Please make sure that it is your own work and watch out for spelling errors and grammar errors. Please use the APA 7th edition format. Please read the study

Please make sure that it is your own work and watch out for spelling errors and grammar errors. Please use the APA 7th edition format. Please read the study guide.

Book Reference:Roberts, C., & Hyatt, L. (2019). The dissertation journey: A practical and comprehensive guide to planning, writing, and defending your dissertation (3rd ed.). Corwin. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781506373331

COLLAPSE

Share your final chosen statement of the business problem, and explain why researching this problem would be of significance to business practice. When responding to another student's post, discuss why you think their question is important to business administration.

BUS 8304, The Doctoral Research Study Journey 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

3. Analyze the literature review process necessary to complete the doctoral research study. 3.1 Examine a scholarly article for its fit in a research study. 3.2 Describe how a scholarly article supports a study.

7. Explain how research results can influence business decisions.

7.1 Demonstrate how article findings influence business decision-making.

Course/Unit Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

3.1, 3.2, 7.1 Unit Lesson Chapter 9 Unit II Literature Review

Required Unit Resources Chapter 9: Reviewing the Literature

Unit Lesson For this unit lesson, we will cover introductory concepts of reviewing the literature. In the next unit, we will extend this lesson and cover more advanced topics of the literature review.

Importance of Reviewing the Literature

(Dudko, n.d.) We all know that the end goal of attending a doctoral program is to earn a doctoral-level degree. The most important deliverable for your degree is the doctoral study or dissertation. Achieving this goal means that you are deemed a subject matter expert (SME) and academic expert in a specific subject area. Realistically, though, you can be a SME without attending a doctoral program. For example, 20 years of practical experience can make you a SME. Optimally, you will choose a firmly grounded topic in an area where you already have a significant amount of subject matter expertise. For example, if you have 20 years of practical

UNIT II STUDY GUIDE

Reviewing Literature

BUS 8304, The Doctoral Research Study Journey 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

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accounting experience, you are likely a SME in accounting. You may be a comptroller, a chief financial officer (CFO), or an accountant with a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation. The expectation is that you would choose a dissertation subject area within the accounting or finance realm. If you have no experience in accounting or finance, then in order to get to the point where you can write a dissertation, you will need to make up that loss of 20 years of practical experience. For example, someone who has spent their life working in information technology (IT) would likely never do a doctoral study/dissertation in marketing or accounting or a similar topic area. When you choose your subject area, choose a subject in which you are interested and are considered a SME regarding that topic. Also, understand that you may have been a chief executive officer (CEO) of a large, successful organization for 20 years. While that makes you a SME in many business areas, it does not mean you have doctoral-level academic subject expertise. Academic expertise is required to write a doctoral study/dissertation, so reading and comprehending large amounts of the current literature is crucial to obtain this goal. Once you are sure of your subject area, you will want to narrow it down to potential topic areas. For some examples, review the chart below.

Subject Area Topic Area

IT Software Development, Security, IT Governance

Accounting Tax, Accounting Ethics, Budgeting, Investing

Marketing Branding, Online Marketing, Mobile Advertising

Organizational Leadership Impact on Performance, Organizational Culture, Motivating Employees

Human Resources Workforce Management, Training, Diversity

These topic areas are still fairly broad, and this is not an exhaustive list. Once you have narrowed to a topic area, you should start pulling peer-reviewed articles based on that topic. Doing so will likely help you narrow your topic even more. Again, reviewing the literature is the foundation of your study. You may have an idea of a business problem to research, but does the literature support that problem? The business problem you are interested in may have already been researched by multiple researchers at different times. How would you know this unless you are exhaustively searching the literature? Another use of articles from your literature review is to justify the decisions you make in your doctoral study/dissertation. Every decision you make must be named, defined, and justified. For example, let’s suppose that you want to use leadership style as a variable in your research question. How do you define leadership style (i.e., democratic versus autocratic versus bureaucratic)? What about the strategic leader versus the coach-style leader? Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership are a part of the full range of the transformational leadership model, but are they considered actual leadership styles? One way to justify your choice to use transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership as leadership styles is to show where other researchers have done so in the past. As you search the literature, you need a method of categorizing your articles. You could manage your articles based on older methods. For example, you could print each article (or abstract if the article is too long), highlight the critical passages, write procedural notes on the top of the first page, and number the articles. In contrast, you could create an Excel spreadsheet where you enter all of the pertinent information as you read the articles. Regardless of the method, you will want to categorize your articles when writing Chapter 2. You will also want a way to find those articles when you need them quickly. A good filing structure is highly suggested.

BUS 8304, The Doctoral Research Study Journey 3

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Reviewing an Article When you compare your articles, you will need to fully understand the research methodology, design, and methods used. One suggestion is to specifically note these aspects of the research project. Ask yourself the questions listed below.

• What was the chosen methodology?

• What was the chosen design?

• What was the problem being researched?

• What was the purpose of the study?

• What was the population?

• What was the sample?

• How was the data collected?

• What methods were used to perform the data analysis?

• What were the findings? If you are critically reviewing the article, and you should, you should also ask yourself the questions listed below.

• Were there limitations to the study?

• Are the methodology, design, and methods in alignment?

• Do the findings make sense?

• Are the conclusions and discussion a natural progression from the findings? Finally, you should consider how this article and its contents fit into your overall study. How does it support your study? Does it provide justification for some decision that you have made? Does it support the gap? Is it a component of one of the themes you found and will discuss in your literature review? Does it provide support for your methodology, design, or method choices? Does it provide background information for the theory or model you chose for your theoretical/conceptual framework? Please note that the articles you pull for your literature review should be of high quality. This means that you should be using peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles. You should limit the number of dissertations; secondary sources, such as magazine articles; online topic websites; and textbooks. You may have to use textbooks to get information for the seminal theory or model you chose for your theoretical/conceptual framework, but again, those sources should be used sparingly. Also, most of your articles should be published within the last 4 years. You want your study and information to be as current as possible. In the next unit lesson, we will take a closer look at the literature review. Some students say that Chapter 2 is one of the hardest proposal chapters to write. It certainly is difficult, so arm yourself with all the tools at your disposal.

Reference Dudko, O. (n.d.). ID 61564791 [Photograph]. Dreamstime. https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-

literature-stack-school-closeup-page-wisdom-image61564791

BUS 8304, The Doctoral Research Study Journey 4

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title

Suggested Unit Resources Chapter 4 in your eTextbook offers insight into how to choose and narrow your dissertation topic. Chapter 5 offers insight into the roles of the committee members and best practices for working with your dissertation team. Chapter 4: Choosing a Dissertation Topic Chapter 5: Creating Your Dissertation Team

Learning Activities (Nongraded) Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information. Consider the three parts of a doctoral study/dissertation team: the student, the chair, and the committee member. In a one-page document, address the prompts below.

• List the responsibilities as a doctoral student.

• List the responsibilities of the chair.

• List the responsibilities of the 2nd committee member. Once you have your lists, compare them, and write a one-paragraph reflection on how you will meet your responsibilities.

  • Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
  • Required Unit Resources
  • Unit Lesson
    • Importance of Reviewing the Literature
    • Reviewing an Article
    • Reference
  • Suggested Unit Resources
  • Learning Activities (Nongraded)

,

Chapter 9 Reviewing the Literature

The greatest gift you can give yourself as a researcher is to read and analyze the literature surrounding your study as early as possible. Too often, students see the literature review as something to do while waiting for their data to be collected. This may be because they don’t fully understand the importance and purpose of the review. It may also be because they are uncertain of the exact procedures to follow for conducting a literature search. The importance of a literature search is stated by Hart (2009) in his book, Doing a Literature Review:

A review of the literature is important because without it you will not acquire an understanding of your topic, of what has already been done on it, how it has been researched, and what the key issues are. In your written project you will be expected to show that you understand previous research on your topic. This amounts to showing that you have understood the main theories in the subject area and how they have been applied and developed, as well as the main criticisms that have been made of work on the topic. (p. 1)

A similar notion was advanced by Boote and Beile (2005); they made the following points:

A substantive, thorough, sophisticated literature review is a precondition for doing substantive, thorough, sophisticated research. . . . A researcher cannot perform significant research without first understanding the literature in the field. Not understanding the prior research clearly puts a researcher at a disadvantage. (p. 3)

A comprehensive, up-to-date literature review allows you to get to the frontier in your area of research and, at the same time, become an expert in your field. In addition, the insights and knowledge you gain provide the basis for a better-designed study and enhance the possibility of obtaining significant results. A review of the literature is a vital part of the research process.

A literature review is a two-phase activity. In the first phase, you conduct the review by identifying appropriate resources, searching for relevant materials, and analyzing, synthesizing, and organizing the results; the second phase is the actual writing of the review, which culminates in the completed product. The literature review section of a study is found where reference is made to the related research and theory around your topic. The location may vary, depending on your selected methodology. For example, in some qualitative studies, authors might choose to locate the literature section toward the end of the dissertation, following discussion of the emerging theory, which, according to Creswell (2004), “allows the views of the participants to emerge without being constrained by the views of others from the literature” (p. 90). Researchers in quantitative studies typically place their discussion of the literature at the beginning of a study, usually in a separate chapter titled “Review of the Literature.” Frequently, the literature is referred to again at the end of the study when comparing the study’s findings to the literature.

This chapter helps you acquire the skills to conduct and write a thorough and systematic review of the literature in your field of interest. The chapter includes the purpose and scope of the literature review, notes on its preparation, specific steps in conducting a literature review, and strategies and techniques for writing the literature review.

Purpose and Scope

What is a literature review? According to Creswell (2004), “A literature review is a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describe the past and current state of information; organizes the literature into topics; and documents a need for a proposed study” (p. 89). Reviewing the literature involves locating, analyzing, synthesizing, and organizing previous research and documents (periodicals, books, abstracts, etc.) related to your study area. The goal is to obtain a detailed, cutting-edge knowledge of your particular topic. To do this, you must immerse yourself in your subject by reading extensively and voraciously. A solid and comprehensive review of the literature accomplishes several important purposes. It helps you to do the following:

1. Focus the purpose of your study more precisely.

2. Develop a conceptual or theoretical framework that might be used to guide your research.

3. Identify key variables for study and suggest relationships among them if you are completing a quantitative study; if you are conducting a qualitative study, identify the concepts or topics you plan to study.

1. Provide a historical background for your study.

2. Uncover previous research similar to your own that can be meaningfully extended.

3. Determine the relationship of your topic relative to current and past studies.

4. Identify scholars and theorists in your area of study.

5. Form a basis for determining the significance of your study.

6. Uncover questionnaires or tests previously validated.

7. Link your findings to previous studies. (Do your findings support or contradict them?)

We hope we convinced you of the importance of doing an early and comprehensive review of the literature. The benefits are numerous, especially in the initial stages of designing a dissertation study.

One of the biggest frustrations students encounter is determining how long and how comprehensive the review should be. Even though you must read broadly to develop perspective about your topic, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you must include in the bibliography every book, article, or study read. The literature review is not an aggregation of every book and article related to your topic; it is always selective. Therefore, you must be discriminating and include only the most relevant information. Remember that bigger is not better! The shotgun approach indicates a lack of knowledge about what is relevant information. Unfortunately, no magic formula exists to guide your selection; it is a judgment call on your part. You know it is time to quit when you keep encountering the same references and can’t find important new resources.

Generally speaking, most advisors prefer the literature review chapter to be around 20 to 40 pages. However, keep in mind that this can vary, depending on the breadth and complexity of your study and the preferences of your advisor. Take time to clarify with your advisor’s preferences prior to writing the review.

Preparation

Step 1 in writing your literature review requires that you become knowledgeable about what references are available and where to find them, what services your library provides, and the regulations and procedures regarding the use of library materials.

It is also wise to cultivate a friendship with a librarian or two. Their knowledge and expertise can save you considerable time searching for information. Most librarians are willing to make appointments to help you create a search strategy, determine appropriate print and electronic databases for your research needs, and explain the interlibrary loan services available to you. It is also a good idea to consult librarians about nontraditional sources on your topic, such as think tanks, professional associations, government documents, and publications from nonprofit organizations.

Because the majority of academic literature is now available online, you needn’t spend hours using call numbers to browse the stacks of your library. Most of your research will be conducted online using your own computer from home or the office. This means that you must become computer literate and Internet savvy to make your dissertation research easier. Becoming familiar with search engines and how they work (using keywords, Boolean operators, truncation, and online help) is essential. There certainly are downsides to computers. Any user knows the frustration of crashes, lost files, and inoperable software. But, for the most part, it will be your best friend and most essential tool for completing your dissertation. Hardware and software advances continue to make conducting research more and more efficient.

Conducting a thorough and scholarly review of the literature involves eight basic steps. The steps are not necessarily sequential; you will probably move back and forth between them.

1. Identify keywords or descriptors.

2. Create a search query.

3. Identify relevant literature sources.

4. Search the literature and collect relevant materials.

5. Critically read and analyze the literature.

6. Synthesize the literature.

7. Organize the literature.

8. Write the literature review.

Step 1: Identify Keywords or Descriptors

Before beginning a search of the literature, it is important to develop a search strategy that effectively locates useful, relevant information. This involves identifying keywords or descriptors to guide your review of the literature. Begin by creating a preliminary working title for your study that focuses on what it is you want to know. Because it’s a working title, it can always be revised. Also, state a central research question that describes the variables or concepts you need to examine in your literature review. Forcing yourself to write your topic as a single question requires you to bring it into clearer focus. Then, identify the key concepts in your title and central research question. The following are some examples:

· What effect does parental involvement have on the dropout rate of bilingual middle school students?

· What are the differences between Mexicans and Mexican Americans in their perceptions of and feelings toward their pets?

· How does language use shape the identity of language-minority students?

Precise questions such as these help focus and guide the literature review. Depending on the complexity of your research, you may require several research questions to incorporate all of the variables or concepts you wish to examine in your dissertation. Also include alternative ways of phrasing and expressing concepts and ideas by consulting subject dictionaries and encyclopedias for the common terminology in your study area. Using an index or thesaurus is also advisable in order to establish useful terms. Various academic disciplines have their own thesauri. Some examples are Thesaurus of ERIC Descript

From your research question(s) and working title, compile a list of keywords or descriptors related to your topic.

What effect does parental involvement have on the dropout rate of bilingual middle school students? Keywords include

· parental involvement

· dropout rate

· bilingual

· middle school students

Synonyms for parental involvement are parent participation, mother involvement, and father involvement. Synonyms for bilingual include English as a second language and English language learners.

Helpful Hint

Image 1

it is wise to develop a system to track keywords or descriptors and the corresponding volumes and indexes. One effective way is to create a matrix for each abstract or index you consult. Across the top, include the keywords or descriptors you selected for that reference; down the left margin, list the dates of the volumes, starting with the most recent. As you go through each volume, place a check under the descriptors you used next to the date of the volume you used.◾

Step 2: Create a Search Query

Once you have identified your keywords, you are ready to create a search query to use in the electronic databases. Using the example from Step 1—“What effect does parental involvement have on the dropout rate of bilingual middle school students?”—you would create a search query that looks like this:

(“parental involvement” OR “mother involvement” OR “father involvement” OR “parent participation”) AND (dropout* OR “drop out*”) AND (bilingual OR “English language learner*” OR “English as a second language”) AND (“middle school student*” or “junior high school student*”)

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators define the relationships between words or groups of words. These commands to the database expand or limit your search by combining terms using the words and, or, or not. For example, to search for “What effect does alcohol have on college students’ self-esteem?” type as your words: alcohol, college students, self-esteem.

· AND narrows the search by obtaining only those items with both Concept 1 and Concept 2 (“college students” AND “self-esteem”)

· OR broadens the search by obtaining all items with either Concept 1 or Concept 2 (“self-esteem” OR “self-confidence”)

· NOT obtains items with Concept 1 but eliminates those with Concept 2 (“alcohol” NOT “illegal drugs”)

Notice that multiword phrases were placed inside quotation marks. This is necessary to search those words in that order as a phrase. Remember to put phrases of two or more words in quotation marks.

Truncation

Through this process, you find variations of keywords by adding a truncation symbol to the root. For example, to retrieve all variations on the root “psycholog” (i.e., to find psychological, psychologist, psychology), type

Psycholog*

Truncation symbols vary with different databases (e.g., *, ?, $, !).

Online Help

Instructions for using electronic databases are built into the system. Look for online help buttons or links such as “advanced search” and “search tips.” Consult online help to learn how to enter searches, what truncation symbol to use, how to display results, and how to print or download records.

Internet Search Engines

Once you have identified your keywords and developed appropriate search queries, you then select various search engines in which to input your queries. Search engines are tools designed to scan the Internet for sites and pages, which are then stored in indexes or databases. You search the contents of databases by typing selected keywords in the text box located on the search engine’s home page. The search engine then retrieves documents that match your keywords and displays the results ranked in order of that engine’s relevance.

Comparisons of Search Engines

The three major search engines used today are Google (http://www.google.com), Yahoo! Bing (http://www.bing.com), and Ask.com (http://www.ask.com). A search engine for scholarly or academic links is Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com). You will find many peer-reviewed articles, books, and so on, as well as how often they are cited in other publications.

There are also specialty search engines and virtual libraries in different disciplines, such as the WWW Virtual Library for Anthropology (http://www.anthropologie.net). You can find listings for a variety of specialty search engines at Search Engine Guide (http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html). Also available is a website by Teach Thought that displays 100 search engines for academic research (https://www.teachthought.com/learning/100-search-engines-for-academic-research/).

A valuable resource for searching the “Deep Web” (a vast repository of information not accessible by search engines and directories) may be found on a page on the Online College Blog titled “100 Useful Tips and Tools to Research the Deep Web.” The author provides tips, strategies, and helpful articles and resources for deep searching (http://www.online-college-blog.com/index.php/features/100-useful-tips-and-tools-to-research-the-deep-web).

Evaluating Websites

Since anyone can post information on the Internet without any oversight or editing or fact checking, it is important that you evaluate any information that you find on the Internet to determine its credibility and authority before using it in your research. Look at the URL to see if it is a personal website, an educational site, a commercial site, or a nonprofit organization site. Look for authorship of the site (Is there an “About Us” link somewhere on the page?) and when the page was last updated. Does the site try to persuade or to sell something, or is it simply providing information? Is there any bias that you can detect? Can you validate the information through another source?

Searching Blogs

There are a variety of blog search engines available; however, we found Google Blog Search (https://blog.google/products/search/) to be one of the fastest and one that returns posts right on topic. The main focus of Google Blog Search is on relevance, but posts can also be sorted by date (click on the top right of the results page). In addition, you can keep track of new postings in your areas of interest via RSS feeds—short summaries sent from your favorite websites.

Step 3: Identify Relevant Literature Sources

The best place to begin your search is with the databases and indexes in your academic area. They help you identify and locate research articles and other sources of information related to your research topic. A detailed description of available secondary sources is beyond the scope of this book. However, as an example, we list some major resources traditionally used by education and social science researchers. To find resources in your specific academic discipline, do a keyword search in your university library’s online catalog for your discipline (e.g., sociology, psychology, anthropology) followed by the word handbook, encyclopedia, bibliography, thesaurus, dictionary, abstract, measures, and so on. Also, consult with librarians at your university library or with faculty in your graduate program for resources they turn to when beginning a new research project.

In planning your search strategy, it is important to determine which academic disciplines are conducting research in your topic area. It is more than likely that your research overlaps with other disciplines. For example, in the third research question in Step 1—“How does language use shape the identity of language-minority students?”—you must decide which academic disciplines might conduct research on this topic. Possibilities include anthropology, psychology, education, communication, and sociology.

The following is a list a variety of literature sources:

Selected Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Premier (EbscoHost)

Communication and Mass Media (EbscoHost)

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com)

Research Library (ProQuest)

Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science)

OmniFile Full Text Mega (EbscoHost)

Selected Anthropology Databases

Anthropology Plus (EbscoHost)

AnthroSource (Wiley)

Anthropological Index Online (Royal Anthropological Institute)

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)

Selected Education Databases

Education Resources Information Center (ERIC, http://eric.ed.gov/)

Education Research Complete (EbscoHost)

Education Full-Text (H. W. Wilson)

ProQuest Education (ProQuest)

Selected Psychology Databases

PsycArticles (American Psychological Association)

PsycInfo (American Psychological Association)

Psychology Journals (ProQuest)

ProQuest Social Sciences Premium

Selected Sociology Databases

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)

SocIndex with Full-Text (EbscoHost)

Social Sciences Fulltext (EbscoHost)

Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science)

ProQuest Social Sciences Premium

Bibliographies, Encyclopedias, and Dictionaries

Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology

Corsini Encyclope

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