Educational Leadership - Ed.D. and Ph.D.

This accessible text provides a roadmap for producing a high-quality literature review--an integral part of a successful thesis, dissertation, term paper, or grant proposal. Each step of searching for, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing prior studies is clearly explained and accompanied by user-friendly suggestions, organizational tips, vignettes, and examples of student work. Also featured are excerpts from peer-reviewed quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods articles. This is the first book to focus on crafting different types of reviews (systematic, traditional-narrative, or hermeneutic-phenomenological) that reflect the writer's research question, methodological choices, and approaches to knowledge. It describes what all reviews have in common and highlights distinct characteristics of each type. The book includes dos and don'ts for evaluating studies and constructing an argument, and software suggestions for locating, organizing, and arranging sources.   Pedagogical Features *Checklists and "To Do" activities that break down key steps to take. *Boxed examples, graphics that organize and visually illustrate key concepts, and summary tables. *Group activities that invite students to further explore and apply the methods discussed in each chapter. *Detailed directions for using four different organizing strategies: synthesis matrix, summary table, mapping, and topic outline. *End-of-chapter summaries and "What's Next" sections. *Assessment matrices for reviewing and refining the completed literature review. Winner (First Place)--American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Nursing Research Category

This step-by-step handbook provides comprehensive and practical guidance on the process of researching a range of relevant literature on a subject, as well as planning and writing a literature review. The book takes a student friendly approach to offer complete novices a simple review of a process which is often central to producing a research study. Succeeding with your Literature Review will enable you to: Design a literature review which is related to the main facets of a research project Conduct a logically-planned search for relevant literature Determine which literature is most suited to inclusion in your study Analyse the literature, drawing comparisons and connections where appropriate Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of relevant literature Write logically and rationally about the key features of literature Write a literature review in a sound academic style Understand how to relate a literature review to other elements of your study or dissertation Written by an author with extensive experience of supervising and examining undergraduate, Masters and doctoral dissertations, this book covers the latest trends, such as: RSS feeds, wikis, grey literature, blogs and forms of open access publishing. The book also includes examples of common pitfalls, good practice, key terms and questions to reinforce student learning and reflection. Succeeding with your Literature Review is relevant in all subject areas and is essential reading for third year undergraduate and postgraduate students.