There are three more point that I want to make about literature reviews.
Mind the Gap
Most research attempts to build on an extend the research base in the literature. As such, they projects — including virtually all doctoral research projects — must identify a gap in the literature.
What constitutes to a gap? Well, it is where we have not gone before, have not looked before. It could be something entirely new, but usually is not. Instead, it tends to be a new version, a new context, a new kind of data or examination.
It is perfectly fine to look at existing research and wonderful if that approach would work in a different context. For example, would this work in a more urban school? Would that return the same results if it was in a lower property school? Can we get better results with a different kind of staffing? All of those are novel enough that they constitute a gap.
Or rather, they would constitute a gap so long as that project has not been done before by someone else.
One purpose of a literature review — not just the write up, but the actual work of reviewing the literature — is to find out what was has already been done. Redoing someone else’s almost identical project is not verboten (see below), but it should be be disclosed. And you should know that that is what you are doing.
You see, one thing that makes academic and scholarly research different than action research is that the goal is to help inform the field and take part in the scholarly conversation, rather than simply to inform yourself. If you are just looking for your own answer, you can do action research. Well, you can look to the literature and see yourself a lot of trouble, or you can try the action research yourself. But if you are doing scholarly research, you need to know what has gone on in the conversation and whether someone else has already said what you are aiming to say.
So, the gap is your niche. What are you looking into that no one else has quite looked into like you before. What is your angle? Are you using a different critical lens your analysis? Are you collecting a different kind of data? Again, these are enough to constitute a gap.
Replication Projects
Not all research has to be based on a gap in the literature. In fact, too much research is based on identifying a gap. We should have far more replication in virtually every field.
Just because I reported a particular results from my study, that does not mean that the case is closed. Yes, you could try to take a different angle on it (see above), but you could also simply try my exact project again. Hopefully, my results are robust enough to take it, but how can we be sure?
The best way to be sure of research results is to try again, and not just by changing things up a little bit. Yes, over time we would want to subject my findings to all kinds of checks by modifying this and that about it. But we also want to make sure that what I found is robust enough for others to find it.
We have a replication crisis in virtually every field of research. This is particularly well documented in psychology, but I believe that it is true for all fields. Certainly, education research — where we have many many studies that are not widely read and insufficient literature reviews to consider what has come before, jin part because of the volume of research out there – we have too little idea about what is robust and what is not.
Unfortunately, most doctoral programs require more original research projects than replication for qualifying dissertations. However, if your doctoral program might allow something very much like a replication, I think that it can be a very good idea.
Understand that replication projects do still require work for the literature review. You cannot simply replicated the original project’s lit review. Rather, you should do an even more complete review of the prior literature and review what has come since and been based on the original study. You should take an even more critical eye on the basis of the original study. And, of course, you should subject the original study to the strictest of scrutiny. That is no less work than a more typical literature review.
EdD quick doc programs
I always worry about Ed.D. programs that are designed to speed their students through the process. Often, they have them collecting data before they’ve done their literature reviews. This is simply not scholarly research.
Your research should be based upon some intersection between the scholarly conversation and your own interests. The scholarly conversation should inform the kinds of questions you ask and how think about the possibilities of addressing them. If you collect data before you have gotten familiar with what has come before, them you are only doing research based on your interests. That is action research, not scholarly research.
Now, if the field decides that action research is sufficient for an Ed.D., I would not argue against that. I could appreciate a line between Ed.D.s and Ph.D.s that was based on the distinction between action research and scholarly research. But that is not what the field says. Instead, there is some vague idea in some institutes that one is better than the other, while other institutions only offer one of them. For example, my doctoral advisor has an Ed.D. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in part because that is the only doctoral degree they offered while she was there.
If you are considering and Ed.D. program that is designed to get you through quickly (i.e., in just 2-3 years), I strongly suggest diving into the literature on your topic as soon as possible, and certainly sooner than they would have you do so. Having a sense of the literature will help you to refine your topic and your research questions far better and make your project more satisfying along the way.