Literature Review
The Process
The Components of Your Literature Review
Theoretical Strands
Literature Review Updates
Work Product
Outline, Update, and Literature Review Format

Literature Review

“ The format of a review of literature may vary from discipline to discipline and from assignment to assignment.

A review may be a self-contained unit -- an end in itself -- or a preface to and rationale for engaging in primary research. A review is a required part of grant and research proposals and often a chapter in theses and dissertations.

Generally, the purpose of a review is to analyze critically a segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior research studies, reviews of literature, and theoretical articles."

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center. (2001). Writer's Handbook: Academic Writing: Reviews of Literature.
Madison, Wisconsin: Author.
Retrieved 15th October 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/ReviewofLiterature.html.

The Process

For the next 10 weeks you will develop a mini-literature review encompassing a domain of learning theory or a particular learning theory. You will survey scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular learning theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of the theory you chose to study. The purpose of this project is to engage you in a deeper study of learning theory such that you will begin to appreciate, at a deeper level, the insights to your teaching practice it can inform.

Below we have described the framework, the theoretical strands you should use as your lens, the analytical approach, and what your final paper will include.

The Components of Your Literature Review

Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

• Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?

• Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored

• Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic

• Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature
Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:

• An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review

• Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in support of a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative theses entirely)

• Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others

• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:

• Provenance—What are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?

• Objectivity—Is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?

• Persuasiveness—Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?

• Value—Are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

Components of Your Literature Review
The University of California, Santa Cruz. (2003). How to Write a Literature Review. Santa Cruz, California: Author.
Retrieved 15th October 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/literaturereview.html

Theoretical Strands

All of your work should be processed through the lens of one of the following three theoretical strands:

a. Motivation in the Classroom

b. Classroom Management

c. Student Assessment

What this means is that you will choose one of the above as the topic of your review. What that means is that you may cover that topic in general OR you may choose a particular theory or idea within that topic to focus your review on.

Literature Review Updates

You will be responsible for updating the instructor on the progress of your literature review based on the following schedule (see course online schedule of assignments for due dates):

Outline and Updates

Week 1-2 – You should decide what your theoretical strand will be from the list above. You should make an appointment to consult with the instructor if you have questions. You should conduct your initial literature searches

Week 3 – You are required to email your instructor your literature review outline. Your literature review outline should include a description of your topic first and then an outline which will consist of basic definition(s) of the learning theory(s) or theoretical strands you will cover in your literature review and a beginning list of articles, including abstracts (you may use copies of abstracts from the source) you will be using as a basis of your review. You should have no fewer than 4 articles from peer reviewed journals, government or University sponsored reports, or other appropriate academic sources. Newspaper, non-academic web resources, etc. will not be acceptable.

Week 5 – You are required to email your instructor an update of your progress to date. This should include a brief description of your initial reaction to each individual article you have read to date. Each description must include the article tite, reference, abstract, and your written reaction.

Week 10 – Your literature review is due.

Work Product

A) A formal outline of your literature review including a description of your topic, definition of your theoretical strand, an initial list of references including abstracts as described above due at the end of week 3.

B) An update of work progress as described above due at the end of week 5 with references.

C) A formal literature review constructed using the "The Components of Your Literature Review" above as a basis for the structure of your review as described above with references.

Outline, Update, and Literature Review Format

All Work
All work should be written in Microsoft Word, have your name and ID number at the top of your file, have each component that is described in the instructions and be formated and turned in as follows:

a) Margins and footers should be set at 1 inch.
b) Font should be a 12pt font, preferable Times or Times New Roman (no larger).
c) Lines should be double-spaced and font spacing should be normal.
d) Paragraphs should be separated by one line.
e) Do not indent paragraphs. Indent quotes longer than 3 lines.
e) Send only 1 document with each assignment attached to an emai (this means to include all of your work in a single document for each assignement). The email should have in the subject line your last name and the assignment title (example: Jones_Outline, Jones_Update_1, etc.). The word document should be named the same as the email subject line.

Updates
a) There is no length requirement for the literature review updates. They should be as long as needed to complete the assignment.

Literature Review
a) The length of the literature review should be 12-15 pages in length not including title page, table of contents, reference page, tables, or graphs. This means that a minimum number of pages will be 15 pages.