RIFT VALLEY UNIVERSITY

School of Postgraduate Studies MBA Program

Advanced Business Research Methodology (MBA651)

Students Name :Mustefa Muhammed

ID No.RVUSBGBAR/0074/22

Submitted to: Ass. Prof. Tesfa M.

January,2023

Sebeta
READING SUMMARY

CHAPTER THREE
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
3.1 What is a Literature Review
It is a critical written summary of journal articles, books and other documents (both published and
unpublished) that

 describes the past and current state of information,

 organizes the literature into topics and
The literature review should demonstrate that the present research:
1. Addresses a question not investigated in previous studies,
2. Fills in a gap in previous research
3. Tests a model under different conditions
4. Resolves conflicting research findings.
3.2 Importance of Literature Review
Review of literature is very important to:
 determine what has already been written on a topic;
 identify previous approaches to the topic;
 identify central issues in the field;
 integrate what previous researchers have found; and
 identify important issues still unresolved
3.3 Characteristics of a good literature review
 The survey materials must be as recent as possible.
 Materials reviewed must be objective and unbiased.
 Materials surveyed must be relevant to the study.
 Surveyed materials must have been based upon genuinely original and true facts.
 data to make them valid and reliable.
 Review materials must not be too few nor too many.
3.4 Process of Literature Review
Review of literature involves four steps :
1.Searching for the existing literature in study area:

 It is expected that the researcher has some basic idea of the broad subject areas and the problem
to be investigated. Bibliography may be compiled for the broad area.
2-Reviewing the Literature:
3.Developing a Theoretical Framework

 The information obtained from different books and journals needs to be sorted out under main
themes and theories, highlighting agreements and disagreements among the authors and
identifying the unanswered questions or gaps.

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  The theoretical framework of the study is a structure that can hold or support a theory of a
research work. It presents the theory which explains why the problem under study exists.
4. Developing Conceptual Framework

 Conceptual framework is structured from a set of ideas and theories that helps the researcher
to properly identify the problem, guide data collection and analysis.
3.5 Activities of Reviewing Literature
Reviewing the related literature comprises the following activities:
A. active reading (browsing & scanning)
B. careful record keeping,
C. selective note- taking, & critical evaluation of the information
D. The application of appropriate referencing style
3.6 Reading Literature for Research
Reading for research could take place in three stages of the research project:
At the beginning of your research, to:
 Check what has been done by other research,
 focus your ideas, and
 explore the context for your project;
During your research, to:
 keep you interested and up to date with developments,
 help you better understand the methods you are using and the field you are researching
After Your research, to:
 see what impact your own work has had, and
 help you develop ideas for further research projects
3.7 Sources of Literature
i. Primary literature sources/grey literature: -publications without commercial purposes, difficult to trace/:
are the first occurrence of a piece of work
ii. Secondary literature sources:- these are subsequent publication of primary literature (books and
journals)
iii. Tertiary literature sources/search tools/: these are designed to help to locate primary and secondary
literature or to introduce a topic.
3.8 Techniques of Literature Taking Note
1. Paraphrasing:
 Refers to “restating or rewording a passage from a text, giving the same meaning in another
form"
 If you use the ideas or opinions from someone else and restate them in your own words, you still
need to cite the source.
Techniques for paraphrasing

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  Changing the word, Changing the word class and Changing the word order/sentence pattern
2. Summarizing: is writing a summary of what the author says.
Summarizing means taking main ideas from a larger passage by condensing them into your own words. It
is useful because to Use less words than the author, and therefore the number of words will be minimized
in your writing.
3. Direct Quote:
Means using the exact same words as the original author. If you use the exact words of an author,
you need to include them in the quotation marks (“ ”)
3.9 Literature referencing/ Systems of Referencing
Referencing is a standardized way of acknowledging the sources of information and ideas that you have
used in your academic writing/scientific papers. The act of providing evidence for arguments and
perspectives presented in literature write up – article, long essay, report and etc.
 References provided within the text or the body of the text /In-text citation
 Compiled references at the end of the text /list of references/
Referencing Styles: Three of the most common styles are:

 the Harvard system,

 the American Psychological Association( APA) system and
 the Vancouver or footnotes system.
3.10 Structure of Literature Review
The literature review has its own internal structure:
 Introduction: Opening sentence or paragraph;
 Body: discusses the literature in a logical and coherent way.
this is where you discuss your sources ;and
 Conclusion: concludes with a paragraph that relate the literature to the research project.
Ways to Structure Your Review
1. Chronology
2. Themes
 Purpose, Objective
 Conclusions/Gaps
3. Type of Paper
 Empirical
 Conceptual

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CHAPTER FIVE
DATA GATHERING INSTRUMENTS

5.1. Methods of Data Collection

The data can be collected through observation, questionnaire, interview, schedule, etc.There are
two categories of data - the primary and the secondary.In the first case, the data is directly
collected from the respondent, whereas in the second case the main source is published and
unpublished material.

5.1.1. Primary Data Collection Methods

primary data can be collected through observation, interview, schedule and questionnaires
1. Observation method
It is the gathering of data by investigator’s own direct observation of relevant people, actions and
situations.Observation is a primary method of collecting data by human, mechanical, electrical or
electronics means with direct or indirect contact and involve looking and listening very carefully
in order to discover particular information.
The techniques used for collecting data through observation are written descriptions,video
recording and photographs and artifacts.In written descriptions the researcher makes written
descriptions of the people, situations or environment.Video recording allows the researcher to
also record notes, and limitation may include people acting unnaturally towards the camera or
others avoiding the camera and the camera may not always see everything.Photographs and
artifacts are useful when there is a need to collect observable information or phenomena such as
buildings, neighborhoods, dress and appearance.
2. Interview
In Quantitative research (survey research), interviews are more structured than in Qualitative
research. Interviews are mainly qualitative in nature.Interviews can be conducted using face to
face interview or telephone interview.Interviews can be unstructured interview,semi structured
interview and structured interview.
In unstructured interview the interviewer may just go with the aim of discussing a limited
number of topics, sometimes as few as just one or two and may frame the interview questions
based on the interviewee and his/her previous response which allows the discussion to cover
areas in great detail.In semi structured interview a series of open ended questions are asked based
on the topic areas the researcher wants to cover which allow the researcher to prompt or
encourage the interviewee if they are looking for more information or find what they are saying
interesting.In structured interview the interviewer asks the respondent the same questions in the
same way and a tightly structured schedule is used. If the interview schedule is too tightly
structured this may not enable the phenomena under investigation to be explored in terms of
either breadth or depth.

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3. Questionnaires
A questionnaire refers to a device for securing answers to questions by using a form which the
respondent fills in by himself. It consists of a number of questions printed or typed in a definite
order on a form or set of forms.
Questionnaires can structured or unstructured in structured questionnaire the questions are
presented with exactly the same wording and in the same order to all respondents and in an
unstructured questionnaire, the researcher is provided with a general guide on the type of
information to be obtained, but the exact question formulation is largely his own responsibility
and the replies are to be taken down in the respondent’s own words to the extent possible.
Questionnaires can be close ended and open ended.Close ended questions are multiple choice
question/yes or no question and open-ended questions are more difficult to handle, raising
problems of interpretation, comparability and interviewer bias.
4. Schedules
A schedule is a structure of set of questions on a given topic which are asked by the interviewer
or investigator personally. The order of questions, the language of the questions and the
arrangement of parts of the schedule are not changed.This method of data collection is very
much like the collection of data through questionnaire, with little difference which lies in the fact
that schedules are being filled in by the enumerators who are specially appointed for the purpose.
Guideline for constructing questionnaires/Schedule
The researcher must keep in view the problem she/he is to study for it provides the starting point
for developing the Questions. The researcher must decide whether to use closed or open-ended
question.Questions should be simple and must be constructed with a view to their forming a
logical part of a well thought out tabulation plan. Rough draft of the Questionnaire/Schedule be
prepared, giving due thought to the appropriate sequence of putting questions.Researcher must
invariably re-examine, and in case of need may revise the rough draft for a better one. Pilot study
should be undertaken for pre-testing the questionnaire.Questionnaire must contain simple but
straight forward directions for the respondents so that they may not feel any difficulty in
answering the questions.

Secondary data and Collection of Secondary Data

Secondary information is information, which has already been collected by some one and which,
have already been passed through statistical process.Secondary data to be useful, it must be
available,relevant to the information needed , accurate and sufficient to meet data
requirement.Secondary data must posses the following characteristics suitability,adequacy and
reliability

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CHAPTER SIX
6. Criteria of Measurement Quality
Collecting data (measurement) and doing research always raises the issues of reliability and
validity. Reliability attempts to answer our concerns about the consistency of the information
collected, while validity focuses on accuracy.
6.1.Reliability
The reliability of a measure is an inverse function of measurement error the more error, the less
reliable the measure. Reliable measures provide consistent measurement from occasion to
occasion
Reliability is the consistency of your measurement, or the degree to which an instrument
measures the same way each time it is used under the same condition with the same
subjects.There are different methods of testing reliability namely test-retest reliability, ,inter-rater
reliability , and internal consistency reliability.

6.2.Validity
Validity is not a property of a measure, but an indication of the extent to which an assessment
measures a particular construct in a particular context—thus a measure may be valid for one
purpose but not another. A measure cannot be valid unless it is reliable, but a reliable measure
may not be valid.
The dimensions of validity for research designs are internal validity and external validity.
Content of validity refers to adequacy and representative of items to measure what is supposed
to measure. It is not statistically determined rather it is based on subjective judgment of experts.
Construct validity is assessed by studying the relationships between the measure of a construct
and scores on measures of other constructs.We assess construct validity by seeing whether a
particular measure relates as it should to other measures.To have construct validity, a measure
should both correlate and not correlate;Correlate with other measures that it should be related to
(convergent validity) and not correlate with measures that it should not correlate with
(discriminant validity).
Pragmatic/Criterion-Related Validity refers to the extent to which a measure distinguishes
participants on the basis of a particular behavioral criterion. There are two Types of Pragmatic
Validity namely Concurrent validity and Predictive validity.Concurrent validity measure and
criterion are assessed at the same time while Predictive validity measure’s ability to distinguish
participants on a relevant behavioral criterion at some point in the future (e.g., months or years).
The relationship between reliability and validity can be confusing because measurements and
research can be reliable without being valid, but they cannot be valid unless they are reliable.For
a study to be valid it must consistently (reliability) do what it purports to do (validity) and for a
measurement to be judged reliable it should produce a consistent score and for the research study
to be considered reliable each time it is replicated it too should produce similar results.