What's a Literature Review

My understanding is that Lit Reviews are a way that a new researcher/MA student can contribute to the field, and that the basic point is to research the existing published articles about a topic and summarize the findings. From my time in the MSI, I've also encountered the lit review as a technique for experimental design -- basically, you go looking for how other people have done the same thing, and see if there's consensus on the best way to do it, or other kinds of guidance. One task I've assigned myself as part of my graduate student journey is to understand what a lit review is and how to write it -- and then to actually write some!

I googled up some links to get me started.

• UToronto
  • Contains list of helpful self-questions -- about the project overall, and about each item you intend to include.
• UW Madison
  • Basic overview of components
• Coughlan Book
• UNC Writing Center
  • usually both synthesis and summary
  • might reinterpret old material or combine old with new
  • might trace intellectual progression of the field
  • may evaluate sources and advise reader on relevance
  • may stand alone or be part of an academic paper
  • Prep Steps:
    • Clarify scope
    • Find models
    • Narrow topic
    • Make sure sources are current
  • Process Steps:
    • Focus
    • Thesis
    • Structure
      1. Intro
      2. Body -- three options to organize
         • Chronological - by publication, or by trend
         • Thematic
         • Methodological
      3. Body -- additional features
         • Current situation
         • History
         • Methods/Standards
         • Questions for further review
      4. Conclusions

Participant Observation - A Guide for Fieldworkers Ch. 9 notes

Participant Observation
A guide for Fieldworkers
Kathleen M. Dewalt and Billie R. Dewalt

Ch 9. Analyzing Field Notes
Analysis does 3 things:

• brings order to the data
• turns big piles into smaller piles
• permits discovery of patterns & themes to link with other patterns & themes

"...no substitute for reading and rereading..."

Process

• data reduction
• data display
• conclusion drawing and verification

These steps are iterative. Research design should include collection and management of data -- and a formal proposal allows the researcher to construct a coherent approach to a particular problem by making theoretical and design choices -- and allows others to judge if these decisions are feasible, justified, and will move the field forward.

Field notes are both a product of the research and data. Data reduction is part of the recording process.

indexing: ("etic") or a priori categories from initial framework.
coding: categories that emerge from the data ("emic") as a result of reviewing the data for inherent concepts and patterns. may be called themes.

searching by word does not "build theory"

Metacognition in higher Ed Chapter 6

LaVaque-Manty and Evans

The Domain

Psychology and Political Science writing
Try to think like a domain specialist which is already a bit metacognitive

The Intervention

• planning: reflect on known and to be learned items
• monitoring: reflecting on writing choices
• evaluation: what works/what doesn't

The Results

Key questions:

-- Is this metacognition?

• Made a 'pre-judgment' -- judged own knowledge -- so yes
• Reflective awareness of one's own process -- yes
• Evaluation was more reflective and less metacognitive?

-- Is this success?

-- Can this be improved?

Metacognition in Higher Ed Ch 3

Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning
Kaplan Et Al

"Improving Critical Thinking Skills in Introductory Biology Through Quality Practice and Metacognition"
Chapter 3 -- Lemons et al
Theme: Critical Thinking in Biology
Strategy Pursued: problem solving practice, essay questions with samples -- including use of a rubric
Critical thinking as a habit of mind -- study strategies that enhance learning, retention, domain transfer.
paired metacognition and reflection in order to enhance overall critical thinking.

The Intervention
• determine overall goals
• design activities
  • considered Bloom's taxonomy
  • aligned assessments to taxonomy
  • created separate module called 'critical thinking in biology' to run in parallel with reflective content
    • module contained questions -- similar to exam
    • rubrics with domain knowledge and crit thinking components
    • guiding questions to encourage self-reflection
  • articulated learning goals to students, articulated what constitutes a complete answer
  • pre-lab problem solving
  • repeated emphasis to students that they expect both content knowledge AND critical-thinking skills
• problem-solving
• essay-judging
• essay-writing
• thoughtful design, shared with the students -- why these questions are being asked, in this way. It's not arbitrary!

The Results

This seems particularly useful because they worked from multiple angles, both training thinking skills explicitly AND requiring those thinking skills in the execution of content-area/domain work Interesting comments about how students think questions are intentionally tricky or the motivation is opaque. Intentional trickery can be present in multi-choice questions, riddles, insight problems. Helpful to be metacognitive about whether you are suspecting trickery and a dual-path, "if a trick, then..." and "if sincere, then..."? Some sloppy teaching, some opaque though thoughtful teaching. Opportunity for instructors to be more open about their process?? It is striking how overt the instructors chose to be with their expectations and intentions. Often not the case!

Metacognition in Higher Ed Ch 2

Metacognition in Higher Ed Ch 1

Reflective Pedagogies and the Metacognitive Turn in College Teaching

Naomi Silver

Ch1 of Metacognition in Higher Ed book

Why MetaCog & Reflection, and Why Now

• student metacognition found to be most important variable to improve learning outccomes
• also an alterable variable -- it's something teachers can do something about
• metacognition improves engagement --> engagement improves learning and is a purpose of education

Importance of Engagement

• outcomes depend on student's engagement in educationally purposeful activity
• engagement considered a predictor of learning/personal development
• adds to skills/dispositions for post-college life

I learned this as a buzzword, and essentially it translates to "clickers"

Definition: engagement is involved in/responsible for learning; making decisions about learning
Definition: metacognition is what allows students to make decisions about how they learn best by helping them become aware of what they are doing when they are learning

General principles -- embed metacognitive instruction in the content matter to ensure connectivity, inform learners about the usefulness of metacognitive activities to make them exert the initial extra effort, and incorporate prolonged training to guarantee the smooth and maintained application of metacognitive activity.

More on History/Definition of Metacognition and Reflection

Reflection: Dewey's definition -- more sustained that a general stock-taking, closer to critical thinking. Dewey also emphasizes a genuine problem ("a forked-road situation") -- ambiguity, dilemma. You consider the possibilities then arrive at a provisional understanding. Boud expands on Dewey by using a range of disciplines for context, with a general framework of "reflection is a response to experience" and "returning to the experience, attending to feelings, re-evaluating the experience".

Schon also uses a range of contexts, and expands to discuss a reflective practicum as part of professional training. Emphasizes problem finding -- "name the things to which we will attend, and frame the context in which we will attend to them". Makes a distinction between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action -- two-part temporal process. Others add a "pre-action" phase (which may be implicit in Schon?).

Metacognition

Flavell on metacognition in the 70s and 80s; "thinking about one's thinking" -- but Flavell incorporates metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive monitoring, and metacognitive control.

Week 12 -- Reflection

This week, we looked at metacognition in education, and the development of metacognition in children. The Winne-Hadwin model describes a series of steps and strategies to use as part of planning a cognitive activity in order to make the most effective use of metacognitive abilities. The model includes 4 phases (task definition, planning, execution, and revision) and encourages individuals to follow a cycle inside each phase using the mnemonic COPES -- conditions, operations, products, evaluate, standards. I found this model to be highly useful, and it seems like the sort of thing that ought to be on the wall of every classroom. This framework allows a teacher or a learner to lay out their work according to this structure and map activities on to it. By having a structure and mnemonic, the learner can avoid missing components, proceed effectively, and gain metacognitive insight alongside the task they are completing. A structure of this kind also seems useful for ability transfer -- since the model is theoretical and general, it exists external of a single domain, and can be applied to a range of topics.

One area I am not sure about is why the class discussion was so critical of the idea that core content should be learned -- not simply "learning how to learn". The textbook does not support this view; for example the text describes an approach to math like this:

• domain knowledge - facts & rules of math
• general strategies for problem solving
• knowledge about one's own cognitive functioning
• self-regulatory skills

This is essentially the same structure I was proposing as the ultimate aim of education, but this view proved to be unpopular during class discussion. It may be that the emphasis on content in schools has led the teachers in the class in particular to be eager to defend the teaching of thinking skills.

One element missing from the discussions in the text concerns the role of parents. Certainly I am somewhat biased in wanting to incorporate this element of a child's education -- being a parent myself, I assess our readings with an eye to being a teacher and researcher as well as with an eye to parental behavior. Metacognitive parenting does not seem so different than metacognitive teaching, with the exception that the relationship is more 1-on-1 than most teachers have the opportunity to do. I think it would be beneficial for researchers on this topic to consider models for how teachers and parents can work together in the education of children. Parents generally have more contact hours with their children than any particular teacher does (even with a 7-hour schoolday, and the same teacher for 2 or 3 years, the weekends, summers, vacations, etc. boost the parents' hours)

One