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Friday, 30 October 2020

Literature review resources

Over time, I have put together a list of resources for my supervisory students, to help them with researching, constructing and writing literature reviews. The items listed in this post are those which I think are the most helpful for early researchers.

I thought that it would be useful to note what this list is now. Then, as this list grows and changes, this list will give me an opportunity to track the development and refinement of my advice over time. Hmm. There might be a research project in that!

The resources fall into five categories, as follows:

1. Critique the literature you collect by reading:

a. Get a copy of Coughlan et al (2007) from your library

b. Get a copy of Yeong (2014) from your library, or from Amazon (here)

c. https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/research-techniques/literature-reviews/evaluate (University of Queensland, 2020)

d. https://www.wikihow.com/Critique-Literature (WikiHow, 2020)

2. Context. Ten quick tips for “exploring really fresh relationships between form and content, and [to help you get] your content in context” (Brabazon, 24 July 2017, 2:52) so your literature review is “sharp, it’s edgy” (3.15), and to show “your confidence and your competence [in handling] the work of others” (18:38):

1. Frame “the literature review is a frame […driven by an underlying] organizing principle”, idea, or theory (3:42). Be explicit about what is included and what is not, and why the exclusions

2. Purpose “before you start writing […] sit down and write one sentence [explaining] what are you hoping to get out of this literature” (5:09)

3. Finding a gap your research should prove by pin-pointing the gap that you have made “an original contribution to knowledge” (7:06), and your examiners need to see that you can demonstrate competence in critique and identifying originality

4. Academic rigour “be accurate and rigorous” (8:07) with citations, references and quotations

5. Interpretation “you are reading for interpretation and not for fact” (9:28) and need to explain WHY you have included elements and how they sit alongside the gap

6. Integration knitting all the ideas together into a cohesive whole that develops your ideas “make sure that your literature review is integrated and not fragmented” (9:58)

7. Meta-analyses look for meta-analyses in your field to get a holistic overview of the area, and this will help you “focus on the WHY” (11:47), and also remember to compare both your and the author’s positioning within the field (philosophy) your examiner can see that you understand where you sit, and that your positioning is aligned with your method

8. Literature review not systematic review Ignore. Doesn’t really apply to business (the latter is used in the health sciences, and is effectively a literature review meta-analysis on a very prescriptive set of tight criteria to find patterns in research studies, or the cause of a schism. More info at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12393)

9. Theory “theory is the key moment in the construction of knowledge” (16:21) and needs to be knitted into the fabric of the chapter

10. Signposting “the literature review is the spine of your thesis” (17:34) so use many headings (“vertebrae”) to signal where your literature review is going to remind you of the structure that knits the whole into one cohesive narrative. The headings may disappear, but they help to ensure that your frame is complete (see 1)

3. Synthesising.

a. Ensure you synthesise (here)

b. Watch how to synthesise at https://youtu.be/Gm8mZ-ClNuw (Sheridan, 2013)

c. More information on synthesising at https://unilearning.uow.edu.au/academic/4bi.html (Uni Learning, 2000)

4. Signposting. To help you construct the areas to signpost within your literature review:

a. Read Section 2 of Alber (2011), pages 25 to 65, particularly noting the activity boxes, and

b. Read Chapter 4 of Ang, Conducting a literature review (2011), and

c. Read Queen's University Belfast on Sign-posting (2013), here.

5. To ensure the quality of journals, read University of Michigan - Journal Rankings external data, 2009.pdf. To avoid predatory journals, check the list at https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/.



Sam

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Wednesday, 28 October 2020

Stages of data analysis

In a previous post (here), I discussed four steps of Schutt's data analysis model. However, in his text, Schutt outlines five steps.

I thought I would expand on all five of these steps in this post. They are (Schutt, 2011, p. 325):
  1. "Documentation of the data and the process of data collection": this is where we have gathered all our field notes together. We have reflected, we have organised our field notes; we have digitised everything. We have a research diary which we have noted our impressions in, and we have digitised this as well. We may start to see concepts, and should be making notes as we document - "margin notes', effectively - that may form the basis of our coding. We start preliminary categorisation of responses.
  2. "Organization/categorization of the data into concepts": this is where we have started to see connections between our various groups of data. We can see the tenuous connections, ideas are beginning to form. We may need to discuss our ideas with others, to read more widely, to look for whether this has happened elsewhere to "resolve points of confusion". We need to interact with our data repeatedly, over time. Schutt suggests using a checklist matrix to interrogate our data.
  3. "Connection of the data to show how one concept may influence another". We look for connections; we look for hierarchy; we look for 'upstream' and 'downstream'; we look for difference; and we look for sameness. We start to see the outlines of influence, of relationships, of connectedness. An example which Schutt uses is from Becker (1958):

    "When we first heard medical students apply the term 'crock' to patients, we made an effort to learn precisely what they meant by it. We found, through interviewing students about cases both they and the observer had seen, that the term referred in a derogatory way to patients with many subjective symptoms but no discernible physical pathology. Subsequent observations indicated that this usage was a regular feature of student behavior and thus that we should attempt to incorporate this fact into our model of student-patient behavior. The derogatory character of the term suggested in particular that we investigate the reasons students disliked these patients. We found that this dislike was related to what we discovered to be the students’ perspective on medical school: the view that they were in school to get experience in recognizing and treating those common diseases most likely to be encountered in general practice. 'Crocks,' presumably having no disease, could furnish no such experience" (Schutt, 2011, p. 328)

  4. "Corroboration/legitimization, by evaluating alternative explanations, disconfirming evidence, and searching for negative cases". We start to see what is really there, instead of what we expect to see. This is the hardest part for all of us. We can often be blind to what we are seeing. We need to be sure that what we are seeing is authentic.
  5. "Representing the account (reporting the findings)". Writing. Rewriting. Polishing. Seeking clarity in the account.
These five steps are taken from Chapter 10 of Schutt's book, which I find is superb. If your library has a copy, get it out, and read it :-)


Sam
  • Reference: Schutt, R. K. (2012). Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research (7th ed.). Pine Forge Press.
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Monday, 26 October 2020

Referencing an online first article

As a member of the Academy of Management and a SAGE reviewer, I often am able to access 'in press' or 'online first' articles. It is wonderful for teaching to get a heads up on what may be the embryo of a coming specialist issue, and have the hot, steaming research in my little greedy hands.

 However, referencing 'in press' or 'online first' articles seems to be a bit contested. Almost everyone I know tackles it a little differently. And I must admit that it is an APA format which just doesn't seem to 'stick' for me: each time I have to reference an online first article, I need to go and look it up again in the APA Manual (APA, 2019).

 While "online first" or "online publication" is not in the index, "Advance online publication" is (APA, 2019, p. 407). Yay!

 There are three entries which relate to this: 8.5 for the date we should use; 9.14 for the citation; and 10.1 for the reference construction itself. So, for example, if I were referencing the following article by Yip et al. (2020), what I have once I go onto the SAGE journal page is:
Yip, J., Li, H., Ensher, E. A., & Murphy, S. E. (2020). Beyond Logic and Intuition: Development and Validation of a Career Discernment Scale. Journal of Career Development.
We need to include the DOI, and make the link live if our article will be published online. We then insert the words "Advance online publication" after the journal name and a full stop. Additionally, "Advance online publication" is not italicised. Further, we don't need to include a page range (and I am not sure why that is).
Yip, J., Li, H., Ensher, E. A., & Murphy, S. E. (2020). Beyond Logic and Intuition: Development and Validation of a Career Discernment Scale. Journal of Career Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845319897824
It is always nice to know how to do it properly!
Sam

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Friday, 23 October 2020

The social sciences

It is not often that we really step back and think about our own fields, and where those fields fit in relation to everything else. I was idly thinking about the social sciences, and why business in a part of that field (Sodertorn University, 2020).

Scientia is from Latin meaning ‘knowledge’, and referring “to a systematic and organized body of knowledge in any area of inquiry” (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p. 1). Science falls into two halves: natural science; and social science. The natural sciences focus on objects or phenomena occurring naturally (e.g. light, matter, our planet and beyond, or living things). Science - natural science - tends to take a more objective approach (Frey, 2013).

The social sciences are the study of people or groups (e.g. organisations, societies, economies, or behaviours), and include “psychology (the science of human behaviors), sociology (the science of social groups), and economics (the science of firms, markets, and economies)” (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p. 1). The social sciences tend to take more of a subjective approach (Frey, 2013).

 OK: so what then separates the humanities and the social sciences? Professor Iain McLean pinpoints a wonderfully cogent difference: “humanities are (mostly) interested in the unique; social sciences are (mostly) interested in the general”, continuing on to provide an example, that “Social statistics cannot predict how I will vote in the next election, but they can help to predict what most people like me will do” (McLean, 20 November 2018).

These delineations are somewhat arbitrary though. Without going into the Arts, where things get even more murky, let's stay on the simple side of the divide, and consider the areas where business has a clear involvement. Depending on what is studied, and the methods used, business can easily fall into a number of different disciplines. For example, research into stock market returns can explore the connection between a range of mathematically measured factors (science); the reasons why stockbrokers invest in certain stocks (social sciences); or the narrative of a particular stockbroker (humanities).

 It all comes back to where we stand (ontology), what we want to learn, and how we come to knowing (epistemology). And we could fling a bit of axiology in there as well for spice :-)
Sam

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Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Scheduling our research

When it comes to teaching and researching in the dirty boots brigade (the Polytechnic sector), what I have noticed over a period of years is that more and more admin gets pushed down onto the lecturer. Change is happening each six months, requiring semester courses to be constantly updated, often to a significant degree. Our enrolment numbers are no longer small groups of ten to fifteen where I teach, but are more likely to be between 30 and 40, which a lecturer is expected to cover four times each semester, on four different courses. We do all the marking, all the admin, all the initial academic misconduct investigations, and all the teaching. As a full time lecturer, most of us will teach 9 papers per year (or 8 papers and some supervision). This is supposedly an 80% teaching load, designed to allow us 20% of our time (one day a week) for research.

 The result is that over a time, instead of the required hours becoming less contested, they become more contested. Many of my colleagues have left on stress leave, become sick, or simply burned out and moved on. Often the actual reasons for staff turnover goes under the radar.

The only way I have seen any staff 'manage' a workload like that is to shortcut teaching delivery and questions, not refresh their teaching materials, and do their research with a much larger team delivering lower quality outputs. You have to be very self-interested to be able to do that.

 However, most of us are in teaching to give back to learners; as we too were nurtured by our educational mentors. Most instead work every day, including late nights and weekend to be able to deliver well. But it is really hard to actually get your research done. We get to the end of the week, and we are exhausted (particularly in Covid-19 times). The last thing that we want to do is to try and wedge in at the end of the week, after we are wiped out after the end of a long week... usually on Sunday when we are already tired after after not having a break.

 So into this tale of "why the hell would you do that?" I got an auto-correct. I listened to a blog post recently from Tara Brabazon, who said that we should “pay [ourselves] first” (Brabazon, 2020, 40:00). This, I found, was quite a profound statement.

 Research should not be an after-thought which gets the tailings of our time: it should be the most important thing for each of us. Research should be done when we are fresh. Our research is what fills up our teaching bucket. It gives us the new ideas to allow us to explore, and to make new connections. That then allows us to publish. Because, as Tara so rightly pointed out, that "authors publish".

 My research has now been scheduled into my Monday morning diary. I start early. Because I want to. Give it a try.
Sam

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Monday, 19 October 2020

Costing quotes

Having been in business since 1997 - where does the time go?! - I have found that costing client work for a quote is a very tricky business to get even roughly right. What eventually enabled me to get more accurate in this took two or three years to get my head around.

 I always used to carefully work out how long everything would take, then quote on those hours. However, I learned very quickly that I was far too positive about how long everything would take, and under-estimated by 50%. So instead I simply carefully worked out how long everything would take (just as carefully), then doubled it.

 That was better, but I wasn't thinking big enough. Over time, I analysed jobs, and realised that I was still off by 50% on base with quotes. I had to treble my estimates, and then was pretty much coming in on target. While I use some technology tools to help me, the main thing that I needed to learn was that I needed to assume that I would be off by a factor of 3.

 I go so far as to block out the work hours I intend in my diary, so the time is concrete. I can check if tasks are over or under, and bill the hours through to the client. Everything for me is based around my diary.

 We want to do the best for our clients, and provide value for money. But we have to check that our work can be delivered in the hours that we have allocated. Over time, scheduling and estimating work never really gets easier, but if we keep measuring, we will get better over time.
Sam
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Friday, 16 October 2020

Confirmation of candidature

Tara Brabazon from Flinders University in Adelaide runs a weekly video blog, which has been running for four and a half years, packed full of tips, hints and PhD tricks for post-graduate students and lecturers at the University. Over time her audience has grown outside the university, as her posts have great utility. One post struck me as being particularly useful.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Australian PhD system when starting your PhD, there are three stages: the 'confirmation document' (research proposal), the confirmation presentation, and the discussion. A couple of years ago, Tara posted a clip providing some great tips to meet the Confirmation of Candidature for an Australian PhD programme. Tara walked through the requirements, and I felt that her vlog provided advice in two halves: questions; and evidence. The first half provided questions about whether we are able to take on a PhD, as follows:
  1. Can we identify a research problem (or a series of research questions)? Do we know the point of our research? Do we know if we can get the job done?
  2. What is our original contribution to knowledge? Can we complete the sentence “my original contribution to knowledge is…”?
  3. Do we have the ability to write, and configure, and sustain an argument? Do we have the vocabulary to sustain that heightened level of scholarship required?
  4. Do we know what is methodology and what is methods? Do we understand and are we able to demonstrate the mechanics?
  5. Do we have the time-management skills needed? Do we have the capacity for planning and delivering? Do we have the commitment, energy and motivation? Can we put in place the planning and are we able to make it flexible enough to ensure that all tasks are done?
  6. Can we develop competent oral presentation skills which clearly communicates our research?
  7. Are we aware of any exportability or third party agreements which may limit the transferability and the IP consequences of our research?
    Tara spoke about originality being the defining characteristic of a PhD, whereas synthesis is the defining characteristic of a Masters. That is a very good point. Then Tara moved onto what I felt formed the second half; the evidence that we would need to display through our confirmation of candidature, to prove to our assessors that we can deliver. This includes:
    1. A document containing the following: Title; the summary of the research; the rationale for the research; research objectives, research questions; methodology; how the research contributes to a discipline or disciplines – eg, “my research contributes to x in y way” (show we understand how the work sits in the broader context of the field); theoretical perspectives; literature review; and a PERFECT reference list.
    2. Demonstrating a clear - compelling - vision
    3. Showing that we are a self-starter, including that we have undertaken PD to learn what is required and to expand our horizons; and that we have planned PD into our PhD schedule to learn what future requirements are there
    4. Listing any required resources (which should match the pre-proposal; if it does not, communicated to our supervisor what additional resourcing is needed before the document is finalised, because it may affect departmental budgets)
    5. Having a clear plan for the work that needs to be done over the coming year, including specifying the chapters that we want to complete, and any issues that we would like discussion on or help with. This should also include us listing our research outputs - conferences and papers - that we will deliver on in the coming year.
    These are two very useful lists. Professor Brabazon has a clear view of what is required which will help us all to be successful. Even better, she can convey it to us, so that we can learn from it.

    Sam
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    Wednesday, 14 October 2020

    Argument standard form

    Earlier this year I took part in a FutureLearn MOOC run by Tim Dare and Patrick Gilard of the University of Auckland, called Logical and Critical Thinking (2020a). This was a very enjoyable course, run over eight weeks, containing some things that I already knew, and including some things that were quite difficult for me to get my head around (argh: moral relativism!).

     The course was really well-resourced with lots of video and really clear instruction. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and managed to set aside the time each week to complete: in the words of Tara Brabazon, I "paid myself first" (2020, 40:00).

    However one element - tool - will become a key piece of learning, and that is the idea of putting an argument in standard form (2020b):
    "The standard form of an argument is a way of presenting the argument which makes clear which statements are premises, how many premises there are, and which statements is the conclusion. In standard form, the conclusion of the argument is listed last. A standard form looks like this-- premise 1, premise 2, and so on for as many premises as there are-- therefore, conclusion".
    I like this form, though identifying and breaking down the key elements of the arguments themselves can be quite tricky. An argument is not a description, and sometimes it is hard to separate what is description, and what is argument (though there is a test for that).

     Where standard form becomes more useful is when we present this a little more algebraically, and consider truth against that structure. We can consider an arguments' parts as:
    P1 If A is true, then B is true
    P2 A is true
    Therefore,
    C. B is true.
    I think I will write a little more on this at some point, as I reflect on the learning.
    Sam
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    Monday, 12 October 2020

    Finding complete APA references

    I often have students asking me how to find the correct reference for journal articles. This is happening more frequently now with the shift to APA 7th edition.

    I use two tools to find my references: GoogleScholar, and Cross-Ref.

     I start by pasting the journal article title into GoogleScholar, and searching. If the primary entry doesn't return a reference with all the components - all author names, the date, the title, the volume, the issue, and the page range - I will often check all the versions, and sometimes I may make a composite entry from a number of versions listed.

     Then, once I am happy that I have a relatively complete article reference, I paste my reference into Cross-Ref (here) to get the DOI (read more on DOIs here).

     Then I use the DOI to double-check the reference I have compiled from GoogleScholar. If you would prefer to watch a rough video on how to do this, check out below:

    I hope this is useful :-)
    Sam
    • Reference: Burke, R., & Vinnicombe, S. (2005). Advancing women's careers. Career Development International, 10(3), 165-167. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430510732012
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    Friday, 9 October 2020

    Changing desktop icon size in Windows 10

    OK, hands up all those who know how to change the icon size in Windows 10?

     I so fondly thought that I did, until I tried, and realised that I didn't. So I went hunting, and - as usual with Google - I found a great link to the perfect 'how to' answer for doing this. The BEST thing is that, in Windows 10, it is now even easier to change icon size, because it is now on a menu.

    Simply:
    • Right-click on some empty desktop space
    • Click View in the right-click menu
    • Slide out and select your desired icon size (i.e. Large icons, Medium icons, or Small icons).
    And that is it.

     Have a play :-)
    Sam
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    Wednesday, 7 October 2020

    The History of the World

    Ah: I am coming late to this party, but - just in case you haven't heard of this resource - Columbia University has a series of lectures freely available here on the history of the world. Dating from 2010, this series of 46 lectures is in two parts: the History of the World to 1500 CE; then History of the World Since 1500 CE. These are loaded onto YouTube as a lecture course (Columbia University, 2010).

     Once you get past the American-centric views and internal education politics, the lectures are slow, but very interesting. The lecturer, Richard Bulliet talks us through (2010). He all too obviously knows his stuff in his unaccompanied talks. Having a copy of his co-authored book for the the History of the World to 1500 CE series will help to anchor us: create an Internet Archive account and borrow an old version from here; rent the 5th edition for USD$10 here (or rent a 7th edition for USD$35 here).

     These lectures are supported by other materials, images, and books which we can find at the Open Culture here (2013).

     And, speaking of open culture, have a look down the right-hand sidebar on the Open Culture page. You will see a staggering amount of famous people's lectures. A good place to browse for your next watch :-)
    Sam

     References:
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    Monday, 5 October 2020

    Long answer test technique

    Students tend to struggle with tackling written examinations. This only gets harder as we increase in education levels, as the complexity and quality of the thinking required also increases. In general with tests and examinations, controlled examinations do not require an essay: the marker wants to see that students are able to demonstrate their learning.

     The advice I give to my students is to divide the minutes available for the test by the marks (normally that ratio will come out at a little under two minutes per mark). We use the number our calculation gives us to budget our time against the marks for each question.

     For example, if we are undertaking a 180 minute test of 100 marks, this allows us 1.8 minutes per mark, without any time for review. For a ten mark question, we allow 18 minutes; double it for a 20 mark question to 36 minutes. If we want to build in review time, then we could drop this down to 15 minutes per ten marks (30 for a 20 mark question), giving us half an hour for review at the end.

     When tackling a long answer question - the types we are likely to be asked as a post-graduate student, I give the following advice for students in the Polytechnic sector, where learning needs to be applied. There are five aspects that we need to show the examiner: that we can analyse the situation, that we can select appropriate theory, that we understand the theory by defining it, that we can demonstrate what it means to ourselves, and that we can apply it to a real situation or case. Those five steps are again are analyse, select, define, justify, apply:
    1. That we can appropriately and accurately analyse the situation in the case, linking to the materials we have been exposed to in our course work;
    2. That we can select appropriate tools, theories and frameworks to answer the question and meet the needs of the client in the case;
    3. That we understand the tools, theories and frameworks by defining them. That we can define it, explain what it does, and can break it down into its key components;
    4. That we can justify why those particular tools, theories and frameworks have been chosen;
    5. That we can apply those tools, theories and frameworks to the real case. In postgraduate education, students are most likely to be assigned a case, so we will need to ensure that our entire response is focused on the case we are being examined on. How the case has used it ourselves, or how we propose they use it in future. Clearly, clearly applied.
    I also have a strategy for when we run short of time, or are stuck:
    Stuck: if we are stuck, define the theory we think we are being asked about, detail the components, then paraphrase what we think the examiner is asking us, and answer that question to the best of our ability, providing examples. Even if we are off track, other students too may have misread or not been able to interpret the question, and the examiner may give us marks for what we have answered.
    Short of time: if we are running out of time, quickly define the theory we think we are being asked about, again, paraphrase what the examiner is asking us, then just list where we were aiming to go with our answer in brief bullet points. It may not get us many marks, but some marks are better than none.
    Remember: analyse, select, define, demonstrate, apply. Work hard to master the material, and ALWAYS put an answer, even when you are stuck.

     Good luck!
    Sam
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    Friday, 2 October 2020

    There aint no such thing as a free lunch

    I had a situation on a course where several students recycled work, which had already been submitted in on a concurrent course for credit, on the course that I was teaching.

    While I had struck this in isolated, individual occasions in the past, I had never had this happen with a number of students. I had to have a good, long think about "what was wrong with this picture", because I wanted to explain to my students WHY this was a problem: what the philosophical issues were, so they didn't run into this problem again. I felt that there were three issues at play, as follows:

    1. Firstly, our audience - the lecturer in this instance - is expecting the work we turn in to be our own, original, and created to answer the question at hand, to demonstrate understanding and application of the learning outcomes being assessed. We have a psychological contract to uphold with our reader (more on that here), along with our personal reputation for honesty, and trust. If the work we are turning in for credit has not been created specifically for this purpose, then we need to explicitly tell our reader.

    2. Secondly, if it is unacknowledged, recycling is 'self-plagiarism'. We avoid plagiarism aspect by citing, and, in this case, self-citing (TurnItIn, 2016; TurnItIn, 2019). We can clearly mark that our work has been repurposed, by following all of the usual APA citation and referencing rules: i.e. no more than 50 words per citation; use double quote marks; and provide the reader with a map back to the source. If we submitted the original work online, we simply provide the URL where the work was uploaded to.

    3. Thirdly, there is the issue of double-dipping, in 'recycling' credit. If we have turned in work for credit on one course, we cannot recycle it to get credit on another course. Otherwise we could pirate our own work again and again and do - warning: over-exaggeration coming here! - 180 credits instead of 360 to earn our degree.
    I told my students that they were welcome to reuse ideas developed in previous work, but that they had to rewrite those original ideas, and bend them to suit this new use. If they had particularly good elements that really suited the current assessment, then they could quote those ideas, using the normal APA limitations and processes mentioned in point 2 above.

    It surprised me that my students were in the last year of their degrees and has not realised that they could not resubmit work. Most institutions specifically mention that students cannot recycle work. For example, my current institution here says under the Definitions section on the second page, that the following is considered to be academic misconduct "(d) Submitting work for summative assessment which has previously been submitted elsewhere, without the prior permission of the Curriculum Manager or delegate" (2019, p. 2).

    To quote the immortal words of Robert Anson Heinlein: "There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch" (1966, p. 122). We probably need to spell that out more.


    Sam

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