Chapter 3

REVIEWING THE LITERATURE

REVIEWING OF RELATED LITERATURE: PURPOSE AND SCOPE
 The review of related literature involves systematically identifying, locating, and analyzing
documents pertaining to the research topic.

 The major purpose of reviewing the literature is to identify information that already exists
about your topic.

 The literature review can point out research strategies, procedures, and instruments that
have and have not been found to be productive in investigating your topic. A smaller, well-
organized review is preferred to a review containing many studies that are less related to
the problem.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND THE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

 The literature review demonstrates the underlying assumptions (i.e., propositions) behind
the research questions that are central to the research proposal.

 The literature review provides a way for the novice researcher to convince the proposal
reviewers that he or she is knowledgeable about the related research and the intellectual
traditions that support the proposed study.

 The literature review provides the researcher with an opportunity to identify any gaps that
may exist in the body of literature and to provide a rationale for how the proposed study
may contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

 The literature review helps the researcher to refine the research questions and embed
them in guiding hypotheses that provide possible directions the researcher may follow.

IDENTIFYING KEYWORDS, AND IDENTIFYING, EVALUATING, AND

ANNOTATING SOURCES

 Identifiying keywords
Most sources have alphabetical subject indexes to help you locate information on your topic.
A list of keywords should guide your literature search.
 Identifiying your sources
1. A good way to start a review of related literature is with a narrow search of pertinent
educational encyclopedias, handbooks, and annual reviews found in libraries. These resources
provide broad overviews of issues in various subject areas.
2. An article or report written by the person who conducted the study is a primary source; a
brief description of a study written by someone other than the original researcher is a
secondary source. Primary sources are preferred in the review.
 Searching for book on your topic in the library
1. Most libraries use an online catalog system as well as collective catalogs to access materials
from other libraries. You should familiarize yourself with your library, the library website,
and the resources available within and beyond your library.
2. A keyword search uses terms or phrases pertinent to your topic to search for and identify
potentially useful sources.
3. Keyword searches can be focused by using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. Using
AND or NOT narrows a search and reduces the number of sources identified; using OR
broadens the search and increases the number of sources. It is often best to start with a
narrow search.
 Step for searching computer databases
1. Identify keywords related to your topic.
2. Select the appropriate databases—some databases using the same interface may allow you
to search more than one database simultaneously.
3. Initiate a search using your keywords selectively.
4. Reformulate your search using appropriate subject headings or descriptors combining terms
as is appropriate.
5. Once you have found a relevant article, check the item record for links to additional subject
heading or descriptors, author(s), cited references, times cited in database, or other
references for finding additional related
 Searching the internet and the world wide web
1. The Internet links organizations and individuals all over the world. The World Wide Web is
on the Internet.
2. To access the Internet, you need a computer with a modem or Ethernet/cable line and a
browser that connects to the Web.
3. The available resources on the World Wide Web are almost limitless, so the best way to
become familiar with its use is to “surf” in your spare time.
4. The Web contains a variety of sites relevant to an educational researcher. Each site is
reached by using its Internet address. Addresses containing ed or ending in .edu are related
to educational institutions, those ending in .com are related to commercial enterprises,
those ending in .org refer to organizations (including professional organizations), and those
ending in .gov link to government sites.
5. Search engines have established subcategories and also allow keyword searches to review
large portions of the World Wide Web quickly.
 Becoming a member of professional organizations
1. The websites for professional organizations maintain links to current research in a
particular discipline.
2. Popular professional organizations include Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council for the Social
Studies, National Science Teachers Association, and the International Reading Association.
  Evaluating your sources
 It is important to evaluate all literature sources by asking, What was the problem
statement of the study? Is the study relevant given your research interests? Who was
studied? Where was the source published? When was the study conducted? and How was
the study conducted?
 Annotating your sources
1. Annotating your sources involves creating summaries by locating, reviewing, summarizing,
and classifying your references. Annotations assess the quality, relevance, and accuracy of a
source, articulate your response to a source, and indicate why the source is important to
your research.
2. The main advantage of beginning with the latest references on your topic is that the most
recent studies are likely to have profited from previous research. References in recent
studies often contain references to previous studies you have not yet identified.
3. For each source work, list the complete bibliographic record, including author’s name, date
of publication, title, journal name or book title, volume number, issue number, page numbers,
and library call number. Briefly list main ideas. Put quotation marks around quotes taken
from the source, and include page numbers. Keep all references in the citation format
required for research reports or dissertations.
4. Make a copy of your references and put it in a safe place.
5. A helpful way to keep track of the literature is to use a matrix.

ANALYZING, ORGANIZING, AND REPORTING THE LITERATURE

 Describing and reporting research call for a specialized style of writing. Technical writing
requires documenting facts and substantiating opinions, clarifying definitions and using them
consistently, using an accepted style manual, and starting sections with an introduction and
ending them with a brief summary.

 When organizing a review, make an outline; sort references by topic; analyze the similarities
and differences between references in a given subheading; give a meaningful overview in
which you discuss references least related to the problem first; and conclude with a brief
summary of the literature and its implications.

META- ANALYSIS
 One way to summarize the results of the literature is to conduct a meta-analysis. A meta-
analysis is a statistical approach to summarizing the results of many quantitative studies
that have investigated basically the same problem. It provides a numerical way of
expressing the composite (i.e., “average”) result of a group of studies.

 A central characteristic that distinguishes meta analysis from more traditional approaches
is the emphasis placed on making the review as inclusive as possible.

 The key feature of meta-analysis is that the results from each study are translated into an
effect size. Effect size is a numerical way of expressing the strength or magnitude of a
reported relation, be it causal or not. For example, in an experimental study the effect size
 expresses how much better (or worse) the experimental group performed on a task or test
as compared to the control group.

Chapter 3
EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH, INDEPENDENT, & DEPENDENT VARIABLE

• Penelitian eksperimental adalah satu-satunya jenis penelitian yang dapat menguji hipotesis
untuk membangun hubungan sebab-akibat. Ini mewakili rantai pemikiran terkuat tentang
hubungan antar variabel. Dalam penelitian eksperimental, peneliti memanipulasi setidaknya
satu variabel independen, mengontrol variabel relevan lainnya, dan mengamati pengaruhnya
terhadap satu atau lebih variabel dependen. Peneliti menentukan "siapa yang mendapatkan
apa"; yaitu, peneliti memiliki kendali atas pemilihan dan penugasan kelompok untuk perawatan.
Manipulasi variabel independen adalah karakteristik utama yang membedakan penelitian
eksperimental dari jenis penelitian lainnya.

• Variabel independen, juga disebut variabel perlakuan, kausal, atau eksperimental, adalah
perlakuan atau karakteristik yang diyakini akan membuat perbedaan. Dalam penelitian
pendidikan, variabel independen yang sering dimanipulasi meliputi metode pengajaran, jenis
penguatan, pengaturan lingkungan belajar, jenis bahan pembelajaran, dan lama perawatan.
Daftar ini tidak berarti lengkap.

• Variabel dependen, juga disebut kriteria, efek, atau variabel posttest, adalah hasil
penelitian, perubahan atau perbedaan dalam kelompok yang terjadi sebagai akibat dari
variabel independen.

THE EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS

• Langkah-langkah dalam studi eksperimental termasuk memilih dan mendefinisikan masalah,

memilih peserta dan instrumen pengukuran, menyiapkan rencana penelitian, menjalankan
prosedur, menganalisis data, dan merumuskan kesimpulan. Sebuah studi eksperimental
dipandu oleh setidaknya satu hipotesis yang menyatakan hubungan sebab akibat yang
diharapkan antara dua variabel. Dalam studi eksperimental, peneliti membentuk atau memilih
kelompok, memutuskan bagaimana mengalokasikan perawatan untuk masing-masing kelompok,
mengendalikan variabel asing, dan mengamati atau mengukur efek pada kelompok di akhir
penelitian.

• Kelompok eksperimen biasanya menerima pengobatan baru, dan kelompok kontrol menerima
perlakuan berbeda atau diperlakukan seperti biasa. Dua kelompok yang menerima perlakuan
berbeda disamakan pada semua variabel lain yang mempengaruhi kinerja pada variabel
dependen. Setelah kelompok terpapar pengobatan selama beberapa periode, peneliti
mengukur variabel dependen dan menguji perbedaan kinerja yang signifikan.

THREATS TO EXPERIMENTAL VALIDITY (INTERNAL & EXTERNAL VALIDITY)

• Variabel luar yang tidak terkontrol yang memengaruhi kinerja pada variabel dependen adalah
ancaman terhadap validitas percobaan. Eksperimen valid jika hasil yang diperoleh hanya
 disebabkan oleh variabel independen yang dimanipulasi dan jika digeneralisasikan ke situasi di
luar pengaturan eksperimental.

• Validitas internal adalah sejauh mana perbedaan yang diamati pada variabel dependen adalah
hasil langsung dari manipulasi variabel independen, bukan beberapa variabel lainnya. Validitas
eksternal adalah sejauh mana hasil studi dapat digeneralisasikan untuk kelompok dan
lingkungan di luar pengaturan eksperimental.

THREATS TO EXPERIMENTAL VALIDITY

1. Threats to Internal Validity

 History refers to any event occurring during a study that is not part of the experimental
treatment but may affect performance on the dependent variable.
 Maturation refers to physical, intellectual, and emotional changes that naturally occur within
individuals over a period of time and affect participants’ performance on a measure of the
dependent variable.
 Testing refers to the possibility that participants show improved performance on a posttest
because they took a pretest.
 Instrumentation refers to unreliability, or lack of consistency, in measuring instruments that
may result in invalid assessment of performance.
 Statistical regression refers to the tendency of participants who score highest on a pretest to
score lower on a posttest and the tendency of those who score lowest on a pretest to score
higher on a posttest.
 Differential selection is the selection of subjects who have differences at the start of a study
that may influence posttest differences. It usually occurs when already-formed groups are used.
 Mortality, or attrition, refers to a reduction in the number of research participants as
individuals drop out of a study. Mortality can affect validity because it may alter the
characteristics of the treatment groups.
 Selection may interact with factors related to maturation, history, and testing. If already
formed groups are included in a study, one group may profit more (or less) from a treatment or
have an initial advantage (or disadvantage) because of maturation, history, or testing factors.
2. Threats to External Validity
 Threats affecting to whom research results can be generalized make up threats to population
validity.
 Pretest–treatment interaction occurs when subjects respond or react differently to a treatment
because they have been pretested. The pretest may provide information that influences the
posttest results.
 Multiple-treatment interference occurs when the same subjects receive more than one
treatment in succession and when the effects from an earlier treatment influence a later
treatment.
 Selection–treatment interaction occurs when findings apply only to the (nonrepresentative)
groups involved and are not representative of the treatment effect in the extended population.
 Specificity is a threat to generalizability when the treatment variables are not clearly
prerationalized, making it unclear to whom the variables generalize.
 Generalizability of results may be affected by short-term or long-term events that occur while
the study is taking place. This potential threat is referred to as interaction of history and
treatment effects.
 Interaction of time of measurement and treatment effects result from the fact that
posttesting may yield different results depending on when it is done.
  Treatment diffusion occurs when different treatment groups communicate with and learn from
each other.
 A researcher’s influences on participants or on study procedures are known as experimenter
effects; these effects can be passive or active.
 Reactive arrangements are threats to external validity that are associated with participants
performing atypically because they are aware of being in a study. The Hawthorne, John Henry,
and novelty effects are examples of reactive arrangements.
 The placebo effect is sort of the antidote for the Hawthorne and John Henry effects. Its
application in educational research is that all groups in an experiment should appear to be
treated the same.
CONTROL OF EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES

• Matching

Matching adalah teknik untuk menyamakan kelompok pada satu atau lebih variabel, biasanya
orang-orang yang sangat terkait dengan kinerja pada variabel dependen. Pendekatan yang paling
umum digunakan untuk pencocokan melibatkan tugas acak pasangan, salah satu peserta untuk
masing-masing kelompok. Dengan kata lain, peneliti mencoba untuk menemukan pasang peserta
yang sama pada variabel atau variabel yang akan dikontrol. Jika peneliti adalah pencocokan
gender, jelas pasangan yang cocok harus dari jenis kelamin yang sama. Jika peneliti adalah
pencocokan pada variabel seperti pretest, GRE, atau skor kemampuan, pasangan tersebut dapat
didasarkan pada kesamaan nilai.

• Comparing Homogeneous Groups or Subgroups

Cara lain yang sebelumnya dibahas untuk mengontrol variabel asing adalah untuk membandingkan
kelompok-kelompok yang homogen sehubungan dengan variabel tersebut. Sebagai contoh, jika IQ
adalah variabel asing diidentifikasi, peneliti dapat memilih hanya peserta dengan IQ antara 85
dan 115 (yaitu, rata-rata IQ). Peneliti kemudian akan menetapkan secara acak setengah peserta
yang dipilih untuk kelompok eksperimen dan setengah untuk kelompok kontrol.

• Participants as Their Own Controls

Ketika peserta berfungsi sebagai kontrol mereka sendiri, desain penelitian melibatkan satu
kelompok peserta yang terkena beberapa perawatan, satu per satu. Strategi ini membantu untuk
mengendalikan perbedaan peserta karena peserta yang sama mendapatkan kedua perawatan.
Dalam situasi di mana efek dari variabel dependen menghilang dengan cepat setelah pengobatan,
atau di mana peserta tunggal adalah fokus dari penelitian, peserta dapat berfungsi sebagai
kontrol mereka sendiri.

• Analysis of Covariance

Analisis kovarians adalah metode statistik untuk menyamakan kelompok secara acak dibentuk
pada satu atau lebih variabel. Analisis kovarians menyesuaikan nilai pada variabel dependen
perbedaan awal pada beberapa variabel lain, seperti skor pretest, IQ, kesiapan membaca, atau
bakat musik. kovariat harus berkaitan dengan kinerja pada variabel dependen.

TYPES OF GROUP DESIGNS

• Ada dua kelas utama desain eksperimental: desain variabel tunggal dan desain faktorial.
Desain variabel tunggal adalah desain apa pun yang melibatkan satu variabel independen yang
 dimanipulasi; desain faktorial adalah desain apa pun yang melibatkan dua atau lebih variabel
independen, setidaknya satu di antaranya dimanipulasi. Desain faktorial dapat menunjukkan
hubungan yang tidak dapat diterapkan oleh desain variabel tunggal. Misalnya, variabel yang
ditemukan tidak efektif dalam studi variabel tunggal dapat berinteraksi secara signifikan
dengan variabel lain.

SINGLE-VARIABLE DESIGNS

• Desain variabel tunggal diklasifikasikan sebagai pra eksperimental, eksperimental benar,

atau eksperimental semu, tergantung pada tingkat kontrol yang diberikannya terhadap
ancaman terhadap validitas internal dan eksternal.

FACTORIAL DESIGNS

• Desain faktorial melibatkan dua atau lebih variabel independen, setidaknya satu di antaranya
dimanipulasi oleh peneliti. 2 2 adalah desain faktorial yang paling sederhana. Desain faktorial
jarang mencakup lebih dari tiga faktor. Desain faktorial digunakan untuk menguji apakah
efek dari variabel independen dapat digeneralisasi di semua level atau apakah efeknya
spesifik untuk level tertentu (mis., Ada interaksi antara variabel).