Conceptions of the Literature Review: An online activity for supervisors
This is an online interactive activity for supervisors who wish to provide better assistance to their students on issues concerning the very important literature review.
Aims
This activity is based on research and scholarship on differences in students' conceptions of the literature review. Early in their candidacy, many students have rather simplistic conceptions of what a literature review is, how to conduct one and how to write it.
This activity should help supervisors:
- make explicit their own current interpretation/ understanding of what students should do when they review the literature
- identify conceptions of the literature review which are appropriate in their disciplines
- identify their students' conceptions of the literature review
- identify the approaches to the literature review likely to be taken by their students
- assist their students in developing and executing appropriate approaches to the literature review
This activity has three steps and will ask you to type in some of your own ideas. You will have the option to email your responses to yourself at each step. It is best to do this activity in one session, as your responses will not be kept once you log out. You should plan to set aside about an hour.
Acknowledgement
This online activity is based on research and scholarship conducted by Dr Christine Bruce, Associate Professor and Director, Teaching and Learning, Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology (see bibliography).
Peggy Nightingale assisted with turning Bruce's published materials and workshop outlines into an online resource for fIRST.