracts • Search electronic databases (with different search options)

13. Internet • Published material in books, journal and other sources • Search engines make it easy and fast • Google and Yahoo • Google Scholar

14. 2. Reviewing the selected literature • Read the selected literature critically • Pull themes and issues relevant to your study • Theories, criticisms, biases, methodology adopted • Potential for generalization of the findings? • Notice significant difference of opinion among researchers • Give your opinion about validity of these differences • Find out areas in which little or nothing is known-the gaps that exist in the body of knowledge

15. 3. Develop theoretical framework • Information obtained from literature to be sorted under main themes/theories • Highlight agreements and disagreements among authors • Identify unanswered questions/gaps • Theoretical framework will help you effectively review further literature (focused) • See book example 3.1a and 3.1b

16. 4. Develop conceptual framework • Basis of your research problem • Stems from theoretical framework and relates to the specific research problem • Focuses on sections that are basis of the study • Describes aspects selected from theoretical framework

17. How to writing literature reviewed • The content of literature review should reflect: • Theoretical background of your study • Contextualization of your findings in relation to the existing body of knowledge and refining your methodology • Could be written in one section or under subheadings based on main themes

18. Literature Review: Theoretical background of your study • Identify and describe various relevant theories • Specify • gaps in existing knowledge • Recent advances in the area • Current trend

19. Literature Review: Contextualizing your findings • Integrate the results from your study with existing literature • Compare two for confirmation or contradiction

20. Questions you need to ask yourself before writing literature review • What has been done in your field of research? • How are you going to order your discussion? Chronological, thematic, conceptual, methodological, or a combination? • What section headings will you use? • How do the various studies relate to each other? • What precise contribution do they make to the field? • What are their limitations? • How does your own research fit into what has already been done?

21. Through literature review show your readers • You have a clear understanding of the key concepts/ideas/studies/ models related to your topic • You know about the history of your research area and any related controversies • You can discuss these ideas in a context appropriate for your own investigation • You can evaluate the work of others

22. Referencing • Has two parts • Citation • Shows information coming from other source • Within the text of the report • List of references • Gives details of those sources • In the final section

23. Information • factual material • graphs and tables of data • pictures and diagrams • Styles: • Examples • Harvard system • IEEE system • EndNote output styles • http://endnote.com/downloads/styles