A Short Guide to Action Research4th Edition

Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.Minnesota State University, Mankato

www.OPDT-Johnson.com

Chapter 5: Reviewing the Literature

Reviewing the Literature

1. A literature review: a an examination of journal articles, ERIC documents, books, and other sources related to a specific topic.

2. Purpose: a. set your topic in theoretical context and

b. make connect between research, theory, and classroom practice.

3. A review of the literature:

a. ties your project to previous work

b. gives you examples of classroom applications, research questions, data collect methods, or data analysis techniques

c. enables you to become an expert in the area you are studying

Sources for the Literature Review

1. Academic journals

2. Books

3. The Internet a. U.S. Department of Education b. ERIC c. Ed Pubs d. PsychINFO e. Professional organizations

Professional Organizations In Education• International Reading Association - www.reading.org

• National Council of Teachers of English - www.ncte.org

• National Council for the Social Studies - www.ncss.org

• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics - www.nctm.org

• National Science Teachers Association - www.nsta.org

• National Association for the Education of Young Children - www.naeyc.org

• Association for Childhood Education International - www.acei.org

Professional Organizations In Education• Council for Exceptional Children - www.cec.sped.org

• National Association for Gifted Children - www.nagc.org

• American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance - www.aahperd.org

• American School Counselor Association - www.schoolcounselor.org

• National Association for Music Education - www.menc.org

• National Association for Multicultural Education - www.name.org

• International Society for Technology in Education - www.iste.org

Steps for a literature Review

1. Find a good college library or journal database

2. Locate possible sources

3. Peruse your sources

4. Read and take careful notes

5. Organize notes and look for emerging themes

6. Express emerging themes with declarative sentences

7. Create an extremely rough first draft

8. Start the revision process

NOTES FOR ARTICLE: FIELD EXPERIENCESGuyton, E. & McIntyre, D.J. (1990). Student teaching and school experiences (pp. 514-

534). In W.R. Houston, M. Haberman, & J. Sikula (Eds.). Handbook of research on teacher education. New York, NY: Macmillan.

1. Experiences (field experiences) in classroom must correspond to goals of program and campus classroom.

a. congruence - on-campus courses and field experiences (CF).2. Field experiences = improves teacher performance and academic achievement.3. Need link field experience & course work to goals of program (PG, CC).

Zeichner, K. (2008). Introduction: settings for teacher education. In M. Chochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D. McIntyre, & K. Demers (Eds.). Handbook of research on teacher education. New York, NY: Routledge (pp. 263-268).

1. Clinical components must be connected to course components (CC).2. Good field experiences = reflect program goals and are interwoven with

coursework (CF).3. Good programs integrate instruction of students into practice. a. case studies, teacher research, performance assessment, portfolio assessment. b. connect learning to teaching practice.

Citations

The use of citations within your literature review: a. supports your ideas and sets them in a theoretical context. b. lend credibility to your writing.

c. acknowledge the authors.

d. enables the reader to find your supporting documents.

• One author - one article or book. If you are citing a study or an article written by one author, the author’s name appears within parentheses, followed by a comma and the year of publication. Any punctuation used for the sentences appears on the outside of the parentheses:

A recent study found that those teachers who used Johnson’s action research book earned significantly higher salaries than those who used other books for their action research projects (Majkowski, 2010).

• More than one Author - one article or book. If the article has more than one author, use a comma to separate the authors and the “&” symbol instead of the word ‘and’ inside the parentheses.

Those people who read Johnson’s action research book were significantly healthier than those who did not (Favre, Rogers, & Starr, 2010).

• More than one article or book. If many articles describe the same idea or reach a similar conclusion, you will need to cite more than one article or study. Within the parenthesis, the authors are put in alphabetical order. A semicolon is used to separate them.

A statistically significant number of dentists have found that Johnson’s action research book resulted in fewer cavities (Hadl, 2010; Starr, Bratkowski, & Hunter, 2007; Wright, Dickey, & Whitehurst,

THE REFERENCE PAGE

1. Any source used in your literature review must be referenced fully on the reference page

2. Reference citations are listed in alphabetical order by the author’s last name

3. You may not put any citations on the reference page that do not

appear in the body of your text

Journal articles with one author:

Author, P. (2001). Name of the article. Name of the Journal, 32, 34-41.

Marx, G., (2010). Action research in elementary schools. Journal of Education, 3, 123-129.

Journal articles with a colon in the title:

Hardy, O. (2010). The referenced page: Indenting is important. The Journal of Writing , 34, 87-90.

Journal articles with more than one author:

Laurel, S, Abbott,B. & Costello, L. (1998). The importance of reference citations. The Brighton Journal of Writing, 57, 122-131.

Books with one author.

Author, P. (2010). Name of the book. City, State: Publisher.

Johnson, A. (2002). A short guide to action research. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Books with a colon in the title:

Keaton, B.(2009). Academic writing: A key to professional success. Minneapolis, MN: Elitist Press International.

Books with many authors.

Arbuckle, F., Lewis, J., & Chaplin, C. (2010). How to write. New York, NY: Ellen & Beacon Publishing.

Books of a later edition:

Johnson, A. (2011). A short guide to action research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

An edited book:

Rickles, D. (Ed.). (2009). Handbook of action research. New York, NY: Hollywood Publishing

Burns, G. , & Benny, J. (Eds.). (2009). The impact of Andy Johnson on action research in the 21st century. New York, NY: Hollywood Publishing.

A chapter in an edited Book with one editor:

Curtain, J. (2009). The importance of accurate data collection. In. D. Rickles (Ed.), Handbook of action research (pp 57-84). New York, NY: Hollywood Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book with more than one editor:

Hope, B. (2010). The important of academic writing. In. J. Seinfeld & R. Williams (Eds.), Academic writing in the 21st century (pp 102-149). New York, NY: Hollywood Publishing.