Unit 2: Ch. 7 Flashcards
Literature review
A written summary of the state of evidence on a research problem
Summary of current empirical and theoretical literature…the author writes it so that it describes the rationale and background for the study
A description of the study problem, why the problem is important, and why it needs to be studied
The primary purpose of literature reviews is to…?
Integrate research evidence to sum up what is known and what is not known
What is literature?
Broad term for many types of things
Journal or periodical…same thing
- mostly articles in journals
- also ads for schools and jobs in journals
- NOT a magazine (ex: better homes and gardens)
Monograph = book containing a detailed report of a study
Books
-ex: textbooks
Theses and dissertations (always research)
MSN or DNP project (may or may not be research)
Types of journals in the literature
Refereed journals:
- peer-reviewed; blind review; external review
- reviewers determine quality and scientific merit of manuscripts and whether they should be published (blind review is good b/c it means reviewer gives honest opinion)
Non-refereed journals:
-non-peer-reviewed, journal editor makes the decision about publishing
What are the 2 major types of articles?
- Research articles (empirical literature)
2. Non-research or conceptual articles
Grounded theory researchers typically begin to collect ___ before examining the literature.
Data
Phenomenologists often undertake a preliminary ____ search at the outset of a study.
Literature
Ethnographers often familiarize themselves with the literature to help shape their choice of a ____ problem before going into the field.
Cultural
Research articles (empirical literature)
follows steps of research process
answers questions or hypotheses
presents all components of the study
may be qualitative or quantitative
may be report of a single study or more
may be a report of a systematic review
- research synthesis (qualitative)
- meta analysis (quantitative)
Research synthesis is?
qualitative
Meta analysis is?
Quantitative
Research article format
Title Abstract Introduction* -background, purpose, question/hypotheses Methods* -design, participants, materials, procedure, statistics Results* Discussion* Conclusion References
*IMRAD format
Non-research or conceptual articles
how to…
new processes, techniques, standards and guidelines
-could be guidelines the first time they come out
informational e.g. profile of a disease, etc.
editorials
may be clinical or non-clinical
any article that is NOT research
Original studies
The person who wrote the article did the study
Secondary analyses
Person who wrote the articles did the study but asks a secondary research question
What are the 2 literature sources?
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Primary source
Written by the person who conducted the study, the original researcher
ex: report of a study
Secondary source
A description or summary of a study prepared by someone other than the original researcher
-ex: textbook and brochures
Websites are secondary sources (depends what’s on the website)
-ex: a website that reports statistics would be considered a primary source vs the CDC website (good info but it’s secondary info) is a secondary source
Age of articles
Articles should be as current as possible and relevant
Ideally no older than 5 years
-however, maybe a 15 year old article is the only article on that topic - just mention in the research article that the references is the most recent one available (or it’s necessary to fully explain what you’re talking about [ex: seminal work])
Typically expect articles on the reference list to be 3-5 years old
Classic article, seminal work, or landmark study refers to an article or book that changed everything, changed the paradigm…article by Watson and Crick about the double helix and DNA
purposes of literature reviews: Quantitative literature
Document the background and significance of the study
ID theoretical or conceptual work
ID data collection tools
ID what’s already known
purposes of literature reviews: Qualitative literature
provide a basic understanding of the study problem
provide evidence that the study conducted was appropriate and based on current knowledge of the problem
describe the “fit” between the present studies and previous studies
What are the 3 search strategies for finding literature?
- search for evidence in bibliographic databases
- ancestry approach (“footnote chasing”)
- citations from relevant studies are used to track down earlier research on which the studies are based (the “ancestors”) - descendancy approach
- find a pivotal early study and search forward in the citation indexes to find more recent studies (“descendants”) that cited the key study
Phenomenological
compares and combines study findings w/ literature
Grounded theory
uses literature to explain, support, and extend theory
Ethnographic
provides background for the research that will be done
Historical
used to develop research questions and may be a source of data
may be studying the literature reviews
Keyword
word or phrase that captures the key concepts in your question
in Quantitative studies, keywords are usually the independent or dependent variables (i.e., at a minimum the I and O of PICO components), and perhaps the population
in Qualitative studies, keywords are the central phenomenon and the population
Author search
searching for prominent researchers in a field
Subject search
entering a subject heading into the search field
Mapping
a feature that allows you to search for topics using your own keywords, rather than the exact subject heading into the database
Textword search
looks for your keyword in the title and abstract
Wildcard character
A symbol such as “*” or “$”
allows you to search for multiple words with the same root
Boolean operators
Can be used to expand or restrict a search
Uses the words ‘and’ and ‘or’
Using ‘and’ yields results with all words searched
Using ‘or’ yields results with either term
CINAHL
Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature
Covers references to hundreds of nursing and allied health journals, as well to books, book chapters, and dissertations.
contains more than 1 million records
CINAHL provides info for locating references and abstracts for most citations
MEDLINE
Medical Literature On-Line
developed by US National Library of Medicine
Premier source for bibliographic coverage of biomedical literature
covers about 5,000 medical, nursing, and health journals and has more than 21 million records
Uses PubMed website
Uses a controlled vocabulary called MeSH to index articles
thematic analysis
essentially involves detecting patterns and regularities as well as inconsistencies
Substantive themes
what’s the pattern of evidence - what findings predominate?
how much evidence is there? how consistent is the body of evidence? what gaps are there in the evidence?
Methodologic themes
what methods have been used to address the question? what strategies have not been used? what are major methodologic deficiencies and strengths?
Generalizability/transferability themes
to what types of people or settings does the evidence apply? do the findings vary for different types of people (ex: men vs women) or setting (ex: urban vs rural)?
Reading a research report
Read the title and abstract closely, and then skim the content the first time you read a report
Read the report as many times as necessary to get a full understanding of the detail
Stating and restating the main ideas of the article in your own words will help you to remember, understand, and use the content
critiquing the literature review (10)
- Thorough?
- Up to date…current?
- Primary or secondary sources?
- Relevant studies?
- where the PICO question comes into play - Relevant theories?
- Landmark studies?
- may or may not know if it’s a landmark study (may not know what the landmark study is either) - Organized?
- if it doesn’t make sense it may not be organized (question the quality of it if it’s unorganized) - Document a need for further study?
- If present, do research questions or hypotheses logically follow from the review?
- Where studies in the review critiqued?
Preparing a written literature review (5)
- Make a table of relevant info
- Keep notes about your literature retrieval process b/c sometimes you have to go back to it
- Outline
- Characteristics of a literature review
- objective (shouldn’t be leading you in one direction)
- paraphrase and summarize rather than quote
- summarize comparable findings together
- include inconsistent results (to be honest; may not be inconsistent results in all studies) - Templates
