Literature Review

Literature Review Assignment

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic (in journal articles,

conference proceedings, books and other relevant sources) by recognised researchers.

Understanding the prior research on the topic if interest is the basis of most new research.

Researchers must know what has been studied, discussed and recommended by others

in related areas.

This assignment is intended to:

 Provide you with practise finding peer reviewed, recent articles about one topic

 Allow you to organise your ideas about that topic in a meaningful way (including both

synthesis and critical analysis).

In this assignment you will review the published literature on the topics and write a

literature review that synthesizes what you have found into a summary of what is, and

is not, known on the topic.

Topic will be covering:

 The effectiveness of e-learning - Education is increasingly supported by ICT, with the

term e-learning being used as a general term to refer to many forms of technology

supported learning. Much of the e-learning research has had a technology focus (e.g.

descriptions of implementations) or has been limited to studies of adoption (i.e. will people

use it?), but there has been less research on the impact of implementing e-learning in

schools as well as the outcome of student performances between the use of

traditional learning (face-to-face) and blended learning.

To do:

To successfully complete the assignment, you must begin searching for relevant literature

immediately.

Find at least 10 articles related to your chosen topic. To qualify as a source of information

that you can use for the assignment, these main articles must report results of research

studies (i.e. not just authors’ opinions). Each article must also:

 Have been published in a refereed journal or conference proceedings (though you

may obtain the article through an online source)

 Have an extensive references section.

In addition, you may choose to supplement these articles with a few articles from other sources

or that do not present the authors’ own results.

After reading each article, you should think about how they all fit together. Your review should

be organised by concepts, such as findings, rather than by sources of information. Do not

proceed through the articles one-by-one. Your literature review should include an introduction,

a main body that reviews the literature (and which you should subdivide further), and a

conclusion.

Format guidelines

 Give your literature review a title that clearly reflects the content of your review.

 Include an Introduction section that states the purpose of the review and a Conclusion

section. Include other sub-sections to help structure your work.

 Use a professional looking font and a font size of 11 or 12 point.

 Your review should be approximately +/- 1000 words excluding the reference section in

length.

 Include appropriate citations throughout the review and a list of references at the end.

Referencing should be in either APA or IEEE style

 Your review should include a minimum of 10 sources of information.

 Your Sources must be found in Academic Source (e.g. Google Scholar)

 Report must be fluent and structured (correct grammar, spell-checked, correctly

punctuated, paragraphing, topic sentences and flow of ideas)

Component in the report:

Structure

 The introduction need to describe the purpose of the literature

review.

 The body need to present the information in an organised and

logical manner.

 Provide an effective conclusion that summarises the main

points discussed.

Content and Research:

 The title need to reflect the contents of the literature review

 There need to have evidence of adequate understanding of the

literature.

 The organisation/grouping of the literature need to be effective

with the main points clearly related to the purpose of the review

 The main points supported by evidence (are not just your

opinions)

 Material must be synthesised

Use of Sources

 At least 10 references cited

 Must be mainly academic sources (e.g. journal articles and

conference papers) used?

 The APA or IEEE style (‘in-text’ referencing and reference list)

must be correctly referenced

 Must be in your own words