Assignment : Literature Review
The primary goal of this literature review assignment is to identify research studies that are applicable to the general research question and overall research design that you have started to develop in prior discussions and assignments Assignment Problems and Objectives. In conducting your literature review, you should focus on researching the intervention that you previously selected based on the assumption that it will be beneficial for the specific client population you have identified.
Follow These Instructions
Critically analyze a portion of the published body of knowledge on a research subject by identifying, reviewing, and comparing prior research studies.
As with all scholarly research, you will need to identify published articles—and more specifically, for the purpose of this assignment, professional academic journals—as your sole source of information. Ideally, use peer-reviewed journals whenever possible. Generic informational websites, news articles, and other informal or non-scholarly sources will not be accepted.
You will need to identify and cite a minimum of FIVE published studies.
When you conduct a literature review, you become familiar with the current theory, research, and body of knowledge on a topic. You should not provide a loosely related collection of studies. You should provide a tightly focused summary, analysis, and synthesis of current research that relates to the specific client population and intervention you have selected.
Although a literature review is structured like an essay, and is often similar in length, there is a critical difference between the two: in an essay, you often argue a specific point of view, whereas, in a literature review, you analyze the current research in order to better understand what is known about a particular topic.
In other words, a literature review is an objective, critical summary of published research literature that is relevant to the topic you have selected.
As a general rule, your research studies should have been published within the last decade (give or take a few years). In some cases, older studies are still relevant if they are considered to be seminal works on the given subject; if you use an older study include a justification for the use of this original, significant, or historic source in your review.
Make sure to include the following sections:
I. Introduction: Provide a brief overview (e.g. 2-3 sentences) of your research topic and its significance and/or relevance to applied social work practice.
II. Search Process: Describe how you searched for your scholarly articles–specifically, how did you go about the search process, which database(s) did you utilize, and which keywords were the most effective.
III. Body: Make sure to review articles individually. Summarize the information from each of your articles that are directly relevant to your research topic by writing a minimum of three distinct paragraphs for EACH of your articles.
Provide the following information in each paragraph:
Paragraph One: State the purpose of the study.
Paragraph Two: Identify the research question and methodology that is utilized in the study.
Paragraph Three: Summarize key results and implications of the study.
IV. Conclusion: Draw personal conclusions from what you have discovered in the literature.
In other words, answer the following question:
What have you learned?Briefly describe how conducting this literature review shaped and/or changed your thinking about your approach to your research project?
V. References: Your literature review must include a complete list of references with accurate in-text citations for each reference in the body of your paper.
