What is a literature review?

A literature review is the comprehensive study and interpretation of literature that relates to a particular topic (Aveyard 2007). It must relate to a specific question for which an answer is then sought by searching and analysing existing literature that has bee written about the subject referred to in the question. A literature review should bring together all relevant pieces of literature on a topic and ensure that no one piece is seen in isolation. If you think of each piece of literature as one piece of a jigsaw, a literature review represents the finished puzzle with each piece of literature contributing to the whole picture.

The initial literature review will most likely inform the development and refining of your overall research question, so expect to go back and forth between the two.

Purpose

• to find out everything that everybody else has ever known about the problem/issue

• to find out who did what, how far they got, what mistakes they made

• to understand the questions that have been asked in previous research in your field to help you clarify the questions that you wish to answer

A literature review should provide a critical account of the literature in order to demonstrate why a new research study is required. Not all literature reviews are undertaken at the beginning of a study. There are two ways to approach a literature review:

• As a preliminary investigation prior to undertaking primary data collection. The reasons for this are:

1. to establish what is already known about your chosen topic and to demonstrate a gap in the knowledge base - this gives you the rationale for undertaking your research
2. to identify which research methods have been used by previous researchers who have undertaken research in this area. When you read the literature, look at researchers' evaluations of what went well and what not so well as this will help you shape and design your own methodology

• As the entire focus of your research. Your entire approach may be to systematically and critically examine the literature around your chosen topic in order to arrive at a new insight or perspective

You will need to clearly signpost what you are doing and why - don't assume that the reader knows anything.

Approach

The review must be undertaken in a planned, methodical and systematic way. You will need to:

• Define the scope of the review. Establish the scope of the literature that you are going to include. Select only literature that has a direct relation to your literature review. If you do not you review will become too large and you will be unable to focus on the questions you are aiming to address, e.g.
• understanding the term 'community'
• relationship/power dynamics and roles in a community
• communities of learners
• online communities in higher education
• communities of practice in higher education

• Define the terms. E.g. define 'community' and 'course' in the context of your study, e.g.
• community
• course (i.e. does this include all the support departments involved)
• students
• social structure
• structuralist
• post-structuralist

Structure

1. Identify a well-defined question to guide your literature review
2. Develop a systematic searching strategy to guide the collection of literature for your review
3. Critically assess the quality of the literature and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of evidence
4. Combine the evidence and draw all the individual components together in such a way as to shed new light on the topic, more that can be achieved by simply reviewing the individual pieces of literature
5. Reiterate at the end of the review the purpose for undertaking the review (i.e. if it was to identify a gap in the literature then state this; if it was to identify suitable research methods to use then state this)