Learning Outcomes:
Conducting a literature review helps students achieve several key learning objectives:
1. Understanding Existing Research: Students become familiar with the current state of research in their field, including major theories, methodologies, and findings.
2. Critical Thinking: By evaluating and synthesizing various sources, students develop critical thinking skills. They learn to identify strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the existing literature.
3. Research Skills: Students enhance their ability to locate, analyse, and organize information from diverse sources. This includes developing effective search strategies and using academic databases.
4. Theoretical Framework Development: Literature reviews help students build a theoretical framework for their own research. They learn to position their work within the broader academic context and identify how their research can contribute to ongoing debates.
5. Academic Writing: Writing a literature review improves students' academic writing skills. They learn to summarize complex information clearly and concisely, and to present their own analysis and arguments effectively.
6. Identifying Research Gaps: Students learn to spot gaps in the existing research, which can help them formulate new research questions and hypotheses.
7. Methodological Insights: By reviewing various studies, students gain insights into different research methodologies and their applications, helping them design their own studies more effectively.