Research Paper on "Deinstitutionalization Literature and Research Sources"

Research Paper 14 pages (4057 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Deinstitutionalization

Discussion Question One: What is the importance of a historical literature review?

Literature review, a critical step in research procedure, is a synthesis of what is published concerning a selected topic by accredited researchers and scholars, and it provides an explanation of the literature pertinent to a certain topic or field. Literature review helps in expanding knowledge relating to a specific topic besides helping researchers to demonstrate their skills in critical evaluation and information seeking (Kumar, 2005). The review of literature also helps researchers in ascertaining major gaps in literature that forms the basis of their research. Literature review despite being challenging offers a theoretical framework to the target audience. Literature review helps the audience in understanding the research problem and the techniques applied. Moreover, literature review shows that the researcher is familiar with diversity and breath of literature that concerns the problem subject to research.

Literature review is part of well-built research project and offers the foundation of a research topic through past research, determines methodology, and facilitates identification of the research problem (Kumar, 2005). Sound literature ensures that a researcher does not by accident replicate work that has already been done. Additionally, literature review assists in preventing use of research instruments and design that never performed well in the past, besides facilitating identification of research instruments and processes that have been effectively used in the past. The underlying principle behind literature review is to convey to the target audience the ideas and knowledge that has been established on the topic besides facilitating understanding of the weaknesses and strengths of the established ideas and knowledge (Kumar, 2005). Precisely literature review limits and defines the research problem, places the research in historical perspective, prevents unnecessary duplication and assesses successful and practical research methods.

Discussion Question 2: The current literature focuses on research performed in the last 5 years. Why is this important?

Creating literature review is a crucial and an intricate task that researches faces. Literature review calls for inclusion of numerous skills that include scientific writing, library research and practical information arrangement. Literature review is the initial process in research and calls for involvement of recent scholarly articles or books. Recent scholarly materials give researchers latest issues, findings and ideas regarding the research topic. According to Cottrel & McKenzie, (2010), assessing material for the past ten years is sufficient for university or school-bade research reports. However, this research reviewed literature from articles and books written within the past five years. While there was no unbreakable and fast decree for choosing publications by date, publications that are more than ten years old are suspect of their currency in social research and nursing research (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2010) . Using current literature is important in social research as they provide up-to-date and recent data. Current resources bring the researcher up-to-date with pertinent literature and create the foundation of validation of the research.

Discussion Question Three: What role does database selection play in finding appropriate literature?

A good literature review provides an overview of the information concerning the selected research topic. Certain places such as journals are good sources of literature reviews. A researcher must develop a search strategy to ease the literature review process and to provide relevant sources (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2010). Initial sources include indexes and database that holds a collection of abstracts, full text articles and bibliographic data for an extensive range of subjects and are easy to get to on compact disks, print form or via online services. Most preliminary utilized sources include computerized databases such as ProQuest, JSTOR and EBSCOhost. The computerized databases are a fabulous resource for the researcher in the literature review process. Through databases, a research can discover scores of references through only some keystrokes on the computer. Given the tremendous coverage offered through databases, one should engage a search of suitable databases in the literature review procedure. Database selection helps in lowering the overhead of database management. Database selection also offers an efficient and effective way of searching for pertinent literature.

Question Two

Discussion Question One: Scholarly writing is a synthesis rather than a review of the literature. Explain the difference.

Scholarly writing is the form of writing students produces in reaction to a content they have learnt in academic atmosphere. Literature review is any compilation of different materials on a specific topic while a synthesis refers to an arrangement of different ideas from different sources to generate new knowledge. Literature review examines published information concerning a particular subject. Literature review can be a mere synopsis of sources but it holds an organizational blueprint and integrates synthesis and summary (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2010). Summary is a review of the significance information in a given source while a synthesis entails a reshuffling or a re-organization of information. A synthesis offers a novel understanding of old sources or integrates new ideas with old explanations. Literature review, on the other hand, may assess sources and recommend the most relevant source to the reader.

The main idea of a scholarly writing is to create novel arguments, and this explains why it is a synthesis rather than a review of the literature. Literature review focuses in summarizing and synthesizing ideas and arguments presented by different writers without appending novel contributions. Literature review offers information concerning what other researchers have done in the past, and helps in generating prospective direction to a given research (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2010). In performing literature review, one tries to synthesize the results of past research. This is an intricate task given that researchers experiences conflicting results from studies that engaged divergent processes. Creating logic from these results and trying to derive conclusions is an intricate task.

Discussion Question Two: Why is it important to provide some opposing points-of-view in the literature review?

The main objective of literature review is to show the audience that one has read and understood major readings regarding a given topic. Research objectives, thesis or research problem guides one in literature review. However, it is important that literature review take a critical discussion point rather than be a mere description of what different authors have written in summaries. Critical discussion displays awareness and insight of divergent arguments, perspectives and theories. In this regard, literature review should be an analysis and a synthesis of pertinent published work, connected to the rationale and purpose of the research. Literature review should contrast and compare different views by different authors on the topic, pass judgment on methodology aspects, note areas where writers are in incongruity, underscore gaps in study besides demonstrating how the study connects to past studies (Kumar, 2005).

High-quality literature review criticises what different authors have written, determines conflicting areas, and determines which areas requires further research. In addition, a good review calls for a lucid line of ideas and acknowledgement of ideas that do not support ones thesis because ignoring opposing opinions makes ones argument weaker. In this regard, acknowledging opposing points makes the argument stronger, realistic and consistent. Through acknowledging opposing view, the research traces the historical development of the research problem and constructs relating to the problem.

Question Three

Discussion Question One: Why is it important to evaluate theoretical frameworks?

Hypotheses are generated to predict, explain and comprehend a certain phenomena, and they challenge and expand existing information. Theoretical framework is a structure that support or hold a research study's theory, and it describes and introduces the presumption that explains the existence of the research problem. Theoretical framework is part of a research study, it comprises of ideas and their descriptions, and available theories employed in a particular research study (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2010). Theoretical framework shows knowledge of concepts and theories that are pertinent to the research topic and links to expansive knowledge field of the study areas. To find the most appropriate theoretical framework for the research, the researcher reassesses course readings besides other relevant research literature. Theory selection depends on its suitability, explanatory power and application. Theoretical framework offers a certain perspective through which a researcher examines the topic besides helping in examining the research topic. In addition, theoretical framework is important as it help the researcher in focusing on a particular factor of his/her topic, directs the assessment of the research topic and offers unpredicted knowledge into the history.

Theoretical framework entails collection of ideas, idea maps or abstract models that shows a certain theory that is to be assessed as the foundation of the research study. Overall, theoretical framework is the fundamental structure of concepts to be examined in a study. Evaluating theoretical framework helps in determining whether the theoretical basis of the research is sound. Absence of a specific theoretical framework makes the study weak and makes it less capable of contributing to the entire body of the study field (Cottrel & McKenzie, 2010). A crucial component of research evaluation entails finding the absence or presence of a sufficient theoretical structure that is the foundation of the research study. Besides ascertaining the soundness of the theoretical structure, evaluating theoretical framework… READ MORE

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