REVIEWING THE LITERATURE
One of the essential preliminary tasks when you undertake a research study is to go
through the existing literature in order to acquaint yourself with the available body of
knowledge in your area of interest.
In the initial stages of research it helps you to establish the theoretical roots of your study,
clarify your ideas and develop your research methodology. Later in the process, the
literature review serves to enhance and consolidate your own knowledge base and helps
you to integrate your findings with the existing body of knowledge.
During the write-up of your report it helps you to integrate your findings with existing
knowledge – that is, to either support or contradict earlier research. In summary, a
literature review has the following functions:
a) It provides a theoretical background to your study.
b) It helps you establish the links between what you are proposing to examine and
what has already been studied.
c) It enables you to show how your findings have contributed to the existing body of
knowledge in your profession.
d) It helps you to integrate your research findings into the existing body of
knowledge.
In relation to your own study, the literature review can help in four ways. It can:
e) bring clarity and focus to your research problem;
f) improve your research methodology;
g) broaden your knowledge base in your research area; and
h) contextualize your findings.
Bringing clarity and focus to your research problem
The process of reviewing the literature helps you to understand the subject area better and
thus helps you to conceptualize your research problem clearly and precisely and makes it
more relevant and pertinent to your field of enquiry. When reviewing the literature, you
learn what aspects of your subject area have been examined by others, what they have
found out about these aspects, what gaps they have identified and what suggestions they
have made for further research. In addition, it will help you to focus your study on areas
where there are gaps in the existing body of knowledge, thereby enhancing its relevance.
Improving your research methodology
Going through the literature acquaints you with the methodologies that have been used by
others to find answers to research questions similar to the one you are investigating.
By becoming aware of any problems and pitfalls, you will be better positioned to select a
methodology that is capable of providing valid answers to your research question. This will
increase your confidence in the methodology you plan to use and will equip you to defend
its use.
Broadening your knowledge base in your research area
The most important function of the literature review is to ensure you read widely around
the subject area in which you intend to conduct your research study. It is important that
you know what other researchers have found in regard to the same or similar questions,
what theories have been put forward and what gaps exist in the relevant body of
knowledge. Another important reason for doing a literature review is that it helps you to
understand how the findings of your study fit into the existing body of knowledge
Enabling you to contextualize your findings
Obtaining answers to your research questions is comparatively easy: the difficult part is
examining how your findings fit into the existing body of knowledge. How do answers to
your research questions compare with what others have found? What contribution have
you been able to make to the existing body of knowledge? How are your findings different
from those of others? Undertaking a literature review will enable you to compare your
findings with those of others and answer these questions. It is important to place your
findings in the context of what is already known in your field of enquiry.
How to review the literature
If you do not have a specific research problem, you should review the literature in your
broad area of interest with the aim of gradually narrowing it down to what you want to find
out about.
After that the literature review should be focused around your research problem. You
should try broadly to conceptualize your research problem before undertaking your major
literature review.
There are four steps involved in conducting a literature review:
Searching for the existing literature in your area of study.
Reviewing the selected literature.
Developing a theoretical framework.
Developing a conceptual framework.
The skills required for these tasks are different.
Searching for the existing literature
To search effectively for the literature in your field of enquiry, it is imperative that you have
at least some idea of the broad subject area and of the problem you wish to investigate, in
order to set parameters for your search. Next, compile a bibliography for this broad area.
There are three sources that you can use to prepare a bibliography:
Books;
Journals;
The Internet
Developing a theoretical framework
As you start reading the literature, you will soon discover that the problem you wish to
investigate has its roots in a number of theories that have been developed from different
perspectives.
You will also realise that the literature deals with a number of aspects that have a
direct or indirect bearing on your research topic. Use these aspects as a basis for
developing your theoretical framework. Your review of the literature should sort out the
information, as mentioned earlier, within this framework. Unless you review the literature
in relation to this framework, you will not be able to develop a focus in your literature
search: that is, your theoretical framework provides you with a guide as you read.
Literature pertinent to your study may deal with two types of information:
Universal
more specific (i.e. local trends or a specific programme)
Developing a conceptual framework
The conceptual framework is the basis of your research problem. It stems from the
theoretical framework and usually focuses on the section(s) which become the basis of
your study. Whereas the theoretical framework consists of the theories or issues in which
your study is embedded, the conceptual framework describes the aspects you selected
from the theoretical framework to become the basis of your enquiry. The conceptual
framework grows out of the theoretical framework and relates to the specific research
problem.
With a research topic in mind, identify the various variables and develop a conceptual
framework.
