Literature Review

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Literature Review
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Theory and Research Three Models

• The theory before research model
• Ideas-Theory-Design Study-Data Collection-Analysis
  -Findings-Ideas
• Works where there is a well-developed knowledge
  base and strong theories.
• You think you know the answer before you gather
  any data. You gather data to test your answer.
• You have an idea and you look to a theory that
  suggests an explanation/solution.

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Theory and Research Three Models

• The research before theory model
• Ideas-Design Study-Data Collection-Theory-Analysis
  -Findings-Ideas
• Works where there is neither a well-developed
  knowledge base nor strong theories.
• You need to look to the data to obtain an answer.
  Your theory come from what you learn as you
  gather data.
• You have an idea and you design a way to collect
  data and after that you develop a theory.

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Theory and Research Three Models

• The Spiraling Research Approach
• Dont try to memorize all the directions
• Point is there is a huge amount of feedback

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Working Model for Research

• Ideas?Literature Review?Design?Data
  Collection?Analysis Findings?Dissemination
• Begin with ideas,
• Check relevant literature for more ideas and
  theories,
• Use these to generate a research question or
  researchable foci (hypothesis if appropriate),
• Design study, collect data, etc.

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Reviewing the Literature

• Idea gives you an initial interestmale college
  student drinking.
• Genearte an initial question trying to focus
  interestWhat is relationship between college and
  male drinking?
• Begin library review. Libraries are all different
  and Internet makes more and more information
  available electronically.

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OSU Library Resources (lab)
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Reviewing the Literature

• Go beyond your library with internet searches
  such as google. May find programs that are
  related to your topic.
• Many good articles may not show up on the
  internet.
• Ask for a reference library to help you search
  the library.

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Literature Review

• Evaluating Web sites
• Whose web site? names can be extremely
  misleading.
• Search for information on the site itself.
  Friends of Diversity may be a group opposed to
  diversity.
• What is the date of material? often hard to
  know. Web sites may not be deleted when they are
  abandoned.
• Can information be collaborated?

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Literature Review

• You may have a computerized information retrieval
  system to use.
• A word document is a simple approach with
• One page for each quotation, finding, etc.
• Use quotation marks or something when it is a
  direct quote and page numbers.
• Put key word or topic at top of page.
• Uses example on page 25 as a model.
• A list of complete references at the end of the
  file
• Include citations from earlier pages in the
  references.

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Literature Review

• The most basic system is a two card method. Using
  4 x 6 cards.
• Author Card (see page 24) has formal reference.
• Include authors, date, title, publication, page
  numbers, and where you got it (web page, library
  call number). Include more than you think you
  need.
• Might list key words relevant to your question
• Subject Card (see page 25) and what is in Word
  document.
• 4 x 6 cards are easy to shuffle/organize

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Literature Review

• The written literature review is like a funnel.
• Start with the general area of interestgeneral
  idea.
• Get more and more focused on your specific
  research question.
• The last paragraph or two of the literature
  review should give you specific research
  question/hypothesis.

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Research Hypothesis

• Sometimes you have a specific hypothesis.
• At the least, an hypothesis requires and
  independent and dependent variable and what you
  expect their relationship to be.
• An hypothesis is most common where there are well
  developed theories and extensive research.

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Research Question

• More often, you have a research question.
• The literature review leads to this question as
  what needs to be investigated.
• We know a lot about diversity, but very little
  about gender diversity in female dominated fields
  and why men are rare in these fields. Nobody has
  done a systematic study of this in an HDFS
  department. Our question is why are there so few
  men in HDFS and what could HDFS do to change
  this.