Literature Review Analysis

            Literature Review Analysis
 
Written by John W. Creswell in Educational Research, Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Boston: Pearson.2012. pp.104-105

A. Quantitative Study
In the quantitative parent involvement study (Deslandes & Bertrand, 2005), the citations to the literature cluster around the beginning and the end of the article.

In the opening, Paragraph 01, the authors cite studies to document the importance of the problem: the need for parent involvement in their children’s educational processes at home and at school.

Paragraph 02, the authors explain that a model exists in the literature that might explain parent involvement—the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model. They also present research questions consistent with factors in this model that are expected to influence parent involvement: parents’ role construction, parents’ self-efficacy, perceptions of teacher invitations, and perceptions of adolescent invitations. You need to see how the authors identify, earlier in the article, the four primary factors that will be the focus of the study.

The paragraphs to follow (03–10) merely summarize the literature on each of these four factors.
 
Paragraph 03 begins with an overview of many possible factors that might influence parent involvement.

Paragraphs 04–08 review the literature on each of the four factors.  

Paragraph 09, the authors reflect on the relative importance of each of the four factors when measured together. 

Paragraph 10 introduces the idea that grade level will influence parent outcomes and thereby anticipates this element being introduced into the study.

Then, when you see Paragraph 13, which is the intent or purpose of the study, it makes sense because we now know that four factors and grade level will be of primary importance in this study.

Finally, the authors return again to the literature in Paragraphs 34–43, in which they first state their major results and then compare their results to findings suggested by authors in the literature as well as the theory mentioned at the beginning of the article.

In summary, the literature in the parent involvement study:
- Documents the importance of the research problem at the beginning of the study
- Provides evidence for important components of the model to be tested
- Provides evidence for the research questions
- Provides an explanation for the results at the end of the study by citing other studies and by returning to the theoretical predictions.

B. Qualitative Study
Now let’s turn to a qualitative study to see the role of the literature. In the qualitative mothers’ trust in principals study (Shelden et al., 2010), the literature serves some of the same purposes and some different purposes than did the  literature in the quantitative study. The overall use of the literature in this qualitative article is to establish the importance of trust in the parent–school relationship.

Paragraphs 01–11 might be seen as a discussion of the importance of the problem of trust, and the literature unfolds from the broad concept of parents being involved in the schools (Paragraph 01), to the importance of trust and how it is defined (Paragraphs 02–03), how trust is critical in schools, especially for leaders (Paragraphs 04–06), to the important relevance for parents of children with disabilities and their due process needs (Paragraph 07–11).

This broad-to-narrow perspective that the authors convey in the introduction establishes the importance of trust for parents of children with disabilities. As far as using literature in the introduction, we see in this qualitative study more reliance on the literature than is typically found in qualitative projects. However, it is important to see this literature as establishing the importance of the problem of trust and its consequences, rather than specifying the questions that need to be asked (as is found in a quantitative study).

In this sense, this introduction is a good qualitative presentation of the opening literature for a study. In addition, the authors return to the literature on trust at the end of the study and compare the fi ndings from their study with this literature to assess whether their fi ndings were consistent (Paragraphs 59–68).

In summary, the literature in the qualitative mothers’ trust in principals study:
- Documents the importance of the research problem at the beginning of the study
- Does not foreshadow the research questions (which are broad in scope to encourage participants to provide their views)
- Is used to compare with the findings of the present study at the end of the study.

Hope today's posting will be useful for all of us. Amien.