Literature review

AP Dr Lim Chap Sam

School of Educational
Studies
Universiti Sains Malaysia
cslim@usm.my
Questions to ponder

 WHY do we need a literature review?

 WHEN do we need to do a literature review?

 HOW to write a critical review?

 WHEN & HOW to use literature review to

support our thesis?
WHY do we need to do a literature
review?

 No one idea is really original

 Any one idea is always built on or develop

from another idea

 “Great men think alike”

WHY do we need to do a literature
review? 3 reasons:

 Avoid reinventing the wheel

– not to repeat what other people have done
– a waste of time, money and effort.

 to learn from what others have done

– and what else need to be expanded/further research upon

 help to conceptualize our theoretical framework

and conceptual framework.
– based on others’ theories & methodology
WHEN do we need to do a literature
review?

 At the beginning of the research project

– Proposal
– Chapter 2, 1 & 3

 Constantly update during the research

 When writing the discussion and conclusion

chapters
HOW to write a critical review?

 writing a review is NOT recording a list of

literature or studies that you have read

 NOT to show off how many literatures you

have read

 BUT a critical and careful examination of

past studies and theories.
Avoid to write like this

Atan Long (1984) berpendapat bahawa …..

Kennedy (1996) pula berpendapat bahawa.....

Chiero (1997) berpendapat bahawa....

-- not just writing who said what

-- But to ‘digest’ what they said and
-- present it in such a way that we used what they said
to support what we are arguing or highlighting
But to write like this, example:

Tinjauan kajian yang berkaitan dengan sikap guru menunjukkan

bahawa kebanyakan pendidik atau penyelidik (misalnya, Atan Long,

1984; Kennedy, 1996 or Chiero, 1997) mempunyai pendapat yang

sama (atau beza) mengenai sikap guru. Atan Long (1984)

berpendapat bahawa sikap guru adalah ……sedangkan Kennedy

(1996) menganggap sikap guru kini lebih kepada……

Pendapat Kennedy disokong oleh Chiero (1997) bahawa……

More examples

 Avoid to always begin a paragraph with a person’s

name
 Use words or conjunctions such as ‘malahan’;
‘tetapi’, ‘whereas’; ‘however’; ‘similarly’ etc

Atan Long (1984) berpendapat bahawa ….....

Tetapi pendapat beliau telah dibantah atau dipersoalkan
oleh Kennedy (1996) yang mengatakan bahawa….
Chiero (1997) juga berpendapat sama bahawa....
Questions that help to examine
critically while reading the literature

 For each study, what are the objectives, sample,

methodology and highlight of the finding?
 How many studies are doing the similar thing – in
terms of sample, methods used? Are their findings
consistent?
 Are their methods of data collection and analysis
valid and reliable?
 What are the issues and problems that still need to
research or identify or justify further?
Not a critical review:

Norzita (2004) dalam kajian mendapati min tahap kemahiran

guru.......
Johari Shasudin dan Baharudin Mustafa (1999) membuat kajian
atas 160 orang guru....Dapatan kajian menunjukkan
bahawa......
Kajian Norizan (2003) mendapati bahawa guru kurang
mempunyai.......
Tan (2002b) membuat kajian atas 4 buah sekolah telah
mendapati.........

Just list all the related studies and their findings

How to make it critical?
 To make it critical, we should :

 1. identify and categorize the type of research studies that

are related to the topic concerned.

 2. summarize and highlight findings that are common to all.

 3. display findings which are still contradicting and issues

that are still need to be explored further
Better example

Kajian tempatan mengenai sikap guru boleh dibahagi kepada dua

kategori, iaitu a) ___- dan b) ______. Didapati kebanyakan kajian
memfokus kepada jenis pertama (misalnya, Norzita, 2004; Norizan,
2003). Kedua-dua kajian Norzita dan Norizan menjalankan kajian atas
__________ dan dapatan mereka menunjukkan bahawa…………Bagi
jenis kedua yang lebih menekankan kepada ............., kajian Tan
(2002b) telah memaparkan bahawa……….Walaupun membuat kajian
atas sample yang berbeza, Johari Shasudin dan Baharudin Mustafa
(1999) telah pun menunjukkan bahawa……….. Tetapi, pada
keseluruhannya, masih kekurangan kajian yang menyentuh tentang
sikap guru dari segi……Oleh itu, satu kajian yang bertujuan …….
adalah sangat diperlukan pada masa kini.
WHEN to use literature review to
support our thesis?

 Statement of problem
– Background of problem
– What others have done, what not yet done?
 Theoretical framework
– Related theories
 Methodology
– Methods commonly used for the research
– Justification of methods chosen
 Discussion chapter
– Support/contrast the findings
 Conclusion
How to insert/use literature review in
discussion

 While discussing the results of our research,

– need to link our findings to what other

researchers have found,
– whether our findings coincide or contradict with
theirs.
– need to use our review to support our argument
or justification
Example:

Dapatan kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa………..

Hasil dapatan ini menyokong apa yang telah didapati
oleh Tan (2002). Walaupun dalam kajian ini, peserta
kajian adalah guru yang mengajar peringkat sekolah
rendah sedangkan dalam kajian Tan adalah .......,
didapati kedua-dua kajian memaparkan ...........
Maka, ini memberi implikasi bahawa.......
Summary
 Doing research is an on-going process.
– We begin our research by reviewing other studies and related
literatures.
– Then we go on to carry out our research.
– We collect data and analyze the data collected.

 At the same time, we must not forget that many other people
are also doing their research and contributing their results to
the field of study that we are doing.

 Therefore, it is very important that we keep update our review

of literature so that we are not ignorant about the research
development of the related field that we are studying.
Good luck