Review of the Literature

The literature review is a major part of your research and deserves serious attention. Initially, the literature review will help you to select and focus on a topic, and will show you what has been published on that topic so that you do not duplicate someone else’s work. Conduct a thorough literature search before designing your methodology and collecting your data.

The literature review should provide context and clarify the relationship between your topic and previous work in that area. When writing the literature review, present major themes, theories, and ideas that have been published in the area, and the findings of related studies. A thematic approach under section headings will help to focus the review and provide structure to this chapter. Conclude the review of the literature with a short section that describes your topic, highlighting why it is important to address the problem you have investigated.

Important Note

The Literature Review does not need to be a section on its own. But rather reviewed Literature and References can be encapsulated within the text of the paper. Follow the example below:

Computers and Attitudes

The majority of the research literature in this area suggested students’ computer experiences to be positively correlated with computer attitude (Martin, 1991; Askar, Yavuz, Koksal, 1992). However, Todman and Dick (1993) found that a substantial portion of the variability in children’s attitudes toward computers was predicted by the attitudes of their teachers. Teachers with low attitude had influenced students to have low attitude in their study. However, their study did not answer the question of ‘What is it about different classes, schools, or teachers that affects students’ attitudes towards computers?’ In particular it did not discuss the impact of gender.

 

Computers in Education

When computers came into use in the 1950s, business, industry, military trainers, as well as educators recognised their potential as instructional tools. Many of these trainers and educators predicted that computer technology would quickly transform education. But as Roblyer (1992) pointed out, the intense interest in computer use for instruction from 1960 to 1975 sprang in large part from the belief that computers could revolutionise classrooms in the same way that they were changing business offices.

In the early days when resources were available only through centrally controlled mainframe computer systems, some foresaw technology eventually replacing the teacher as the primary instructional delivery system (Norris, 1977). However, the advent of standalone microcomputers placed the power of technology in the hands of teachers, and the image of technology shifted from replacing teachers to supplementing and enhancing teacher-based instruction.

 

 

Style

You are required to select a documentation style and apply it consistently and carefully throughout your dissertation. A good style manual will give advice on practical matters such as punctuation, numbering, layout and table design, as well as how to document sources in the text and in the bibliography. Pay attention to style and form right from the beginning of your research process. It is much easier to get into the habit of writing and referencing correctly than to go back and revise the format at a later time. Style manuals can be examined in the LB2369 section of Library 2. Recommended manuals include :

American Psychological Association. Publication Manual. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: APA, 1994.

Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 4th ed. New York: MLA, 1995.

Turabian, Kate. A Manual For Writers Of Term Papers, Theses And Dissertations. 6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.