Literature Review: An Overview

Having happily found a suitable topic, the beginning researcher is usually “raring to go.”
Too often the review of related literature is seen as a necessary evil to be completed as fast
as possible so that that one can get on with the “real research.” This perspective is due to a
lack of understanding of the purposes and importance of the review and to a feeling of
uneasiness on the students who are not sure exactly how to go about reporting on the
literature. Nonetheless, literature review of related literature is as important as any other
component of the research process and can be conducted quite painlessly if approached in
an orderly manner. Some researchers even find the process quite enjoyable!

Definition, Purpose, and Scope

The Review of related literature involves the systematic identification, location, and
analysis of documents containing information related to the research problem. The term is
also used to describe the written component of a research plan or report that discusses the
reviewed documents. These documents can include articles, abstracts, reviews,
monographs, dissertations, other research reports, and electronic media. The literature
review has several important purposes that make it well worth the time and effort. The
major purpose of reviewing the literature is to determine what has already been done that
relates to your topic, This knowledge not only prevents you from unintentionally
duplicating another person’s research, it also gives you the understanding and insight you
need to place your topic within a logical frame. Put simply, the review tells you what has
been done and what needs to be done. Previous studies can provide the rationale for your
research hypothesis, and indications of what to be done can help you justify the
significance of your study.
Another important purpose of reviewing the literature is to discover research
strategies and specific data collection approaches that have or have not been productive in
investigations of topics similar to yours. This information will help you avoid other
researchers’ mistakes and profit from their experiences. It may suggest approaches and
procedures that you previously had not considered. For example, suppose your topic
involved the comparative effects of a brand-new experimental method versus the
traditional method on the achievement of eighth-grade science students. The review of
literature might reveal 10 related studies that found no differences in achievement. Several
of the studies, however, might suggest that the brand-new method may be more effective
for certain kinds of students than for others. Thus, you might reformulate your topic to
involve the comparative effectiveness of the brand-new method versus the traditional
method on the achievement of a subgroup of eighth-grade science students: those with low
aptitude.
Being familiar with previous research also facilitates interpretation of your study
results. The results can be discussed in terms of whether and how they agree with previous
findings. If the results contradict previous findings, you can describe differences between
your study and the others, providing a rationale for the discrepancy If your results are con-
sistent with other findings, your report should include suggestions for the next step; if they
are not consistent, your report should include suggestions for studies that might resolve the
conflict.
Beginning researchers often have difficulty determining how broad their literature
review should be. They understand that all literature directly related to their topic should be
reviewed; they just don’t know when to quit! They have trouble determining which articles
are “related enough” to their topic to be included. Unfortunately, there is no formula that
can be applied to solve the problem; you must base your decisions on your own judgment
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 and the advice of your teachers or advisors. The following general guidelines, however,
can assist you:

• Avoid the temptation to include everything you find in your literature review, Bigger does
not mean better. A smaller, well-organized review is definitely preferred to a review
containing many studies that are more or less related to the problem.

• When investigating a heavily researched area, review only those works that are directly
related to your specific problem. You’ll find plenty of references and should not have to
rely on less-related studies. For example, the role of feedback in learning has been
extensively researched for both animals and human beings, for verbal learning and
nonverbal learning, and for a variety of different learning tasks. If you were concerned with
the relationship between frequency of feedback and chemistry achievement, you would
probably not have to review feedback studies related to animal learning.

• When investigating a new or little-researched problem area, review any study related in
some meaningful way to your problem. You’ll need to gather enough information to
develop a logical framework for the study and a sound rationale for the research hypothesis.
For example, suppose you wanted to study the effects on GPA of an exam for non-English
speaking students. The students must pass the exam to graduate. Your literature review
would probably include any studies that involved English as a second language (ESL)
classes and the effects of culture-specific grading practices, as well as studies that
identified strategies to improve the learning of ESL students. In a few years from now,
there will probably be enough research on the academic consequences of such an exam on
non-English speaking students to permit a much more narrowly focused literature review.

A common misconception among beginning researchers is that the worth of a topic is a

function of the amount of literature available on it. This is not the case. For many new and
important areas of research, few studies have been published; the effects of high-stakes
testing is one such area. The very lack of such research often increases the worth of its
study On the other hand, the fact that a thousand studies have already been done in a given
problem area does not mean there is no further need for research in that area. Such an area
will generally be very well developed, and subtopics that need additional research will be
readily identifiable.

Qualitative Research and the Review of Related Literature

Unlike quantitative researchers, who spend a great deal of time examining the research on
their
topic at the outset of the study, some qualitative researchers will not delve deeply into their
literature until their topic has emerged over time. There is disagreement among qualitative
researchers about the role of the literature review in the research process. Some qualitative
researchers have argued that reviewing the literature curtails inductive analysis—using
induction to determine the direction of the research—and should be avoided at the early
stages of the research process. Others suggest that the review of related literature is
important early in the qualitative research process because it serves the following functions:

• The literature review demonstrates the underlying assumptions (propositions) behind the
research questions that are central to the research proposal.
• The literature review provides a way for the novice researcher to convince the proposal
the reviewers that she is knowledgeable about the related research and the “intellectual
traditions” that support the proposed study.
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 • The literature review provides the researcher with an opportunity to identify any gaps
that may exist in the body of literature and to provide a rationale for how the proposed
study may contribute to the existing body of knowledge.
• The literature review helps the researcher to refine the research questions and embed
them in guiding hypotheses that provide possible directions the researcher may follow.

We recommend that qualitative researchers conduct a review of related literature but also
recognize that the review serves a slightly different purpose than the one outlined for
quantitative researchers.

Source: Gay, L. R., Mills, G. E., & Airasian, P.W. (2006). Educational
Research: Competencies for analysis and applications (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall. Gay, pp29-44.

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