incorporating theory and conducting literature search and review

2. • Qualitative research usually focus on the meaning of real-life events, not just the
occurrence of the event.
• The search for meaning is in fact a search for concepts – ideas that are more abstract
than the actual data in an empirical study.
• A collection of concepts, even a small collection, may be assembled in some logical
fashion that then might represent a theory about the events that have been studied.
Theory
Concept
Data

3. • Stereotype of Qualitative research – a devoid of concepts, i.e. spouting detail after
detail about events or people without relying on any concepts, much less theories.
• Such a stereotype of qualitative research does not represent good qualitative
research, and you should AVOID emulating it.
• The preferred qualitative captures the same empirical details – but interwoven in
some manner with abstract concepts if not theories.

4. • Inductive approaches tend to let the data lead to the emergence of concepts.
(Bottom-Up approach)
• Deductive approaches tend to lets the concepts – if only taking the form of initial
“categories” – lead to the definition of the relevant data that need to be collected.
(Top-Down approach)
• Most qualitative research follows an inductive approach BUT, nothing is wrong with
taking a deductive approach.
DEDUCTIVE INDUCTIVE

5. • Most social research involves both inductive and deductive reasoning processes at
some time in the project.
Abductive Reasoning:
• Another form of scientific reasoning that does not fit in with inductive or deductive
reasoning is abductive.
• Abductive reasoning usually starts with an incomplete set of observations and
proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the group of observations.
• It is based on making and testing hypotheses using the best information available. It
often entails making an educated guess after observing a phenomenon for which
there is no clear explanation.
• Abductive reasoning is useful for forming hypotheses to be tested.

7. Purpose of Literature Review:
• provides a (historical) background for your research;
• gives an overview of the current context in which your research is situated by
referring to contemporary debates, issues and questions in the field;
• it includes a discussion of relevant theories and concepts which underpin your
research;
• it introduces relevant terminology and provides definitions to clarify how terms are
being used in the context of your own work;
• describes related research in the field and shows how your work extends or
challenges this, or addresses a gap in work in the field;
• provides supporting evidence for a practical problem or issue which your research is
addressing, thereby underlining its significance.

8. Arguments for NO:
• Earlier view of doing a qualitative research resisted formal literature reviews prior to
the onset of collecting some field data
• Belief that qualitative studies attempt, most of all, to capture the “meaning” of events
from the participants point of view and not from the researcher’s perspective.
• Reviewing prior research could hinder if not introduce bias by creating unwanted
filter or lens.

9. Arguments for YES:
• Studies and the literature have become much more diverse – new investigators
to show their awareness in identifying specific lines of research – and the “meanings”
“meanings” uncovered under similar circumstances.
• If a new study is claimed to be entirely unique, a good literature review also can
demonstrate a researcher’s mastery over literature as well as presenting the
argument for the lacuna.
• Expertise in conducting literature review is an important evidence for skills in
conducting a research.

10. • At the initial stage of your research, the need for review is ‘selective’ and not
‘comprehensive’.
• Selective Review:
• Main purpose: to sharpen your preliminary considerations & review and report in
greater detail about a specific array of previous studies directly related to your likely
topic of study, method and data source.
• At this stage of review process, the studies that need to be targeted an reviewed are
those that, on first appearance, closely resemble the one you have started to consider
doing.
• Chances are you will encounter other studies that focused on similar topics or used a
similar data collection method, or even in the same context of study – you may
examine these studies carefully and determine whether you can cast yours in some
importantly different manner. A good point to start is to look at the studies’
recommendation for further research or limitation of the study.

11. • At the initial stage of your research, the need for review is ‘selective’ and not
‘comprehensive’.
• Comprehensive Review:
• Main purpose: to bring together what is known on a particular topic, possibly
highlighting controversial or disparate lines of thinking or even the progress over
time in cumulating the knowledge about a subject.
• The legitimate role of this type of reviews is indeed recognized by the existence of
major journal, devoted exclusively to such literature review (e.g Academy of
Management Review).
• Comprehensive review maybe more suited to helping you to decide on a broad area
of interest for what may turn out to be a lifetime’s worth of studies, rather than
defining any particular study.

12. • First developed in the medical sciences as part of the search for a better evidence
base for policy making and for clinical practice.
• Aim: to evaluate the main body of research within a particular field, or around a
particular research question.
• Undertakes a defined sequence of locating, analysing, ordering and evaluating
literature from defined sources over a period of time.
• Advantage: the process is ‘replicable, scientific and transparent’
• Disadvantage: an over-preoccupation with counting and cataloguing articles can lead
lead to a quantitative positivism, at the expense of conceptual or theoretical synthesis.

13. Boaz et at (2002) identify seven standards for reviewing data systematically:
i. Using protocols to guide the process. A protocol is a project management tool used by the reviewer(s) to plan the
different stages of the review. It is a detailed description of how the review will be carried out and promotes transparency,
transferability and replicability.
ii. Focusing on answering a specific question(s).
iii. Seeking to identify as much of the relevant research as possible. Research databases are used to conduct wide-ranging
searches of the available literature, with the aim of locating as much of the relevant research as possible, across a broad
spectrum of research fields.
iv. Appraising the quality of the research included in the review. Explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria, clearly stated in
the protocol, are used to systematically focus the study onto the most relevant articles. Quality assessment criteria are
used to focus on those which are most methodologically robust.
v. Synthesising the research findings in the studies included. In medicine and healthcare research, meta-analysis is used to
synthesize quantitative findings from multiple studies. In social science research, where the review will include a range of
research methodologies, narrative synthesis has more often been used. This can include an exploration of similarities and
differences between studies, an assessment of methodological effectiveness and the use of tables to record and compare
the studies. Computer software packages suitable for analysing text are sometimes used.
vi. Aiming to be as objective as possible about research to remove bias. In social science research it may be more
appropriate to explicitly acknowledge the effects of bias.
vii. Updating in order to remain relevant. Detailed records are maintained of the review process, allowing it to be updated or
or repeated.
Boaz, A., Ashby, D. and Young, K. (2002) Systematic Reviews: What Have They Got to Offer Evidence Based Policy and Practice? ESRC UK Centre for
Evidence Policy and Practice: Working Paper 2. http: //www. evidencenetwork. org/Documents/wp2. pdf (date accessed 10/11/04).

14. Stage 1- Planning the Review
Phase 0 Identification of the need for a review
Phase 1 Preparation of a proposal for a review
Phase 2 Development of a review protocol
Stage II - Conducting the Review
Phase 3 Identification of research
Phase 4 Selection of studies
Phase 5 Study quality assessment
Phase 6 Data extraction and monitoring progress
Phase 7 Data synthesis
Stage III - Reporting and dissemination.
Phase 8 The report and recommendations
Phase 9 Getting evidence into practice
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D. and Smart, P. (2003) Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management by Means of
Systematic Review. British Journal of Management 14 207-222.

15. STAGE 1: PLANNING THE REVIEW
• Form a review panel – encompassing a range of experts in the areas both
methodology & theory.
• Conduct scoping studies, to assess the relevance and size of literature and delimit
subject areas or topic – need to consider cross disciplinary perspectives and
alternative ways in which a research topic has previously been tackled.
• Scoping study may also include a brief overview of the theoretical, practical &
methodological history debates surrounding the field and sub-fields of study.
• Outcome:
o Rationale (or the need for the review)
o Objectives of the review (based on the research questions)
o The review panel & review schedule
o A review protocol – a plan helps to protect objectivity by providing explicit
description of steps to be taken.

16. STAGE 1: PLANNING THE REVIEW
• Review protocol – a plan helps to protect objectivity by providing explicit
description of steps to be taken. The aim is to produce a protocol that does not
compromise researcher’s ability to be creative in the literature review process, whilst
also ensuring reviews be less open to researchers bias.
• These may includes:
o The search strategy for identification of relevant study:
- types of documents to be reviewed (e.g. journal articles, reports, books,
conference papers, thesis, magazines, websites etc.)
o Exclusion and inclusion criteria of studies in the review. Example:
- based on language (e.g. documents in English only)
- based on timeline or duration (e.g. documents published in the last 1o
years)
- based on study location (e.g. documents or studies in Asia only)
- based on quality of the study (e.g. studies that are published in Q1 journals only)
- and so on – based on the needs of your study.

17. STAGE 1: PLANNING THE REVIEW
• Review protocol – example of inclusion and exclusion criteria

18. STAGE 1: PLANNING THE REVIEW
• Review protocol – example of inclusion and exclusion criteria

19. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 3 : Identification of Research
a) Identification of keywords
• Keyword are developed based on each of the review objective.
• The keywords may come from the scoping study, the literature and discussion
among the review team and in certain cases may involved the research
participants.
• Search strings is formed based on the keywords identified to be used in
search. Each database may have their own guidelines on how the search strings
could be composed in order to get the desired result.
b) Identification of relevant database:
• The search strings is used to perform preliminary search in order to identify
databases to focus on – this is normally based on databases that return the
highest number of relevant articles/documents.

20. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 3 : Identification of Research
• The search strategy should be reported in detail sufficient to ensure that the search
could be replicated.

21. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 4 : Selection of Studies
• The search strings are entered into the database.
• The (automatic) exclusion and inclusion criteria are applied in the search.
• Results of the search are evaluated using the manual exclusion and inclusion criteria.
This normally require the review team to skim through the documents (especially
tile and abstract) to determine the relevancy of the documents/articles to the review
objectives.
• Results (i.e. the articles) can be categorised into three categories, i.e.
(i)Highly Relevant, (ii) Irrelevant and (iii) Uncertain.
• Each review team member should evaluate the search result to achieve consensus
the relevancy of each articles in the search result.
• Reference management software such as EndNote, Procite & Mendeley may help
researcher to organize the result more efficiently.

22. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 4 : Selection of Studies
• After the initial screening of the search result, the review team may be able to
more keywords from the literature to conduct further search.
• It also allow seminal papers or books and grey literature (e.g. government reports)
be identified.

23. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 5 : Study Quality Assessment
• Involved a thorough read of the studies which have been identified as highly relevant to the
study to assess their quality. Among criteria that could be use include:

24. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 5 : Study Quality Assessment
• Involved a thorough read of the studies which have been identified as highly relevant to the
study to assess their quality. Among criteria that could be use include:
• Only articles that pass the quality
assessment criteria are included in
the review and analysed in depth
to identify the best evidence for
the study

25. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 5 : Study Quality Assessment
• Involved a thorough read of the studies which have been identified as highly relevant to the
study to assess their quality. Among criteria that could be use include:
• Only articles that pass the quality
assessment criteria are included in
the review and analysed in depth
to identify the best evidence for
the study

26. STAGE 2: CONDUCTING THE REVIEW
Phase 6 & 7 : Data Extraction & Synthesis and Monitoring Progress
• The following information are
extracted from the articles that
pass the quality assessment criteria.
• Each literature search is refined and
updated from time to time.

27. STAGE 3: REPORTING & DISSEMINATION
• A good systematic review should make it easier for researcher to understand the
research by synthesizing extensive primary research papers from which it was
• Two-stage report might be produce:
a. Full ‘descriptive analysis’ – who are the authors? how many of the core
contributions are from USA, UK etc? what is the age profile of the articles?
etc.
b. Thematic analysis – through aggregative or interpretative approach –
outlining that which is known and established from data extraction forms of
the core contributions.
Extent to which consensus is shared across various themes.
Identify key emerging themes & research questions.