a literature review

a literature review

The Impact of Literature Review in Academic Research

1. Introduction

A review of a technology is good only when it is placed at the right place and the exact review is what is required. By the way, working with this idea only motivated me to move on for a literature review. This literature review is a part of a research project that plays an important role in every research project. It could be said that it is the base of any research. What is a literature review? It is the creation of a clear understanding and justification for that style of research into a selected area. The researcher is to take this opportunity to identify and recommend what, in their opinion, is the best approach to researching their subject. This is where it is an analysis of published information. To be precise, it is a type of data analysis in which there are identifying, reading, synthesizing, and many more methods to retrieve the information and work on it. The literature review has a variety of electronic sources and databases with items such as books, articles, and websites. We can access it from the web, anywhere and anytime. It can be viewed via a handheld device. Besides that, we can print it out and then put it into groups based on the date of publishing. There are several databases available for UTM students in various disciplines. We can use a variety of databases based on the subjects. At this moment, UTM has provided more than 10 databases for students to access. With a variety of sources, it could make the research much easier. But the most important thing is that the literature review is not dependent only on one source of databases. We have to go through all the databases.

2. Importance of Literature Review

The importance of the literature review is underscored by the following discussion. In addition, knowledge is held to be like a building, with new information being added to the top of the structure. Application of new knowledge to an issue changes the level of understanding of the issue. For example, the evidence about learning styles has moved from believing it is really important to match the learning style of the learner to the teaching style, to the view that the learning style of the student is really not a very important factor in education because the learner can learn in a number of different ways, but still arriving at the same understanding, and to the conclusion that although learning style theory is interesting and may be helpful to educators, there is really no compelling evidence to show that knowing one’s learning style or teaching to it will produce an increase in learning. This long cycle of trial and error and change of practice requires keeping abreast of current information and thoughtful self-reflection, it amounts to engaging in action research. This is the rationale for doing a literature review.

3. Methods of Conducting a Literature Review

As literature review is a detailed and critical study of the works in a particular field of knowledge, it is essential to know the ways to conduct a literature review. It is of prime importance to the review, to secure only the vital and relevant material to the study. There are various ways of conducting the literature review, some of the more known ways are: To go through material in the subject area of the study and then narrowing down to the topic; useful in collecting historical background information. Consulting a subject specialist can avoid wasted effort in the search process and you will do this by preparing a brief review of the project and then fixing up a meeting. Looking at abstracts and trying to get a hold of as much research reports, these contain brief statements of the problem, methods, results, and conclusions of research. The report may define a problem an area where the information is necessary or complain that there is too much information on the topic. This is a very useful place to find out what research is done in the area and to identify what were the findings. If the research project is related to an assignment, then try to find some books, articles, or journals that are recommended. This can save a lot of time that would be spent in identifying what is relevant and then tracking it down. Try to analyze different research studies and identify key issues, as discussed in the work titled “Comparison between video instruction and workshop training in integration of SURE-P students towards technical and vocational education in partial vocational training institutes” where previous research is compared to identify integrations of SURE-P students towards technical and vocational education and identifying types of research methods.

4. Common Challenges in Literature Review

The next common problem is researchers find it difficult to identify the precise range in a topic and this will waste time. They may have too broad a topic so that they end up getting irrelevant studies. In other situations, they have too narrow a topic and are unable to find studies. So, the question of what relevant studies are for my topic still remains a problem for them. This uncertainty also leads to deviation to other topics. It will be a waste if they leave the current study and totally switch to another topic. In order to continue the current research, the researcher needs to return to the literature, rewrite the review, and redefine the current topic. Therefore, the question “how to do these things right?” still remains in their mind.

The review normally helps in identifying the nature of problem or relevant questions in a field. In simple terms, we can define it as the study of studies. The primary purpose of the literature review is to be able to state the case for the research question by identifying the research. A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework. It analyzes, integrates, and evaluates it in terms of the aims and proposed research. Through a good literature review, a researcher is able to do better research design and choose better data collection. Unfortunately, the process of the literature review sometimes is attempted to get the information quickly. This causes mistakes to happen when trying to find, organize, and implement the entire information when beginning to write the review. The disorganization will make headaches for the researcher and will consume much time. It must be thought carefully about what type of study or studies will be done, what information and related knowledge, how data, and where to be taken so that it can minimize the cost and time. This situation will be difficult for the beginner of research.

5. Conclusion

The first learning is the need for a clear and focused defined topic. This sounds straightforward, however in practice it is more difficult. The initial idea for the topic of this literature review was a broad one which was to investigate the effectiveness of computer-assisted language learning. This broad topic was quickly narrowed down after some preliminary searching and consulting with some resources in the education faculty at the university where I work, to research the effectiveness of online educational games in the teaching of English vocabulary to young ESL learners. This narrowing down of the topic was important as it gave the research a clear direction to follow. The effectiveness of a clear defined topic can be seen in the working hypothesis that was formulated from this literature review. Once again this hypothesis is specific to a particular type of resource and also a particular group of learners. This will give the future research a clear focus and direction.

Ultimately, the literature review is a research exercise which provides a better understanding of a subject through extensive searching, comparing and evaluating different resources on the topic. In addition, the literature review can also help in the identification of a research question or hypothesis which is crucial in the later stages of the research process. During the process of writing this literature review, a number of key learnings were identified which will help to inform and direct future research.