Module Three Exploring the Literature

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Module ThreeExploring the Literature

• EDU 691
• Troy State University
• Chan Roark, Ph.D.

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Mark your calendar

• This module and Module Four should be completed
  by the end of the second week of class.
• Dont forget the Internet retrieval assignment
  and the research proposal hypothesis are due by
  the end of this week, too.

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Step One

• Research Starts With A Question
• A tentative hypothesis guides the researcher to
  the literature where the question is refined and
  justified.

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Step TwoReview of the Literature

• "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the
  facts.
• Albert Einstein
• The review of the related literature is as
  important as any other component of the research
  process.

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Step Two

• Research the literature
• More than just a necessary evil
• Dont reinvent the wheel
• What is already known?
• What more can be learned?
• Often a source of ideas for research

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Involves the systematic identification, location,
and analysis of documents containing information
related to the research problem.
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Functions of a Literature Review

• determine what has already been done that relates
  to your problem
• avoid unintentional duplication
• increase understanding and insight relating the
  problem
• provide rationale for hypothesis
• form justification for study
• gain insight into research strategies and
  methodologies to avoid others mistakes and profit
  from their experience
• facilitates interpretation of results
• results support previous findings

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What is the literature

• periodicals
• abstracts
• reviews
• books
• other research reports

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Sources of Research Reports

• Research is also reported in books.
• Most common source is professional journals
• Annual Reviews
• Annual Review of Psychology
• Review of Educational Research (quarterly)
• Review of Research in Education (annually)
• Psychological Abstracts
• Computerized literature search
• The Internet

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Some Titles for Educators

• American Educational Research Journal
• Childhood Education
• Educational Leadership
• Gifted Child Quarterly
• Journal of Educational Research
• Learning Disorders
• Reading Teacher

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Professional Articles On-Line

• Dr. Tom Trenckly PSY 601 on-line from TSUM
• http//www.tsum.edu/trenckly/resource.htm
• ERIC on-line database
• http//www.ed.gov/pubs/pubdb.html
• Links to Psychological journals
  on-line http//www.psywww.com/resource/journals.
  htm
• Psychinfo a source for psychological journal
  articles
• http//www.apa.org/psycinfo/

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Distinguishing research reports from other kinds
of professional writing

• A research report describes an attempt to obtain
  empirical information about a question of
  interest
• A report that addresses a question which is not
  empirically answerable is not research
• Watch for should or ought

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Even the APA Publications Manual can help

• Refer to discussion , page 4, and Sample Paper
  and Outlines, page 257 - 272
• Empirical studies
• reflect the stages
• appear in the sequence of the stages
• Review articles
• met-analysis
• a tutorial
• Theoretical articles
• analyzes or presents a new theory

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Are These Titles of Research Articles?

• The Effects of a Self Monitoring Process on
  College Students Learning in an Introductory
  Statistics Course
• Educational Research A Personal and Social
  Process
• Issues and Trends in the Education of the
  Severely Handicapped

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More Titles

• Barriers to the Progress of Women and Minority
  Faculty
• The Short-Term Impact of Two Classroom-Based
  Preventive Interventions on Aggressive and Shy
  Behaviors and Poor Achievement
• Adolescent Cognitions and Attributions for
  Academic Cheating A Cross-National Study
• adapted from Vierra, A., Pollock, J. Golez, F.
  (1998). Reading Educational Research (3rd ed.).
  Upper Saddle River, NJ Merrill.

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Ive got all the articles. Now, what?

• Two key words
• Organize
• Summarize.
• Use an outline.

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Outlines

• Theres a reason all middle school English
  teachers work with students on outlining, but
  here you dont have follow the Roman numeral
  formula.

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Outlines

• Identify the main topics
• Order can be determined later
• New topics can be added, as you read
• Develop subheadings

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Using Technology to Help You

• File folders.
• Software.
• Pages in word processor

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Outline for This Module

• What is a review of the literature?
• Why do lit review?
• What is the literature?
• See next slide for treatment of subheading
• How do I deal with the information?

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Subheadings for the module

• What Is the literature?
• Sources
• Titles
• Distinguishing from other writing
• Exercise

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Analyze each reference in terms of your outline

• Sort references into appropriate piles
• (I prefer file folders.)
• What to do with references without a folder
• Discard the reference
• Possibly use as introductory material
• Modify the outline

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Analyzing Within a Subheading

• Look for differences
• Look for relationships
• If several say the same thing, dont summarize
  three individually
• Several studies have found the Myers Briggs Type
  Indicator to be less predictive with Black Males
  than with White Females (Colvin, 1997 Bates,
  1993 Myers 1971).

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Rule of Thumb

• Articles least related to the problem are
  discussed first
• Articles most related are discussed last
• Think of it as a V to the hypothesis
• Gay, L. (1996).

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Always conclude with a summary of the literature
and its implications.

• Tell em what youre going to tell em.
• Tell em.
• Tell em what you told em.

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How to Read Evaluate Research
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Format for a Research Report

• What was the question
• What was done to get the answer (empirical
  process)
• What was the answer
• Implications and applications
• See page 3 of the APA manual

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Salient Issues at Each Research Stage

• The Question
• The Empirical Process

• What is the question?
• Why is this question worth asking?
• What is the process for answering the question?
• Who and/or what will be studied, when, where. and
  how?
• Is this a valid process for answering the
  question?

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Issues and Stages

• The Answer
• The Next Question

• What is the answer?
• How does the process limit the answer?
• What does the answer mean?
• Where do we go from here?

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The Parts of An Article

• Title and Authors
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• References

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Author and Title

• You may become familiar with certain authors
  subject, viewpoint, style, etc.
• Title gives you an idea of the contents of an
  article
• May state the dependent and independent variables
• Rate of Bar Pressing as a Function of Quality
  and Quantity of Food Reward

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Just a reminder

• Independent variable
• the one manipulated
• Dependent variable
• the outcome variable -- observed and measured

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Abstract

• brief, comprehensive summary
• like a resume -- Once printed in the journals,
  this is your introduction and is often the basis
  of deciding whether or not to read the article.
• accurate
• self-contained
• concise and specific
• nonevaluative
• coherent and readable
• about 100 words

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Abstract

• Conveys
• problem under investigation
• procedure used
• results
• conclusions
• implications or applications

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Abstract Examples

• This exercise will be very good practice for you.
  It was adapted from Vierra, A., Pollock, J.
  Golez, F. (1998). Reading Educational Research
  (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ Merrill.

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Is the Medium the Message? An Experimental
Comparison of the Effects of Radio and Television
on Imagination

• This study explored the hypothesis that radio
  would be more stimulating to the imagination than
  television. The hypothesis was tested using a
  within-subjects experimental design in which
  children at two different age levels were exposed
  to one story in a television format, another in
  radio format. Our measure of imaginative
  activity was the ability to complete an
  incomplete story by introducing original new
  elements that had not been part of the stimulus.
  Supporting the hypothesis, radio presentations
  led to more imaginative story completions.
  Concerning imagination, results support McLuhans
  (1964) the medium is the message thesis. While
  some specific effects on imaginative activity
  stemmed from story content, all of the more
  general effects were attributable to the medium
  in which the content was presented.

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Effectiveness of Cognitive/Relaxation Therapy and
Study-Skills Training in Reducing Self-reported
Anxiety and Improving Academic Performance of
Test-Anxious Students

• Forty-five test anxious students were randomly
  assigned to one of four treatment conditions (a)
  relaxation/cognitive therapy, (b) study skills
  training, (c) a combination, and (d) no
  treatment. Pretreatment and post-treatment
  measures were collected on self-reported state
  anxiety and classroom examination performance.
  The relaxation/cognitive therapy was found to be
  effective in reducing anxiety but failed to
  improve classroom test scores. Study skills
  training had no significant effect on either
  measure. The combined therapy both reduced
  anxiety and improved performance relative to the
  no-treatment control condition and was
  significantly more effective than was either
  treatment alone.

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Developmental Stages and Institutional Structure
The Case of Continuing Education for Women

• This article examines the responses of five women
  to their education experience in a continuing
  education center. Through life-history
  interviews, the womens developmental stages or
  transitional statuses are defined and seen as
  influential in their response to the educational
  institution.

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Introduction

• Specifies the problem
• Tells why it is important
• Reviews the relevant research literature
• Rationale for hypothesis and predictions

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Method

• Describes in detail the operations performed
• May be printed in smaller type to conserve space
• Should contain enough information to allow for
  replication

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Methods Sections Subsections

• Subjects
• how many
• who (college students, grieving spouses,
  adolescents in detention)
• Apparatus or materials
• apparatus equipment
• materials tests, questionnaires
• Procedures

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Results

• What happened
• Not raw data or individual scores
• Descriptive statistics -
• Inferential statistics
• allows generalization from sample to population
• Significance of statistical findings
• Tables and graphs

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Statistical Significance

• Acceptable Level of Significance determined
  BEFORE conducting study
• .05 or .01 is generally used
• .001 if great importance
• The probability that the investigator will
  arrive at a certain erroneous conclusion

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Discussion

• Most creative part of the article
• Restate what the data shows
• Draw theoretical conclusions
• Such freedom for the author requires caution on
  the part of the reader

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References

• Found at the end of the article
• A valuable guide for related information
• Can be used as an index of the merit of the
  article
• Most recently published works
• Most important publications
• Different from a bibliography

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Refer to the Critique Form

• Cite the article using APA reference format
• Cite the internet address for the article
• What is the authors goal?
• What is the hypothesis to be tested in the
  experiment?
• State as a hypothesis. Do not repeat the goal.

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Variables

• Dependent
• the result - what is measured - the criterion
• the test scores
• amount of weight lost
• observed behavioral patterns

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Variables

• Independent
• What is manipulated- the different approach
• the teaching style
• diet method
• method of presentation

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Critique - 5

• What statistical procedures are used to analyze
  the data and test the hypothesis?
• Explain how the research design helped to control
  for threats to internal and external validity.
• You will better understand these after completing
  Module Six and Seven

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Critique - 6

• Practice for your own proposal. Review your
  syllabus requirements for Chapter One and write a
  BRIEF ( less than 2 pages) Chapter 1 proposal
  description based on this article. Remember you
  are taking yourself back in time BEFORE the
  author conducted the study and are proposing what
  they will do. Write this section in FUTURE
  tense.

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Additional info to look for

• Does this methodology actually test the
  hypothesis?
• Did the author get the expected results?
• Did the author provide a cogent discussion of the
  results?
• Is the interpretation of the authors logical and
  unbiased?
• What additional implications can you draw from
  interpretation of the results?
• Does the author provide sufficient information to
  allow for replication?
• Are there any references which you feel would be
  especially meaningful for follow-up? Why?

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Question 3aWhat is the role of the Review of the
Literature in conducting research? Why is it
important? How does it assist the researcher?
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Question 3bIdentify and describe the parts of a
research article.