An introduction to educational research methods. Введение в образовательные исследовательские методы Білім беру-зерттеу әдістеріне кіріспе

Reviewing The Literature And Writing A Literature Review

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in your search.

In general, the larger the database, the more abstracts there are and the more important

it is to use the thesaurus or set of subject headings, if it is available to you.

SEARCHING DATABASES

To carry out an effective search of an electronic database, you need to understand how

these systems work, and how to plan a search to take full advantage of them. The British

Education Index (BEI) is based on Boolean logic which uses two main logical operators.

It is probably easier to understand this if you have an actual example to look at. For

example, Figure 3.2 shows the preliminary stages of a search carried out by Atkinsonet

al. in their published literature review.

Atkinson, M., Springate, I., Johnson, F. and Halsey, K. (2007) Inter-school Collaboration: A

Literature Review. Slough: NFER.

In Appendix 6 of the report, the authors tell us that they searched the following

sources:

•  the NFER Library bibliographical databases

•  the current educational research in the UK database (CERUK)

•  AEI (Australian Education Index)

•  BEI (British Education Index)

•  CBCA Fulltext Education (Canadian Business and Current Affairs)

•  ERIC (Education Resources Information Center).

REVIEWING THE LITERATURE AND WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW 

45

When they searched the BEI, they used a number of terms and Figure 3.2 uses the very 

first stages of their search to illustrate the difference between Boolean Or/And statements. 

In the search, the shaded circle with the words ‘educational cooperation’ represents 

all the records that contain these words. This search found 1,351 results for these 

words. The other shaded circles with the words ‘cooperative programmes’ and 

‘school’ represent all the records that contain ‘cooperative programmes’ and ‘school’. 

In this case, the database has 373 and 43,786 records respectively. OR logic is most 

commonly used to search for synonymous terms or concepts and will broaden your 

search. OR logic collates the results to retrieve all the unique records containing one 

term, the other, or both. The more terms or concepts we combine in a search with OR 

logic, the more records we will retrieve. In this search, 1,594 records were located for 

the search ‘1 OR 2’.

The authors wanted to retrieve records in which all the search terms are present 

and this is illustrated by the shaded area overlapping the three circles, representing 

all the records that contain all three search terms. So they used the AND operator 

which restricts the numbers of records located by combining each term. The more 

terms or concepts combined in a search with AND logic, the fewer records we will 

retrieve.

1 Educational

cooperation

2 Cooperative

programmes

3 School

1 OR 2

1 AND 3

Figure 3.2  Boolean Logic and search history

04-Wilson-Ch-03.indd   45

8/31/2012   5:40:35 PM

Figure 2.2 

Boolean Logic and search history

Reviewing The Literature And Writing A Literature Review

67

When they searched the BEI, they used a number of terms and Figure 3.2 uses the very 

first stages of their search to illustrate the difference between Boolean Or/And statements. 

In the search, the shaded circle with the words ‘educational cooperation’ represents all 

the records that contain these words. This search found 1,351 results for these words. The 

other shaded circles with the words ‘cooperative programmes’ and ‘school’ represent all 

the records that contain ‘cooperative programmes’ and ‘school’. In this case, the database 

has 373 and 43,786 records respectively. OR logic is most commonly used to search for 

synonymous terms or concepts and will broaden your search. OR logic collates the results 

to retrieve all the unique records containing one term, the other, or both. The more terms 

or concepts we combine in a search with OR logic, the more records we will retrieve. In 

this search, 1,594 records were located for the search ‘1 OR 2’.

The authors wanted to retrieve records in which all the search terms are present and this 

is illustrated by the shaded area overlapping the three circles, representing all the records 

that contain all three search terms. So they used the AND operator which restricts 

the numbers of records located by combining each term. The more terms or concepts 

combined in a search with AND logic, the fewer records we will retrieve.

SETTING SEARCH PARAMETERS

Once you have identified your sources, you also need to decide on the search parameters,

such as timescale, geographical scope, age range, types of literature and date of publication.

What is the timescale of your research?

In general, your sources should be recent and if many of your sources are over 10–15

years old, you must explain why this is. You may of course have chosen to use older

ideas and theories and, if so, be prepared to explain why. Researchers often use older

references when they are ‘classic’ works or establish a benchmark against which you are

comparing things. For example, you may want to trace literature published after an

important piece of legislation was introduced.

What is the geographical scope of your review?

It is likely that you will focus on work carried out in the UK, but limiting your review to

studies written in English is a recognized source of bias, so this must be clearly stated in

your search strategy.

What is the age range or educational level of your study population?

If your research is limited to one educational level, this will help to narrow down the

search results.

Reviewing The Literature And Writing A Literature Review

68

Activity 2.1 Developing your own search strategy

It is much better if you can spend some time thinking about the best 

keywords and search terms before you start your search. To help you do this, 

consider the following questions:

1.  What is your research question? Break this down into its component 

parts, mapping out all the different subject elements.

2.  Compile a list of keywords and phrases that describe these different 

elements and that you can use as keywords in your search.

3.  Are there similar words that describe each of these concepts?

4.  Are there any other more specific keywords that could limit your search?

5.  How can you combine these keywords together to search? For example, 

‘Gender AND Science’ returns results containing both words. ‘Gender 

OR Science’ returns results containing either the word gender or the 

word science. Use uppercase letters for OR and AND when using search 

engines.

6.  Try using different key words to find the information you want.

What types of literature will your review cover?

Decide if you are going to restrict your search to published studies only or if you will also

want to use unpublished theses, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, other grey literature

and current research too. Including different types of literature in the review will give 

different viewpoints, but excluding them will narrow your search and make it more 

focused.

PUBLISHED META-ANALYSIS LITERATURE REVIEWS

Since 1993, the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre 

(EPPICentre) at the Institute of Education, University of London has coordinated 

systematic reviews in a range of school-based areas. Review teams based in university 

departments in the UK conduct extensive searches of literature relevant to particular 

research questions, and use explicit methods to identify what can be reliably claimed on 

the basis of the chosen studies. This web-based repository also has a searchable thesaurus 

and database. Box 3.1 contains a summary report for a recent EPPI review from the online 

database which reports on learning skills.

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Box 2.1 EPPI 

Review 1501R (Report) and 1501T (Technical Report)

Higgins, S., Baumfield, V. and Hall, E. (2007) ‘Learning skills and the development 

of learning capabilities’, in Research Evidence in Education Library. London: EPPI-

Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of 

London.

What do we want to know?

Which teaching approaches that aim to develop pupils’ learning capabilities 

show evidence of the improved learning of pupils?

Who wants to know and why?

The key aim of this review was to support current policy initiatives: specifically, 

to support the development of personalized learning by identifying teaching 

and learning strategies which actively engage and challenge learners, and which 

develop their ability to focus on their learning skills and their capacity to take 

ownership of their own progress. A second aim was to identify evidence from 

research which helps teachers to understand not just what works in terms of 

specific teaching approaches in specific contexts but why different approaches 

are successful. This can support teachers in making informed choices about 

what is likely to be effective in their own context.

What did we find?

There is a tension between approaches to learning skills which emphasize 

content – in terms of mastery of specific skills – and process – in terms of 

locating skills within an overall understanding of learning approaches. In the 

short term, the most effective means to improve performance where the 

assessment focuses on content knowledge is likely to be direct instruction. In 

the longer term, or where assessment focuses on conceptual understanding, 

metacognitive or strategic approaches are likely to be more effective.

Effective approaches are those which explicitly develop the awareness of 

learning strategies and techniques, particularly when these are targeted at the 

metacognitive level. The characteristics of these approaches identified by the 

review include:

•  structured tasks which focus on specific and explicit strategies in the 

subject context

•  the capacity in lessons for more effective exchanges between the learner 

and the teacher concerning the purpose of the activity

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•  small group interactions promoting articulation about the use of learning 

strategies mechanisms built into learning tasks to promote checking for 

mutual understanding of learning goals by peers and with the teacher

•  enhanced opportunities for the learner to receive diagnostic feedback 

linked

•  directly to the content of the task.

We can also identify some necessary conditions for these approaches to be 

successful:

•  The teacher needs to have a good understanding of the subject, of 

different

•  approaches to learning, and be sensitive to the demands of different types 

of

•  learners.

•  Teachers should have a repertoire of practical tools and strategies to 

guide the learner and enhance opportunities for feedback about learning.

•  Both teachers and learners should have an orientation towards learning 

characterized by a willingness to engage in dialogue and negotiation 

regarding the intent and purpose of a particular teaching and learning 

activity.

•  The focus of learning should be on how to succeed through effort rather 

than ability, and through the selection of appropriate strategies by the 

learner.

How did we get these results?

From the electronic databases and full-text collections, we identified 1,379 

citations. A total of 146 reports were obtained, of which 80 studies were 

selected for inclusion in the review. The in-depth review focused on a 

subgroup of 10 studies.

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71

MANAGING LITERATURE

Storing the literature you find

You must be organized and diligent when it comes to keeping references. It is a good 

idea to set up a system to help you to track and catalogue the sources that you find 

right from the start of your research project. Retaining and subsequently retrieving the 

literature will be important at all stages of the process. The system you use will depend on 

your personal choice. In the past, researchers used handwritten card indexes, but more 

recently bibliographic software has become more readily available. There are a number of 

widely used commercial packages that you may want to buy. EndNote® is used widely in 

university departments and is a powerful database package which enables you to organize, 

store and search references and abstracts of research literature. It can save you time 

when writing papers or your thesis, allowing you to input citations directly from EndNote 

into a Word document, and to create a bibliography without having to type out all the 

references. You can also use it to access, search and download references directly from 

online bibliographic databases or library catalogues.

Zotero is a free online package which also allows for the storage of bibliographic 

information, user notes, and attachments of electronic documents or screen captures, and 

which integrates with popular academic databases, pooling information related to articles 

such as citation information and abstracts.

The larger databases, such as the BEI, AEI and ERIC, have a variety of options for saving 

and transmitting search results to these commercial packages, which may be very useful. 

Make sure that you can keep track of what you’ve found and keep your own record of 

how you completed the searches and the literature that you found. The search terms 

and combinations of terms that have been used for each individual database should be 

documented as you may need to make these explicit later. Moreover, this will

also be useful if you want to replicate a search you have completed in one database in

another. Consequently, when you come to write up your results, you will be able to

show the systematic and thorough nature of your search.

Likewise, keep and file copies of relevant books, and, above all, find out what the

recommended referencing style is and use it from the start.

Keeping on top of reading

You will probably find lots of sources which will be quite rewarding and the tendency

will be to stash these away to be read later. However, this can be daunting and may put

you off reading all the material you find, so I would recommend that you sort through

all the references as you find them.

Try to develop efficient reading strategies – by this, I mean making good use of your

valuable time by avoiding reading irrelevant papers. In addition, try to develop effective

reading strategies, which means that when you subsequently set aside the time to read

the selected papers that you are successful in understanding what you read.

Reviewing The Literature And Writing A Literature Review

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Box 2.2 

The layout of a journal article

Although the exact layout of peer-reviewed journal articles will be determined 

by  the  author  and  the  specific  journal,  most  articles  reporting  on  empirical 

findings will adhere to the following structure:

1.  Introduction/background: a statement concerning the context of the study, 

a  review  of  relevant  literature  and  other  research  in  the  field,  and  the 

identification of some area that has not yet been studied.

2.  Purpose:  the  main  research  aims/questions  addressed  in  the  article,  a 

statement of what was studied. It can be in the form of a thesis statement 

which makes a claim of some kind, but this is not always the case.

3.  Programme  description:  brief  details  of  the  programme  or  intervention 

under investigation (if relevant).

4.  Sample: sample details, including the number of participants, geographical 

location/type of setting, age and stage of education and other demographic 

information pertinent to the study (e.g. gender, ability/attainment, ethnicity, 

special educational needs).

5.  Design and methods: the study design and methods, including dates of data 

collection, sampling method, methods of data collection and analysis.

6.  Results: the main findings in relation to the research aims/questions.

7.  Discussion:  the  interpretation  and  evaluation  of  your  findings,  problems 

encountered in carrying out the research, implications of the results obtained.

8.  Conclusions:  the  main  conclusions  arising  from  the  research,  possible 

applications and further research needed.

EFFICIENT READING

Read the abstract

The first thing to do is to read the abstract carefully. If the abstract is well constructed, 

then this will give you a good idea of whether it is worth your while reading the whole 

article. Reading the abstracts and discarding those that are not appropriate will reduce the

number of articles on the pile of things to be read or stored in your bibliographic 

database.

Sometimes, however, the abstract is not very helpful, so if this is the case, try reading the

introduction, key findings or conclusions instead. These sections should give you enough

information for you to decide whether it is worth reading the whole article. Box 3.2 

provides a simplified description of the basic structure of most empirical research articles.

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SELECTING ARTICLES FOR CAREFUL STUDY

Don’t try to read an academic journal article in the same way as you would a newspaper 

report or novel. If you just start at the beginning and try to read through to the end, you 

will get frustrated and may even get the wrong idea that the ideas are too complicated 

for you to bother with. Most academic articles can’t be grasped in a single reading and you 

may have to engage with them several times, but in different ways.

To quickly gain an overview, familiarize yourself with a chapter or article so that you 

understand the structure for later note-taking by looking at summaries, headings, 

subheadings, tables, diagrams and illustrations. Then read the first sentences of paragraphs 

to see what they are about and to gauge if the material is useful or interesting, so that you 

can decide whether just some sections are relevant or whether you need to read it all.

Effective reading

Reading at speed is fine for scanning and skim-reading, but is unlikely to work for reflective, 

critical reading. The more you read, the faster you will become as you grow more familiar 

with specialist vocabulary, academic language and reading about theories

and ideas.

Nonetheless, even if you have followed the advice given in the previous section, it is

likely that you will still have a large number of articles to read, so it would be a good idea

to have a systematic strategy for reading these.

•  Sorting papers into categories – sort the articles into piles that are all related to each 

strand of your research or sub-question. Alternatively, you might want to rank them in 

order of importance, or even rank each pile. 

•  Note-taking – create a table before you start to read the papers, so that you can write 

down notes as you read. Figure 3.3 gives an example of such a template and is the 

structure used by Atkinson in the literature review referred to earlier in this chapter. 

It is worthwhile spending time before you start creating a relevant straightforward 

table for you to use as you read so that you can go back to these notes at a later time. 

Make a note of pertinent quotations or extracts as you read, in case you want to use 

these later. Your literature review ought to be an expression of your own thinking, not 

a patchwork of borrowed ideas. Therefore it is good idea to plan therefore to invest 

your research time in understanding your sources and integrating them into your own 

thinking. Your note cards or note sheets will record only ideas that are relevant to your 

focus on the topic; and they will mostly summarize rather than quote. Find your own 

words for notes on sticky labels. Don’t ever write in the book itself. 

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