Book written by Kor & Teoh (2009)
Most university students attended training session to write research paper during their study time. Despite the training provided, writing a good literature review still poses major challenge to most research students (Bruce, 1992; Turner, 2005). Similarly, teaching students to write a good literature review is challenging (Ridley, 2000; Swales & Lindemann, 2002). Bruce (1994) surveyed on university students’ description and understanding on literature review, revealed that the supervisors of postgraduates need to accept literature reviews as a problem area for students. Thus, there is a need to develop strategies and tools to help the students to have a clear picture on writing. Recent studies (Alias & Suradi, 2008; Maizam & Zurinah, 2008) found that mind mapping is an useful tool in writing literature review, however, Alias and Suradi (2008) discovered that the complexity of organizing the content in mind mapping was problematic for the students, and they suggested Computer-aided Mapping to assist the students for the writing skill. This research aims to develop an Integrative Literature Review Software (ILRS) to help and inspire higher postgraduate students in writing an integrative literature review. Students will be guided to keep their reading systematically. The software allows students to record their related summaries of articles. Besides that, it enables students to identify the embedded concepts, analyze and synthesize the literature. The software is also aimed to reduce lecturers’ burden in guiding the students for a research work, and hence, enhancing and guiding the students towards analyzing and synthesizing the embeded concepts. The software will be tested on a total of random selected 100 postgraduate students. The students will use the software to write literature review for a given topic. A few lecturers will be invited to evaluate the students' work. The effectiveness of the software will be evaluated based on the students' work and experts'.
Benefits of ILRS
1. Record the reading systematically.
2. Identify the embedded concept easily.
3. Assist in writing literature review, especially in micro level.
4. Organized the concepts which will help in writing literature in macro level.
Teoh Sian Hoon
Faculty of Education, UiTM
Email: [email protected]
