EDCO745 Literature Review

Overview

Literature Review: Outline Assignment Instructions

Overview

The goal of this assignment is to get you moving as quickly as possible on your reading of research articles. It would be best if you read peer-reviewed research articles at a pretty furious pace (two a day) to write with sufficient knowledge.

The literature review is a review of the literature. It is where you provide the information you have gathered on your selected themes and begin constructing the case for your specifically designed model.

As you read, consider:

What is the existing literature out there on my selected themes/variables?

(i.e., 1. You select depression as one of your variables. AND 2. Search existing literature/studies on depression (begin by gaining a broad understanding of depression, then begin looking at what particular studies have been conducted on depression, independently and in relation to your other selected variables)

* Study each research article you read:

1. Take note of the literature they have examined to design their study, but DO NOT CITE FACTS FROM THEIR LITERATURE REVIEW UNDER THEIR NAMES; go to the ORIGINAL SOURCE

2. Look at the methodology behind their study, examine their specific procedures and what tests they conduct

3. Take note of how they report their results

4. When you are reading through their discussion, note the way they discuss (perhaps their rationale or what sources they refer to)

5. Look at their limitations and future research

Throughout you are reading, ask yourself where there might be “gaps” in the literature (things the existing literature has neglected to examine/research) – this will inform your study.

Instructions

Construct an outline for your Literature Review:

This outline must be thorough and include information from the articles you have read; you must cite each of them, in APA format (refer to APA handbook and guidelines)

The outline of your Literature Review must have at least 5 major headings

This must include major themes as well as integration between themes

• Note: You may resubmit this assignment a second time after you receive feedback

General format:

I. Introduction to entire literature review (must be informative and concise)

II. Theme 1 – This is ONE heading (you need at least five)

A. Detailed info on Theme 1 (include information on reviewed articles, include APA formatted citations – see APA Handbook and Guidelines on citations)

B. Detailed info on Theme 1(include information on reviewed articles)

1. Even more detailed info on Theme 1 (include more detailed information on the specific article mentioned above)

2. Even more detailed info on Theme 1(include more detailed information on the specific article mentioned above)

III. Theme 2

A. Detailed info on Theme 2

1. Even more detailed info on Theme 2

2. Even more detailed info on Theme 2

IV. Theme 3 (continue with more detailed information on Theme 3 as outlined above)

V. Theme 4 (continue with more detailed information on Theme 4 as outlined above)

VI. Theme 5 (continue with more detailed information on Theme 5 as outlined above)

VIII. Integrate and Synthesize the above Themes

V. Conclusion of literature review

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool. For this week's assignments you make use of a large dataset. This is a real dataset made up of data collected several years ago for a research project conducted by some Liberty University faculty. You will be using this dataset for all the SPSS assignments throughout this course.

This week you were to pick a topic that makes use of variables available in the dataset. You will need to pick a topic that includes variables in that dataset. You might, for example, pick something like "Depression as it is impacted by Religious Struggles, Anxiety, Gender and Marital Satisfaction". Notice that all of the variables there relate to some sort of measure available in the dataset (e.g. Depression is measured by the "Depression" subscale of the DASS).

When you write your literature review (and assignments related to the literature review) you are following the rules associated with writing the Introduction section of a research article. Recall that the literature review makes up the main part of the Introduction section. That should be something familiar to you from reviewing research articles in other psychology courses. If it is not familiar you should review the chapters on the Introduction section in the "APA Publication Manual".

Keep in mind that what you are writing in the literature is a summary of the literature that is relevant to your topic. This includes material that supports why there is any reason to think that there is a relationship between the variables you chose and why your important might be important. You also want to provide support for the hypotheses that you make later.

You should also keep in mind that you will not necessarily include just the variables you have in your topic for all the assignments. For some of the data screening exercises you may chose variables that are related to your topic but not specifically part of your topic. One example might be considering Religious Commitment (measured by the RCI in the dataset) for the topic I have above. That is not a variable in the topic I chose but there might be reason to think that Religious Commitment could also impact all of the variables I included in the topic. For that reason I might to do a screening on that variable just to make sure it is evenly spread throughout might sample. If it is not then I may have to consider it an "extraneous variable" (i.e. a variable that impacts my data disproportionately from what I expected) and would need to address that issue when I write my Discussion section.