Project-Based Learning by Harm-Jan Steenhuis

Author:Harm-Jan Steenhuis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Business Expert Press

Implications and Practical Tips

The literature review should be considered as a search for variables. Within the topic area chosen by the student team, they need to find out what others studies have done. This means, looking at what relationships have been investigated previously, what was found about those relationships, and in particular, how were the variables defined and measured. Especially, using techniques such as comparing and contrasting findings and their measurements can be helpful. Related to this is the system of sorting. Sorting might work best with hard copies instead of electronic copies of articles. The idea is that articles that have been found and read get sorted into different piles. In order to do this, it is necessary to compare and contrast the content of different articles and to determine or discover what is similar or different. With only a few articles, they all will appear to deal with the same issue, that is, the main topic of the research project. But, as more literature is found and processed, the pile of articles should be split. This forces the team to think about what the articles in each pile have in common, while at the same time forcing them to think about what is different between the different piles. For example, a research project on the topic of international technology transfer can very quickly lead to many results. A simple search on Google Scholar on the terms international technology transfer leads to more than four million results. However, once a team delves into these articles, different categories of articles can be found. For example, some articles may present descriptions of cases. Some may deal with specific aspects such as how the technology was transferred. Some may be dealing with constraints on technology transfer, for example, international property rights. Some articles may be about the management of the transfer process, while others may be more about the technology, and so forth. Comparing, contrasting, and sorting these articles in meaningful piles enhances the ability to discover the most important variables, while at the same time, it provides the team with ideas on how these variables have been measured in previous academic studies.

Especially in the beginning of the research project, the literature review has more emphasis on learning about the field and using this information to refine the research purpose and research questions when it leads to increased insight about the potential gap in knowledge. One thing to pay attention to during the literature review is to spend time wisely. An analogy is a target as shown in Figure 8.1. If the purpose and research questions for the research are the bull’s eye, then (a) there shouldn’t be literature on that bull’s eye, as in that case, the study has already been done and (b) most time and effort should be spent on the inner circles of the target. Many student teams spend too much time on reading and analyzing articles that they find, but that are more toward the outside of the target.

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