Literature Review

Hello everyone,

I wanted to provide a sample of two paragraphs from a section of my literature review to provide a sample for the week’s discussion. The two paragraphs I have included begin the section I entitled Personality Characteristics of Introverts and Extroverts. I used these two paragraphs to lead off an in-depth discussion of the five characteristics that were relevant to my study. As with any section of the dissertation, you can see that the information provided is connected solidly to the literature. Since this is part of my literature review, the connection is even more important.

Notice several qualities of the writing:

1. There is a combination of narrative and parenthetical citations.

2. There is a combination of paraphrased and quoted information, but the emphasis is on paraphrasing.

3. Although there is a heavy presence of information from the literature, there is also an application or explanation of the points from the literature.

4. The paragraphs do not end with a citation. Instead, there is a transition into the next paragraph from my own thoughts.

Two paragraph sample:

            Not understood by many people, including educational and psychological researchers (Dembling, 2012), is that introversion is not a physical, mental, or emotional condition that needs to be cured or corrected. According to Dembling (2012), “Introversion is often treated as the space where extroversion is not” (p. 58). Researchers view extroverts as more sociable, behaviorally active, optimistic, and happy than introverts (Forsman et al., 2012; Smillie et al., 2012). While some of these assertions may have some validity, to say that introverts are not sociable, active, optimistic, or happy are mischaracterizations of their state of being. Introverts do not necessarily lack these qualities; they simply express the listed traits in a different way from extroverts. For example, an extrovert gains energy in a social situation from interacting with a large number of people on a shallow level, but introverts can gain energy in a social situation from engaging one or two trusted individuals on a deeper plain (Dembling, 2012). Introverted individuals are not anti-social; they generally have a few close friends rather than a large number of casual friends or acquaintances (Condon & Ruth-Sahd, 2013; Dembling, 2012). The way these varying characteristics affect social interactions is not limited to parties or similar events; classroom interactions are affected as well.

            In the classroom, teachers often view the quiet, aka introverted, student as being at-risk. Murberg (2010) characterizes introversion and extroversion as “central dimension[s] of human personality” (p. 512) and goes on to assert that introversion is a risk factor for success in the classroom. This claim may be true when referring to the active learning classroom. According to Condon and Ruth-Sahd (2013), balancing teaching methods that are beneficial to both introverts and extroverts is an important differentiated teaching consideration. It is important to understand important characteristics of the introverted personality in relation to what students experience in the active learning classroom. According to Ulus and Alben (2015), silence in the classroom is interpreted as disengagement by many educators but “that silence can be used as a tool for reflection [by introverts], yet as educators we nevertheless come across comments that engagement ought to be seen and heard” (p. 4). This misunderstanding of some students’ behaviors in the classroom may be directly related to the students’ introverted personality type.

 References

Condon, M., & Ruth-Sahd, L. (2013). Responding to introverted and shy students: Best practice guidelines for educators and advisors. Open Journal of Nursing, 3, 503-515. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojn.2013.37069

Dembling, S. (2012). The introvert’s way. Perigee.

Forsman, L.J., de Manzano, Ö., Karabanov, A., Madison, G., & Ullén, F. (2012). Differences in regional brain volume related to the extraversion–introversion dimension: A voxel based morphometry study. Neuroscience Research, 72(1), 59-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neures.2011.10.001

Murberg, T. A. (2010). The role of personal attributes and social support factors on passive behaviour in classroom among secondary school students: A prospective study. Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal, 13(4), 511-522. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-010-9123-1

Smillie, L. D., Cooper, A. J., Wilt, J., & Revelle, W. (2012). Do extroverts get more bang for the buck? Refining the affective-reactivity hypothesis of extraversion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(2), 306-326. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/a0028372

Ulus, E., & Alben, I. (2015). Silence is golden: Learning from introversion to broaden teaching and learning experiences in management. In: British Academy of Management 2015: The Value of Pluralism in Advancing Management Research, Education and Practice, Portsmouth, 8 - 10 September 2015. British Academy of Management.