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Empirical or Theoretical?

Empirical: Based on data gathered by original experiments or observations.

Theoretical: Analyzes and makes connections between empirical studies to define or advance a theoretical position.

Videos on Finding Empirical Articles

Where Can I Find Empirically-Based Education Articles?

The most direct route is to search PsycInfo, linked above.

This will take you to the Advanced Search, where you can type in your key words at the top. Then scroll down through all the limiting options to the Methodology menu. Select Empirical Study.

In other databases without the Methodology limiter, such as Education Source , try keywords like empirical , study , and research .

How Can I Tell if an Article is Empirical?

Check for these components:

Look for visual cues of data collection and analysis:

Differences between Empirical Review and Literature Review

As a researcher, you might be wondering the difference between Empirical Review and Literature Review. If you are going to write an essay or article, you must first figure out what your topic is. The subject determines the flow of the writing, the material provided, and every other element. Students often accost empirical studies and literature reviews while preparing a research paper . It’s critical to know the difference between the two in order to craft a solid piece of writing. Both articles are responsible for presenting the facts, but their strategies differ.

Students are often perplexed when asked what empirical research is. The following is an explanation of the differences between a systematic review and a literature review:

Definition of Empirical review -Empirical Review and Literature Review

An empirical literature review, also known as a systematic literature review, analyzes previous empirical studies in order to provide an answer to a specific research topic. Rather than drawing information from theories or beliefs, empirical research relies on observations and measurements to arrive at conclusions. To address specific research inquiries, it could involve making a list of people, behaviors, or events that are being researched.

In some cases, reviews of studies that involved experiments are used in empirical reviews to generate findings based on actual experience that may be seen directly or indirectly. Most of the time, the analysis entails quantifying the data and drawing conclusions. The goal is to provide data that can be quantified using established scientific methods . Research reviewers thoroughly examine all findings of other authors before drawing any conclusions in an essay or paper.

As a result of carefully planned and monitored observations, the experiment is carried out and the resulting conclusion is rigorously monitored. In contrast to other types of literature reviews, the focus here is on the most recent results of the experimental studies as it is now being conducted. A hypothesis may also be a forecast of a previously presented theory based on prior material.

Empirical evidence examined here refers to data gathered via testing or observation in this context. These data are collected and analyzed by scientists. For example, an empirical review could involve reviewing the study of another researcher on a group of listeners exposed to upbeat music or a work on learning and improvisation that examines other studies on work that theorizes about the educational value of improvisational principles and practices, such as Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone ‘s writings in which they present their beliefs, impressions, ideas, and theories about those.

Defining Literature review -Empirical Review and Literature Review

The literature review , as opposed to an empirical review, necessitates reading several types of related studies. Other theoretical sources are used to compile the facts and information included in this piece. The accumulation of all literary works may lead to new deductions. Information and hypotheses, on the other hand, have already been developed.

In order to generate cohesive findings, a literature review compiles all necessary data. There can be no new theories developed since there can be no experimental work done.

There is an important function for the literature review in uncovering and defining and clarifying key ideas that will be utilized throughout the empirical parts of the paper argues.

A well-written review article may shed light on the current state of knowledge, explain apparent inconsistencies, pinpoint areas in need of more study, and even help to forge a consensus where none previously existed. A well-written review may also assist you in your professional life. Reviews aid in recognition and advancement due to their high citation frequency.

Selecting the type of review to conduct -Empirical Review and Literature Review

College students are often required to write several papers as part of their studies. When a student does a literature review, he or she is attempting to use the written word to support or refute an idea or hypothesis. He or she may test a theory or try to find an answer to a specific issue based on already known information. An empirical review is a piece of writing based on a study that was done purely for the purpose of publishing it. Calibrated instruments are used to conduct the experiment in a scientifically controlled way.

You should start writing as soon as you finish the experiment. During the study, observations should be recorded in a methodical manner. This aids in the development of coherence, which is more easily understood even in the future. Additionally, starting the writing process early allows for more time for revision and results in higher-quality work.

Because experiments may take some time to produce the desired results, this is especially important for empirical studies. Leaving the writing to the last minute and beginning it when the deadline is nearing will just add to the stress and complexity of the process. This interferes with the job and lowers the quality. As a result, staying on top of your job helps your paper, as well as your personal life, grow.

Almost every research article includes a review of the literature. An empirical study must first be established inside accepted theory before they can publish their findings. In other words, before we get into our methodology and research questions, we’ll go through what’s been done previously and how the variables we want to investigate fit into the theories and frameworks of our research field.

Both of these tasks are similar in that they need to review previous work on the topic. The empirical literature review, on the other hand, seeks to address a particular empirical issue by analyzing data. The theoretical literature review serves primarily to place your research within a broader framework. A theoretical review will be included in systematic empirical reviews to help researchers understand why a specific research topic is worth investigating.

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Module 2 Chapter 3: What is Empirical Literature & Where can it be Found?

In Module 1, you read about the problem of pseudoscience. Here, we revisit the issue in addressing how to locate and assess scientific or empirical literature . In this chapter you will read about:

Probably the most important take-home lesson from this chapter is that one source is not sufficient to being well-informed on a topic. It is important to locate multiple sources of information and to critically appraise the points of convergence and divergence in the information acquired from different sources. This is especially true in emerging and poorly understood topics, as well as in answering complex questions.

What Is Empirical Literature

Social workers often need to locate valid, reliable information concerning the dimensions of a population group or subgroup, a social work problem, or social phenomenon. They might also seek information about the way specific problems or resources are distributed among the populations encountered in professional practice. Or, social workers might be interested in finding out about the way that certain people experience an event or phenomenon. Empirical literature resources may provide answers to many of these types of social work questions. In addition, resources containing data regarding social indicators may also prove helpful. Social indicators are the “facts and figures” statistics that describe the social, economic, and psychological factors that have an impact on the well-being of a community or other population group.The United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are examples of organizations that monitor social indicators at a global level: dimensions of population trends (size, composition, growth/loss), health status (physical, mental, behavioral, life expectancy, maternal and infant mortality, fertility/child-bearing, and diseases like HIV/AIDS), housing and quality of sanitation (water supply, waste disposal), education and literacy, and work/income/unemployment/economics, for example.

Three characteristics stand out in empirical literature compared to other types of information available on a topic of interest: systematic observation and methodology, objectivity, and transparency/replicability/reproducibility. Let’s look a little more closely at these three features.

Systematic Observation and Methodology. The hallmark of empiricism is “repeated or reinforced observation of the facts or phenomena” (Holosko, 2006, p. 6). In empirical literature, established research methodologies and procedures are systematically applied to answer the questions of interest.

Objectivity. Gathering “facts,” whatever they may be, drives the search for empirical evidence (Holosko, 2006). Authors of empirical literature are expected to report the facts as observed, whether or not these facts support the investigators’ original hypotheses. Research integrity demands that the information be provided in an objective manner, reducing sources of investigator bias to the greatest possible extent.

Transparency and Replicability/Reproducibility. Empirical literature is reported in such a manner that other investigators understand precisely what was done and what was found in a particular research study—to the extent that they could replicate the study to determine whether the findings are reproduced when repeated. The outcomes of an original and replication study may differ, but a reader could easily interpret the methods and procedures leading to each study’s findings.

What is NOT Empirical Literature

By now, it is probably obvious to you that literature based on “evidence” that is not developed in a systematic, objective, transparent manner is not empirical literature. On one hand, non-empirical types of professional literature may have great significance to social workers. For example, social work scholars may produce articles that are clearly identified as describing a new intervention or program without evaluative evidence, critiquing a policy or practice, or offering a tentative, untested theory about a phenomenon. These resources are useful in educating ourselves about possible issues or concerns. But, even if they are informed by evidence, they are not empirical literature. Here is a list of several sources of information that do not meet the standard of being called empirical literature:

You may be surprised to see the last two included in this list. Like the other sources of information listed, these sources also might lead you to look for evidence. But, they are not themselves sources of evidence. They may summarize existing evidence, but in the process of summarizing (like your instructor’s lectures), information is transformed, modified, reduced, condensed, and otherwise manipulated in such a manner that you may not see the entire, objective story. These are called secondary sources, as opposed to the original, primary source of evidence. In relying solely on secondary sources, you sacrifice your own critical appraisal and thinking about the original work—you are “buying” someone else’s interpretation and opinion about the original work, rather than developing your own interpretation and opinion. What if they got it wrong? How would you know if you did not examine the primary source for yourself? Consider the following as an example of “getting it wrong” being perpetuated.

Example: Bullying and School Shootings . One result of the heavily publicized April 1999 school shooting incident at Columbine High School (Colorado), was a heavy emphasis placed on bullying as a causal factor in these incidents (Mears, Moon, & Thielo, 2017), “creating a powerful master narrative about school shootings” (Raitanen, Sandberg, & Oksanen, 2017, p. 3). Naturally, with an identified cause, a great deal of effort was devoted to anti-bullying campaigns and interventions for enhancing resilience among youth who experience bullying. However important these strategies might be for promoting positive mental health, preventing poor mental health, and possibly preventing suicide among school-aged children and youth, it is a mistaken belief that this can prevent school shootings (Mears, Moon, & Thielo, 2017). Many times the accounts of the perpetrators having been bullied come from potentially inaccurate third-party accounts, rather than the perpetrators themselves; bullying was not involved in all instances of school shooting; a perpetrator’s perception of being bullied/persecuted are not necessarily accurate; many who experience severe bullying do not perpetrate these incidents; bullies are the least targeted shooting victims; perpetrators of the shooting incidents were often bullying others; and, bullying is only one of many important factors associated with perpetrating such an incident (Ioannou, Hammond, & Simpson, 2015; Mears, Moon, & Thielo, 2017; Newman &Fox, 2009; Raitanen, Sandberg, & Oksanen, 2017). While mass media reports deliver bullying as a means of explaining the inexplicable, the reality is not so simple: “The connection between bullying and school shootings is elusive” (Langman, 2014), and “the relationship between bullying and school shooting is, at best, tenuous” (Mears, Moon, & Thielo, 2017, p. 940). The point is, when a narrative becomes this publicly accepted, it is difficult to sort out truth and reality without going back to original sources of information and evidence.

What May or May Not Be Empirical Literature: Literature Reviews

Investigators typically engage in a review of existing literature as they develop their own research studies. The review informs them about where knowledge gaps exist, methods previously employed by other scholars, limitations of prior work, and previous scholars’ recommendations for directing future research. These reviews may appear as a published article, without new study data being reported (see Fields, Anderson, & Dabelko-Schoeny, 2014 for example). Or, the literature review may appear in the introduction to their own empirical study report. These literature reviews are not considered to be empirical evidence sources themselves, although they may be based on empirical evidence sources. One reason is that the authors of a literature review may or may not have engaged in a systematic search process, identifying a full, rich, multi-sided pool of evidence reports.

There is, however, a type of review that applies systematic methods and is, therefore, considered to be more strongly rooted in evidence: the systematic review .

Systematic review of literature. A systematic reviewis a type of literature report where established methods have been systematically applied, objectively, in locating and synthesizing a body of literature. The systematic review report is characterized by a great deal of transparency about the methods used and the decisions made in the review process, and are replicable. Thus, it meets the criteria for empirical literature: systematic observation and methodology, objectivity, and transparency/reproducibility. We will work a great deal more with systematic reviews in the second course, SWK 3402, since they are important tools for understanding interventions. They are somewhat less common, but not unheard of, in helping us understand diverse populations, social work problems, and social phenomena.

Locating Empirical Evidence

Social workers have available a wide array of tools and resources for locating empirical evidence in the literature. These can be organized into four general categories.

Journal Articles. A number of professional journals publish articles where investigators report on the results of their empirical studies. However, it is important to know how to distinguish between empirical and non-empirical manuscripts in these journals. A key indicator, though not the only one, involves a peer review process . Many professional journals require that manuscripts undergo a process of peer review before they are accepted for publication. This means that the authors’ work is shared with scholars who provide feedback to the journal editor as to the quality of the submitted manuscript. The editor then makes a decision based on the reviewers’ feedback:

When a “revise and resubmit” decision is made, the piece will go back through the review process to determine if it is now acceptable for publication and that all of the reviewers’ concerns have been adequately addressed. Editors may also reject a manuscript because it is a poor fit for the journal, based on its mission and audience, rather than sending it for review consideration.

Word cloud of social work related publications

Indicators of journal relevance. Various journals are not equally relevant to every type of question being asked of the literature. Journals may overlap to a great extent in terms of the topics they might cover; in other words, a topic might appear in multiple different journals, depending on how the topic was being addressed. For example, articles that might help answer a question about the relationship between community poverty and violence exposure might appear in several different journals, some with a focus on poverty, others with a focus on violence, and still others on community development or public health. Journal titles are sometimes a good starting point but may not give a broad enough picture of what they cover in their contents.

In focusing a literature search, it also helps to review a journal’s mission and target audience. For example, at least four different journals focus specifically on poverty:

Let’s look at an example using the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice . Information about this journal is located on the journal’s webpage: http://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/journal-of-poverty-and-social-justice . In the section headed “About the Journal” you can see that it is an internationally focused research journal, and that it addresses social justice issues in addition to poverty alone. The research articles are peer-reviewed (there appear to be non-empirical discussions published, as well). These descriptions about a journal are almost always available, sometimes listed as “scope” or “mission.” These descriptions also indicate the sponsorship of the journal—sponsorship may be institutional (a particular university or agency, such as Smith College Studies in Social Work ), a professional organization, such as the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) or the National Association of Social Work (NASW), or a publishing company (e.g., Taylor & Frances, Wiley, or Sage).

Indicators of journal caliber. Despite engaging in a peer review process, not all journals are equally rigorous. Some journals have very high rejection rates, meaning that many submitted manuscripts are rejected; others have fairly high acceptance rates, meaning that relatively few manuscripts are rejected. This is not necessarily the best indicator of quality, however, since newer journals may not be sufficiently familiar to authors with high quality manuscripts and some journals are very specific in terms of what they publish. Another index that is sometimes used is the journal’s impact factor . Impact factor is a quantitative number indicative of how often articles published in the journal are cited in the reference list of other journal articles—the statistic is calculated as the number of times on average each article published in a particular year were cited divided by the number of articles published (the number that could be cited). For example, the impact factor for the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice in our list above was 0.70 in 2017, and for the Journal of Poverty was 0.30. These are relatively low figures compared to a journal like the New England Journal of Medicine with an impact factor of 59.56! This means that articles published in that journal were, on average, cited more than 59 times in the next year or two.

Impact factors are not necessarily the best indicator of caliber, however, since many strong journals are geared toward practitioners rather than scholars, so they are less likely to be cited by other scholars but may have a large impact on a large readership. This may be the case for a journal like the one titled Social Work, the official journal of the National Association of Social Workers. It is distributed free to all members: over 120,000 practitioners, educators, and students of social work world-wide. The journal has a recent impact factor of.790. The journals with social work relevant content have impact factors in the range of 1.0 to 3.0 according to Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), particularly when they are interdisciplinary journals (for example, Child Development , Journal of Marriage and Family , Child Abuse and Neglect , Child Maltreatmen t, Social Service Review , and British Journal of Social Work ). Once upon a time, a reader could locate different indexes comparing the “quality” of social work-related journals. However, the concept of “quality” is difficult to systematically define. These indexes have mostly been replaced by impact ratings, which are not necessarily the best, most robust indicators on which to rely in assessing journal quality. For example, new journals addressing cutting edge topics have not been around long enough to have been evaluated using this particular tool, and it takes a few years for articles to begin to be cited in other, later publications.

Beware of pseudo-, illegitimate, misleading, deceptive, and suspicious journals . Another side effect of living in the Age of Information is that almost anyone can circulate almost anything and call it whatever they wish. This goes for “journal” publications, as well. With the advent of open-access publishing in recent years (electronic resources available without subscription), we have seen an explosion of what are called predatory or junk journals . These are publications calling themselves journals, often with titles very similar to legitimate publications and often with fake editorial boards. These “publications” lack the integrity of legitimate journals. This caution is reminiscent of the discussions earlier in the course about pseudoscience and “snake oil” sales. The predatory nature of many apparent information dissemination outlets has to do with how scientists and scholars may be fooled into submitting their work, often paying to have their work peer-reviewed and published. There exists a “thriving black-market economy of publishing scams,” and at least two “journal blacklists” exist to help identify and avoid these scam journals (Anderson, 2017).

This issue is important to information consumers, because it creates a challenge in terms of identifying legitimate sources and publications. The challenge is particularly important to address when information from on-line, open-access journals is being considered. Open-access is not necessarily a poor choice—legitimate scientists may pay sizeable fees to legitimate publishers to make their work freely available and accessible as open-access resources. On-line access is also not necessarily a poor choice—legitimate publishers often make articles available on-line to provide timely access to the content, especially when publishing the article in hard copy will be delayed by months or even a year or more. On the other hand, stating that a journal engages in a peer-review process is no guarantee of quality—this claim may or may not be truthful. Pseudo- and junk journals may engage in some quality control practices, but may lack attention to important quality control processes, such as managing conflict of interest, reviewing content for objectivity or quality of the research conducted, or otherwise failing to adhere to industry standards (Laine & Winker, 2017).

One resource designed to assist with the process of deciphering legitimacy is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The DOAJ is not a comprehensive listing of all possible legitimate open-access journals, and does not guarantee quality, but it does help identify legitimate sources of information that are openly accessible and meet basic legitimacy criteria. It also is about open-access journals, not the many journals published in hard copy.

An additional caution: Search for article corrections. Despite all of the careful manuscript review and editing, sometimes an error appears in a published article. Most journals have a practice of publishing corrections in future issues. When you locate an article, it is helpful to also search for updates. Here is an example where data presented in an article’s original tables were erroneous, and a correction appeared in a later issue.

Search Tools. In this age of information, it is all too easy to find items—the problem lies in sifting, sorting, and managing the vast numbers of items that can be found. For example, a simple Google® search for the topic “community poverty and violence” resulted in about 15,600,000 results! As a means of simplifying the process of searching for journal articles on a specific topic, a variety of helpful tools have emerged. One type of search tool has previously applied a filtering process for you: abstracting and indexing databases . These resources provide the user with the results of a search to which records have already passed through one or more filters. For example, PsycINFO is managed by the American Psychological Association and is devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science. It contains almost 4.5 million records and is growing every month. However, it may not be available to users who are not affiliated with a university library. Conducting a basic search for our topic of “community poverty and violence” in PsychINFO returned 1,119 articles. Still a large number, but far more manageable. Additional filters can be applied, such as limiting the range in publication dates, selecting only peer reviewed items, limiting the language of the published piece (English only, for example), and specified types of documents (either chapters, dissertations, or journal articles only, for example). Adding the filters for English, peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2010 and 2017 resulted in 346 documents being identified.

Just as was the case with journals, not all abstracting and indexing databases are equivalent. There may be overlap between them, but none is guaranteed to identify all relevant pieces of literature. Here are some examples to consider, depending on the nature of the questions asked of the literature:

Placing our search for information about “community violence and poverty” into the Social Work Abstracts tool with no additional filters resulted in a manageable 54-item list. Finally, abstracting and indexing databases are another way to determine journal legitimacy: if a journal is indexed in a one of these systems, it is likely a legitimate journal. However, the converse is not necessarily true: if a journal is not indexed does not mean it is an illegitimate or pseudo-journal.

Government Sources. A great deal of information is gathered, analyzed, and disseminated by various governmental branches at the international, national, state, regional, county, and city level. Searching websites that end in.gov is one way to identify this type of information, often presented in articles, news briefs, and statistical reports. These government sources gather information in two ways: they fund external investigations through grants and contracts and they conduct research internally, through their own investigators. Here are some examples to consider, depending on the nature of the topic for which information is sought:

Each state and many counties or cities have similar data sources and analysis reports available, such as Ohio Department of Health at https://www.odh.ohio.gov/healthstats/dataandstats.aspx and Franklin County at https://statisticalatlas.com/county/Ohio/Franklin-County/Overview . Data are available from international/global resources (e.g., United Nations and World Health Organization), as well.

Other Sources. The Health and Medicine Division (HMD) of the National Academies—previously the Institute of Medicine (IOM)—is a nonprofit institution that aims to provide government and private sector policy and other decision makers with objective analysis and advice for making informed health decisions. For example, in 2018 they produced reports on topics in substance use and mental health concerning the intersection of opioid use disorder and infectious disease, the legal implications of emerging neurotechnologies, and a global agenda concerning the identification and prevention of violence (see http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Global/Topics/Substance-Abuse-Mental-Health.aspx ). The exciting aspect of this resource is that it addresses many topics that are current concerns because they are hoping to help inform emerging policy. The caution to consider with this resource is the evidence is often still emerging, as well.

Numerous “think tank” organizations exist, each with a specific mission. For example, the Rand Corporation is a nonprofit organization offering research and analysis to address global issues since 1948. The institution’s mission is to help improve policy and decision making “to help individuals, families, and communities throughout the world be safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous,” addressing issues of energy, education, health care, justice, the environment, international affairs, and national security (https://www.rand.org/about/history.html). And, for example, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation is a philanthropic organization supporting research and research dissemination concerning health issues facing the United States. The foundation works to build a culture of health across systems of care (not only medical care) and communities (https://www.rwjf.org).

While many of these have a great deal of helpful evidence to share, they also may have a strong political bias. Objectivity is often lacking in what information these organizations provide: they provide evidence to support certain points of view. That is their purpose—to provide ideas on specific problems, many of which have a political component. Think tanks “are constantly researching solutions to a variety of the world’s problems, and arguing, advocating, and lobbying for policy changes at local, state, and federal levels” (quoted from https://thebestschools.org/features/most-influential-think-tanks/ ). Helpful information about what this one source identified as the 50 most influential U.S. think tanks includes identifying each think tank’s political orientation. For example, The Heritage Foundation is identified as conservative, whereas Human Rights Watch is identified as liberal.

While not the same as think tanks, many mission-driven organizations also sponsor or report on research, as well. For example, the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) in the United States is a registered nonprofit organization. Its mission, along with other partnering organizations, private-sector groups, and federal agencies, is to promote policy and program development in research, prevention and treatment to provide information to, for, and about children of alcoholics (of all ages). Based on this mission, the organization supports knowledge development and information gathering on the topic and disseminates information that serves the needs of this population. While this is a worthwhile mission, there is no guarantee that the information meets the criteria for evidence with which we have been working. Evidence reported by think tank and mission-driven sources must be utilized with a great deal of caution and critical analysis!

In many instances an empirical report has not appeared in the published literature, but in the form of a technical or final report to the agency or program providing the funding for the research that was conducted. One such example is presented by a team of investigators funded by the National Institute of Justice to evaluate a program for training professionals to collect strong forensic evidence in instances of sexual assault (Patterson, Resko, Pierce-Weeks, & Campbell, 2014): https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/247081.pdf . Investigators may serve in the capacity of consultant to agencies, programs, or institutions, and provide empirical evidence to inform activities and planning. One such example is presented by Maguire-Jack (2014) as a report to a state’s child maltreatment prevention board: https://preventionboard.wi.gov/Documents/InvestmentInPreventionPrograming_Final.pdf .

When Direct Answers to Questions Cannot Be Found. Sometimes social workers are interested in finding answers to complex questions or questions related to an emerging, not-yet-understood topic. This does not mean giving up on empirical literature. Instead, it requires a bit of creativity in approaching the literature. A Venn diagram might help explain this process. Consider a scenario where a social worker wishes to locate literature to answer a question concerning issues of intersectionality. Intersectionality is a social justice term applied to situations where multiple categorizations or classifications come together to create overlapping, interconnected, or multiplied disadvantage. For example, women with a substance use disorder and who have been incarcerated face a triple threat in terms of successful treatment for a substance use disorder: intersectionality exists between being a woman, having a substance use disorder, and having been in jail or prison. After searching the literature, little or no empirical evidence might have been located on this specific triple-threat topic. Instead, the social worker will need to seek literature on each of the threats individually, and possibly will find literature on pairs of topics (see Figure 3-1). There exists some literature about women’s outcomes for treatment of a substance use disorder (a), some literature about women during and following incarceration (b), and some literature about substance use disorders and incarceration (c). Despite not having a direct line on the center of the intersecting spheres of literature (d), the social worker can develop at least a partial picture based on the overlapping literatures.

Figure 3-1. Venn diagram of intersecting literature sets.

Take a moment to complete the following activity. For each statement about empirical literature, decide if it is true or false.

Social Work 3401 Coursebook by Dr. Audrey Begun is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing the literature review for empirical papers

The purpose of the paper is to offer guidance regarding how to write a Literature Review for empirical papers, that provides adequate background and convincing support. The literature review plays the fundamental role of unveiling the theory, or theories, that underpin the paper argument, sets its limits, and defines and clarifies the main concepts that will be used in the empirical sections of the text.

Originality

Most papers and books focus on literature review as full articles (systematic reviews, meta analyses and critical analyses) or dissertation, chapters, this paper is focused on literature review for an empirical article.

Research method

It is a theoretical essay.

Main findings

The paper summarizes the main steps for performing a literature review and guides how to organize the analyzed literature.

Implications for theory and practice

Well-crafted literature reviews are the cornerstone of good papers, and this paper offers some guidance on how to write good reviews for empirical papers, and, as a consequence, to produce better quality texts.

Keywords Literature review; Metanalyses; Critical analyses; Empirical paper

1. Introduction

As former editors of Production Journal, we have observed that one of the main reasons for the immediate rejection of a paper is what is generally referred as “lack of conceptual (or theoretical) contribution”, i.e., when Editors/Referees are unable to identify which are the proposed additions to the theory authors wish to present in their texts. During 2015-2017 period, the Production Journal rejected 65% of the submissions during the first screening process, mainly for missing theoretical contribution.

The quest for contribution rests on the principle that creating science is a collective and cumulative endeavour, in which each researcher builds upon previously developed knowledge by others, and presents her contribution to the field. The issue of how to make a contribution has already been addressed by several authors from the Organizational Theory field ( Sutton & Staw, 1995 Sutton, R. I., & Staw, B. M. (1995). The relationship between integrating sphere and diffusion theory calculations of fluence rate at the wall of a spherical cavity. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 1-12. PMid:7708833. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2393788. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2393788... ; Whetten, 2003 Whetten, D. (2003). O que constitui uma contribuição teórica?. Revista de Administração de Empresas, 43(3), 69-73. ), OM ( Boer et al., 2015 Boer, H., Holweg, M., Kilduff, M., Pagell, M., Schmenner, R., & Voss, C. (2015). Making a meaningful contribution to theory. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(9), 1231-1252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-0119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-... ), and it will also be the subject of another paper in this journal, but we believe that weakness is not only related to the paper rationale, where the argument for contribution is developed, but also to how authors construct the theoretical background of their texts. A good literature review supports the paper assertion for contribution, and it is the cornerstone of a successful paper. Even when a paper does make a clear claim for conceptual contribution, it is not uncommon to find that the literature review section does not provide it a consistent foundation, weakening the whole paper, and frequently jeopardizing authors´ efforts. In fact, the absence of a well-crafted theoretical background undermines any paper and wastes effort-intensive fieldwork.

2. Literature reviews as full articles

Literature reviews are often presented as full papers, and there are journals which scope is focused on this genre, as the International Journal of Management Review, the Academy Management of Review and the Psychological Review. Reviews offer a comprehensive and thorough analysis of the academic production on a certain topic, and are very useful for both novice and experienced researchers. There are some strategies to build literature review articles: the meta-analysis (MA), the critical analysis (CA), and the integrative or systematic literature review (SLR).

MAs propose one or more research questions and to answer them, analyse large sets of articles on a subject, which authors, titles, keywords, abstracts and references are collected from academic portals and organized in a database. MAs perform statistical analyses on collected data, often using specific software (e.g. Citespace, VOSviewer, Sitkis, etc.), and present an aggregate description of how the academic output has evolved, which are the more prominent papers and authors, how they are connected by the citations they share, and how they answer the research questions. In that sense, MAs synthesize and present a comprehensive view of the literature, and, if the paper set is carefully assembled, offer an overall reliability that cannot be reached from other methods ( Tranfield et al., 2003 Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a methodology for developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic review. British Journal of Management, 14(3), 207-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00375. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.0037... ). MAs can be used as the first step for a SLR or a CA, or, for instance, to present a bird´s eye picture of the literature in a dissertation. Many academic portals (Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCO, Science Direct, SciElo) and/or softwares support some level of MA, providing descriptive statistics on sets of papers, which can support further analysis. However, if there are no research questions to be discussed, descriptive statistics hardly ever present theoretical contributions per se, and MAs should offer, at minimum, a critique on the field and present opportunities for future research. For further study, Fink (1998 Fink, A. (1998). Conducting research literature review: from paper to the internet. London: Sage. , p. 216) offers a guide on how to write MAs (Seven Steps to a Meta-Analysis).

In a CA, authors examine the main concepts, ideas and relationships of an issue presented by the extant literature, provide a critique, and in several cases, offer research propositions or a framework for future analysis. A CA can summarize a body of literature, report on the evolution of a research field, or reconcile different research strands on the same topic. Generally, paper set selection is subjective, which departs it from MAs: the set of papers is collected by the writers, who decide both what to include and how those ideas will be discussed and summarized. In that sense, it does not intend to be exhaustive, authors are concerned to give the most accurate picture of the field from their point of view. But even in CAs, there are also paper sets defined by statistical sampling (e.g. Burgess et al., 2006 Burgess, K., Singh, P. J., & Koroglu, R. (2006). Supply chain management: a structured literature review and implications for future research. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 26(7), 703-729. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01443570610672202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01443570610672... ). CAs can cover broad or narrow topics: for example, Anderson et al. (1989) Anderson, J. C., Cleveland, G., & Schroeder, R. G. (1989). Operations strategy: a literature review. Journal of Operations Management, 8(2), 133-158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0272-6963(89)90016-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0272-6963(89)9... provided an overview and an analysis on the literature on Operations strategy, while Ngai et al. (2008) Ngai, E. W. T., Moon, K. K. L., Riggins, F. J., & Yi, C. Y. (2008). RFID research: an academic literature review (1995-2005) and future research directions. International Journal of Production Economics, 12(2), 510-520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2007.05.004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2007.05.0... delivered an analysis on the literature on RFID. They can discuss topics from few or several perspectives or lines of research: Rochet & Tirole (2006) Rochet, J., & Tirole, J. (2006). Two-sided markets: a progress report. The RAND Journal of Economics, 37(3), 645-667. offered a report on the evolution of the knowledge on multi-sided markets and platforms, while Mills et al. (2004) Mills, J., Schmitz, J., & Frizelle, G. (2004). A strategic review of “supply networks”. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24(10), 1012-1036. reviewed the literature on supply networks. CA offers a view on the state-of-art of knowledge on a subject, provide analytical frameworks and indicate avenues for future research. CAs should follow the same quality principles as any research project, and some guidelines for a good CA are ( Popay et al., 1998 Popay, J., Rogers, A., & Williams, G. (1998). Rationale and standards for the systematic review of qualitative literature in health services research. Qualitative Health Research, 8(3), 341-351. PMID: 10558335. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/104973239800800305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10497323980080... , 2006 Popay, J., Roberts, H., Sowden, A., Petticrew, M., Arai, L., Rodgers, M., & Duffy, S. (2006). Guidance on the conduct of narrative synthesis in systematic reviews. A product from the ESRC methods programme Version, 1, b92. Retrieved in 2017, July 9, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Rodgers4/publication/233866356_Guidance_on_the_conduct_of_narrative_synthesis_in_systematic_reviews_A_product_from_the_ESRC_Methods_Programme/links/02e7e5231e8f3a6183000000/Guidance-on-the-conduct-of-narrative-synthesis-in-systematic-reviews-A-product-from-the-ESRC-Methods-Programme.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mar... ):

Different sources and journals should be explored;

The sample has to be selected in a purposeful way, guided and shaped by theory. It must give attention to the diverse contexts and meanings that the study is aiming to explore;

Interpretation needs to follow a clear and explicit process;

Claims and assertions must be logically supported, theoretically grounded and be amenable of generalization, i.e., they should be applicable in different contexts.

Table 2 presents an overview of the three strategies and offers an analysis based on a representative example.

3. The literature review in an empirical paper

In this section we discuss the literature review as a part of an empirical article. It plays the fundamental role of unveiling the theory, or theories, that underpin the paper argument, or, if there are no such theoretical background, which is the related extant knowledge. It sets the limits of discussion, and defines and clarifies the main concepts that will be used in the empirical sections. A substantive and thorough literature review is the basis for any good research project ( Boote & Beile, 2005 Boote, D. N., & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: on the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher, 34(6), 3-15. ) and a well-crafted literature review section provides the theoretical foundation that is required to support any argument of contribution.

Theories are systems of concepts that “[...] explain facts and provide stories as to how phenomena work the way that they do [...]” ( Boer et al., 2015 Boer, H., Holweg, M., Kilduff, M., Pagell, M., Schmenner, R., & Voss, C. (2015). Making a meaningful contribution to theory. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(9), 1231-1252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-0119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-... , p. 1247), and the first task of a literature review is to reveal which theories are used in the paper´s argument. Boer et al. (2015) Boer, H., Holweg, M., Kilduff, M., Pagell, M., Schmenner, R., & Voss, C. (2015). Making a meaningful contribution to theory. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(9), 1231-1252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-0119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-... propose that there are two fundamental ways to make a theoretical contribution: exploratory studies observe and identify interesting phenomena that are not yet well explained by extant literature and propose hypotheses, while confirmatory studies empirically test those hypotheses and confirm, refute or expand them. Knowledge creation rests upon a cycle of testing and amending or refuting existing theory, and the first step to succeed in that task, is to provide a clear picture of the underlying or related theories that support the paper argument. The literature review section opens up the field, showing how the issue under study has been discussed and which are its main concepts, how they have been studied from different points of view and how the field has evolved over time, in order to synthesize them and identify theoretical lacunae. Thus, crafting the literature review section of a paper must be concerned with three goals: setting its theoretical background, identifying gaps in the literature, and defining the key concepts that will be used in the paper:

Establishing the theoretical background : some research projects are related to a single theory, while others work with multiple theories - to set up the background is to position the paper within the theory or theories that support and are used in its argument. It is useful to balance classic texts, which have established the discussion, with contemporary references, that show the current state of the field. Although the number of references should not be the main concern, the analysis must be comprehensive and include what is most relevant, which is not usually obtained by discussing only a few authors. For instance Abbariki et al. (2017) Abbariki, M., Snell, R. S., & Easterby-Smith, M. (2017). Sharing or ignoring tacit knowledge? A comparison of collective learning routines at two sites. Journal of General Management, 42(5), 57-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306307017702997. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03063070177029... used 84 references to built the theoretical background, and synthesized it in four sections: a relational perspective on workplace knowledge, Processing tacit knowledge, Contextual factors affecting employee collaboration in processing tacit knowledge and Collective learning routines;

Identifying gaps : a theoretical gap refers to a missing point in our current knowledge on a subject, or to an improperly conducted discussion, and the literature review should point to it. Theoretical gaps can be identified based on three rationales: (a) incompleteness – the current literature have not still properly discussed the problem or phenomenon; (b) inadequacy – the extant literature has not yet incorporated different perspectives on the problem or phenomenon, and (c) incommensurability – what is currently known on a subject has taken a wrong path and the existing theoretical discussion is misguided and incorrect ( Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997 Locke, K., & Golden-Biddle, K. (1997). Constructing opportunities for contribution. Academy of Management Journal, 40(5), 1023-1062. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/256926. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/256926... ). Contemporary, recent references are very important to the contribution claim, as they provide topicality;

Defining key concepts : all key concepts used in the paper arguments must be clearly defined, as well as how they relate to each other, if that is the case, based on previous work. However, a literature review should not limit itself to a list of concept and construct definitions ( Sutton & Staw, 1995 Sutton, R. I., & Staw, B. M. (1995). The relationship between integrating sphere and diffusion theory calculations of fluence rate at the wall of a spherical cavity. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 1-12. PMid:7708833. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2393788. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2393788... ), it should present how they interconnected and how they will be used to support the argument. (e.g. Abbariki et al. (2017) Abbariki, M., Snell, R. S., & Easterby-Smith, M. (2017). Sharing or ignoring tacit knowledge? A comparison of collective learning routines at two sites. Journal of General Management, 42(5), 57-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306307017702997. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03063070177029... defined key concepts on the different perspectives of knowledge to support their study).

4. Which are the main characteristics of a good literature review?

A good literature review must address different requirements, covering the relevant literature and synthesizing it with clarity. A journal paper has usually length limitations, thus, the literature review section needs to limit itself to what is important to the argument. Dissertation guides and handbooks (e.g. Boote & Beile, 2005 Boote, D. N., & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: on the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher, 34(6), 3-15. ) indicate the key features for a literature review, which are also applicable for papers:

Coverage – Relevant references must be covered by the text. It does not mean just citing lots of authors, but identifying and presenting the relevant literature, the main research strands, and building a framework where the paper can be positioned. It is like drawing a map in which key places are identified, and indicating where in that map the paper argument is located. The issue of length must be carefully addressed, and as a general rule, it is always better to have a deeper discussion on the topics the paper delves in, than a superficial overview of several arguments;

Synthesis – A good literature review is not a just a long list of citations, it should summarize and connect relevant references. Synthesis is not just putting references and concepts together. It requires creativity to offer a fresh, new view on the topic, for instance a model or a framework, which reflects the unique knowledge developed by the author ( Torraco, 2005 Torraco, R. J. (2005). Writing integrative literature reviews: guidelines and examples. Human Resource Development Review, 4(3), 356-367. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1534484305278283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15344843052782... ). The synthesis can be presented in the form of questions or propositions that have to be either verified or answered by fieldwork. It can also propose a model or a framework, which will be tested or applied in the empirical sections of the paper;

Rhetoric – The text must be clear and coherent, ideas must be presented in a well-articulated text, which does not make unsupported assertions;

Significance – The review also must show which is the practical and theoretical significance of the research problem. We strongly recommend that research problem should evidence theoretical aspects and also register organizational contributions as observed in Abbariki et al. (2017) Abbariki, M., Snell, R. S., & Easterby-Smith, M. (2017). Sharing or ignoring tacit knowledge? A comparison of collective learning routines at two sites. Journal of General Management, 42(5), 57-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306307017702997. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03063070177029... , which indicated the core of significance in paper’ introduction.

A good literature review balances “[...] appropriate breadth and depth, rigor and consistency, clarity and brevity [...]” ( Hart, 1998 Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review. London: Sage Publications. , p. 2), making an effective analysis and synthesis of the identified literature. Consistency and clarity are essential, as they support a coherent argument, while depth and rigor show how authors master the subject, providing a well-developed argument. Finally, brevity is also essential, as all relevant literature must be presented, analysed and articulated in a limited space. When one finishes reading the literature review, one should be able to answer the following questions:

What are the main sources on the subject under study?

Which are the key theories and ideas that support the paper´s assertions?

How the paper argument relates to a major issue or debate on the topic?

What are the key concepts of the paper´s argument and how are they are defined?

5. How to write a literature review for empirical papers?

Novice researchers may find the task of writing the literature review a quite overwhelming task after reading this paper to this point. To offer some practical steps to start it, we suggest that the researcher starts with a preliminary CA. To perform it, we suggest starting with a small set of 8 to 10 papers. To select papers, talking to supervisors and seasoned researchers is always the first action to take. Also, papers can be obtained from academic portals, such as Web of Knowledge, Scopus, Science Direct, EBSCO, JSTOR, SciELO, which strengths and weaknesses are indicated in Table 3 . As each portal has its selection of sources, it may be convenient to search in more than one to get better coverage. Also, portals usually rank papers by number of citation/relevance, which is useful to identify fundamental papers and authors. However, it is important to remember that the older the paper, the greater the probability of citation, so if only number of citations is considered, one may end up with an older, and sometimes out-dated, set of papers. Finally, that paper set is just a preliminary selection, which needs to be refined as the researcher keeps studying the subject, and she will find that citations from papers are always a good source for further reading.

After assembling the initial set of papers, the aims, research questions, methods, findings, limitations and suggestions for future research can be extracted from each paper. Empirical papers usually are structured in at least five sections: (1) introduction, (2) literature review, (3) empirical methods, (4) data analysis, discussion and findings, and (5) conclusions. The introduction section usually presents the paper´s aim, the theoretical gaps it addresses and its research questions, and the conclusion section discuss its limitations and opportunities for future research. Thus, reading first those sections usually helps to better grasp the whole paper.

After reading each paper, we suggest to summarize data in a table, as recorded in the Appendix (Authors, Objective, Findings, Research-questions, Further Research, Limitations, Methodology, Practical Implications). For further study, Perkmann et al. (2013 Perkmann, M., Tartari, V., McKelvey, M., Autioa, E., Broströmc, A., D’Este, P., Finif, R., Geuna, A., Grimaldif, R., Hughes, A., Krabel, S., Kitsong, M., Llerenai, P., Lissoni, F., Salter, A., & Sobrerof, M. (2013). Academic engagement and commercialisation: a review of the literature on university–industry relations. Research Policy, 42(2), 423-442. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2012.09.007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2012.... , p. 434-439) applied similar strategy to summarize 133 articles, recording them in a table with the following columns: Research questions, Data Method, Dependent variables, and Findings.

From this initial step, the author can assess if there is good coverage, which papers support the claims that will be made, and which present concept definitions. At this point, the author will realize which are subjects need to be further studied, and will start a new round of paper search and reading. It is a cyclical process, and ideally, in each cycle a clearer and deeper perspective is reached.

As academic output is huge and keeps growing literally everyday, there is the danger of losing focus and the researcher must be cautious about when to finish the literature search, as sometimes one is tempted to keep looking for more texts. Here again, guidance from supervisors and help from seasoned researchers is always a good way to check is the required coverage and deepness has been reached. Finally, the researcher must sum up her work on a text, which must offer a good synthesis and good rhetoric. Novice researchers will find that the first draft is never a good text, and a well-crafted piece of writing is the outcome of several revisions. Figure 1 summarizes the main steps for performing a literature review:

6. Conclusions

Well-crafted literature reviews are the cornerstone of good papers, however it is not uncommon to find weak, or even absent, literature reviews among OM submissions to Production. That weakness jeopardizes any claim for contribution authors might have, and frequently undermines all effort put into fieldwork and data analysis. However, as an applied field, research in OM should not start exclusively from theory, practice has been and should continue to be a major source for research ( Boer et al., 2015 Boer, H., Holweg, M., Kilduff, M., Pagell, M., Schmenner, R., & Voss, C. (2015). Making a meaningful contribution to theory. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(9), 1231-1252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-0119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-03-2015-... ). Interesting, real world phenomena should motivate us to study and solve them, but our efforts should be aimed towards not only its solution, but also to how it can be generalized. There is no contribution case that stands the lack of a proper literature review and we hope to have offered some guidance on how to write good reviews for empirical papers, and, as a consequence, to produce better quality texts.

Appendix Summarizing the key points of a paper.

Publication Dates

About the authors

Figures | tables.

Figures (1)

Figure 1 Steps for a LR.

Table 1 Pros and cons of a systematic literature review.

Source: Easterby-Smith et al. (2012 Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Jackson, P. R. (2012). Management research. London: Sage. , p. 109).

Table 2 MA, CA and SLR Examples and Main Points.

Table 3 overview of sources..

Source: adapted from Easterby-Smith et al. (2012) Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Jackson, P. R. (2012). Management research. London: Sage. .

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