AARL

Preparing to teach 'the literature review': staff and student views of the value of a compulsory course in research education

Maureen Nimon

Abstract: The researcher interviewed staff and doctoral students about their expectations about a course on the literature review to be introduced as part of a professional doctorate. Individualised instruction was found to be a key requirement.

This paper reports on the outcome of a small research project the goal of which was both immediate and practical. It was to determine the content of the curriculum, the form of the teaching and the nature of assessment of a new course[1] on the literature review. The course was to be taught as part of a new doctoral program. Research, albeit on a small scale, was warranted because it was anticipated that the nature of the course would be unlike any other previously taught by the researcher or anyone else in the school. As many of the school's doctoral students would be required to take the course once it was introduced, it had the potential to disrupt their work as much as to facilitate it, if it were not well-conceived and designed. It could also irk the staff who supervised them, if such disruption occurred.

The primary outcome of the study was insight into the views of the staff and students interviewed about the planned provision of compulsory courses for research students. The study also revealed incidentally the complexity of the information-seeking behaviour of both staff and students at research level and how instructional and bureaucratic interventions designed to improve students' behaviour in this regard may be perceived as impeding their progress, rather than facilitating it. The study took the form of individual interviews with academics and PhD candidates in one school of the University of South Australia over three months, undertaken by the person designated as responsible for designing and teaching 'The Literature Review'.

The context

For academics who come from traditions in which a PhD program is part course work and part thesis, it will be difficult to understand what the researcher's difficulties were. However, in Australia it has been the tradition that a PhD is awarded solely for a thesis. In the disciplines of the humanities, cultural studies and communication, this means typically that a candidate must submit a work of some 80 000 to 110 000 words to examination by three external assessors primarily on the criteria of the suitability and rigour of the methods employed and the originality of its contribution to knowledge. The doctorate is an enterprise on which all depends on that single product, the thesis. It is a one-throw-of-the-dice enterprise. In the recent past, candidates often required four to four and a half years' full time study or the part time equivalent, to achieve a work of sufficient depth and quality. But many had been known to take much longer.

Recently the Federal Government of Australia has, though its roles in redistributing some research funds to universities and monitoring quality of practice, intervened to ensure that the period of candidacy for PhD students will be shorter in future, three years full time to three and a half at the most, thus making research education more 'efficient'. Aligned with other Federal Government initiatives intended to make research undertaken in universities more immediately socially and economically 'useful', more and more universities are introducing structured programs of coursework for their doctoral research students. In the School of Communication, Information and New Media, the Graduate Forum of the School resolved that, as from 2002, several formal courses would be provided for doctoral students in research methodology, writing techniques and the development of the literature review. The principal reasons for doing so were the expectation that course work would ensure consistency of coverage of certain content for all students and create opportunities to pool staff expertise for the benefit of both students and staff. The decision to introduce coursework was specifically related to the implementation of a new professional doctorate program, but while it would be mandatory for professional doctorate students to attend the new courses, it was agreed that PhD students of the school would also be expected to attend and could be required to do so by their supervisors. Another factor influencing the decision to introduce coursework was that of risk management. In school discussions, members of the school reflected that the more the Federal Government intervened for quality assurance purposes, the more formal ways students had for charging the university with dereliction of duty. The school was therefore obliged to put more quality assurance policies and strategies in place, even when academics believed the work involved detracted from the time they had to engage in teaching.

The introduction of coursework for doctoral students represents a revolution for both staff and students in the manner of developing candidates. Students of the school at bachelors and masters level typically attend lectures and take part in tutorials and seminars, following educational practices employed worldwide. Some study by correspondence, but their programs are designed to provide similar learning experiences to those of students on campus. While as much choice and variety of practice as possible are incorporated into programs to encourage student initiative and to cater for difference, it remains true that at these levels, learning experiences are carefully structured within frameworks scrutinised by the processes of university approval. After all, these degrees exist to initiate students into a body of knowledge widely judged to be the current conventional wisdom of the relevant disciplines.

Until very recently, students embarking on a PhD faced a radically different experience, all the scaffolding of structured support being stripped away. Instead of following paths mapped out for them, as enquirers setting out to answer a personally formulated question, they became explorers journeying into only roughly mapped territory. Since the project had to be distinctively theirs, even if closely aligned to the interests and expertise of their supervisors, they were primarily responsible for the directions taken, the decisions made, the work pattern adopted, the assessment of progress made. Each candidate had a principal supervisor who was appointed to the student on the basis of his or her expertise in the area of the candidate's proposal, and an associate supervisor who possessed some complementary competence of value to the candidate. These supervisors were guides, advisors and taskmasters in some measure, but ultimately students shaped their own doctoral candidacies, at least in theory. Two quotations illustrative of the approach of most supervisors are given below. They are taken from recent research into doctoral supervision.

My approach is that the candidate is engaged on a journey of discovery and as supervisor, I am there to guide the journey. Some wrong trails will be followed but that is the nature of learning.

I feel the supervisor should support and guide the candidate, to pursue the direction indicated by the candidate. At times (usually) this may require some modification/refinement of the candidate's original intensions (sic) or conceptions. The candidate should feel the research is 'their own' throughout. The supervisor has an important role in providing input and feedback. [2]

In this context, the introduction of a formal, compulsory program of coursework represents a novel situation charged potentially with both threat and promise. For many years universities have offered some coursework and supportive seminars for research students, but these have not generally been either compulsory or extensive across the years of a doctoral degree. What is causing concern among supervisors is what they see as the bureaucratisation of research education. Consequently, the researcher, as someone responsible for designing a course on 'The Literature Review', needed to consult with supervisors and students within the school as much as search for existing exemplars of relevant courses or consult the literature. [3] She therefore undertook consultation as a minor research project. It was also recognised that the process of consultation and design could in itself be a fruitful initiation for participants into the issues the course was intended to address. As Page[4] has recently observed, the opportunity for research staff to discuss curriculum planning is rare.

The Goal of the Research

The goal of the research was for the course designer to consult with those most immediately affected by the introduction of a course on the literature review to discover what they did and did not want from it. Their views would then guide the course designer's work as she followed more traditional paths of curriculum design by consulting relevant literature and looking at existing courses for suitable models.

The procedures

Gathering the views of academic staff
It was agreed at a meeting of the professional doctorate planning committee that all staff in the school involved in doctoral education (some 17 people) should be consulted in regard to the design of the course. In the event, only six interviews with academic staff were completed in the time allotted. The single most important reason for the failure of the researcher to interview more was a lack of time, theirs and hers. The method for gathering data agreed upon with the potential subjects was for the researcher to interview each supervisor for approximately an hour. Assuming that all supervisors were familiar with the background of the project, either because they had been at graduate forum meetings, school planning days or had had the papers from these events circulated to them, the researcher sent each a brief summary of the relevant issues and the goal of the research to be explored in the interview. No formal interview schedule was used. It was stressed that the researcher wished to hear the interviewee's own opinions of how the literature review should or should not be taught and that frankness on their part would be valued. Because the target group of staff was quite small, they knew each other well and worked together in various ways, it was agreed that the researcher would not tape the interviews. She would take notes but as the purpose was to achieve a course that would meet common goals and avoid perceived pitfalls, then detailed records of what particular staff had said were not necessary or desirable.

The validation of the research would lie in the suitability of the course design. Opportunities for staff to correct any misunderstanding on the part of the researcher would be created by circulation of draft course materials to all, but of particular importance was the decision that the course would be evaluated, once taught, at a graduate forum of the school. This was widely welcomed and seemed to reassure staff that they would have sufficient control of the course to meet any concerns or interests of their own. However, the plan that the evaluation of the course should be an occasion for formal curriculum reflection by research staff became a reason for staff not taking part in the initial interviews. Several said, when the researcher attempted to make an appointment with them for an interview, that they had no particular preconceptions of how the literature review should be taught, that they were sure she would do a good job since she taught in Library and Information Studies, and that they believed they would be better placed to make a worthwhile contribution once they had seen how such a course was taught. It seems that for these people, the issue of how the literature review is taught is important only if it impinges on their present practices in an undesirable way and this is a matter which will only emerge with time. The course did not seem a sufficient threat at the point when they were contacted for them to invest the time and effort to deflect it. Some staff were teaching overseas at the time, some were on study leave and two were ill.

Gathering the views of the liaison librarian and PhD students
Other people interviewed were the Liaison Librarian for the school and eight PhD students. The procedures in regard to the librarian were the same as those adopted for academic staff as she is part of the school's graduate forum and is invited to other relevant school activities. The students were also treated in a similar fashion, except that they were given more preliminary documentation as it could not be assumed that they would be as well informed as other participants. The students, as people already in the PhD program, would not be required to undertake the proposed course, but they were asked to comment on whether, in the light of their experience, they would have liked the opportunity to do such a course and what they hoped it would have encompassed. Interview times with individual students ranged from twenty to thirty minutes. Whereas the academics and the liaison librarian took the opportunity to engage in broad ranging reflection on the changes occurring in research education in general and their concerns as to how these impacted on their own work, the students remained tightly focussed on their personal information seeking behaviours and the roles of these in their research work.

Since the records of the interviews with all subjects were restricted to note-taking by the researcher, and she concentrated on making brief notes to avoid checking the subjects' flow of conversation, very little direct speech was noted. Consequently the outcome of the research and the report itself rely more heavily than usual on the interpretation of the researcher.

The findings

Views of academic staff
Based on the interviews, there is some ambivalence among academic staff in regard to the introduction of coursework into the doctoral program. They accept it as a necessity stemming from government action that is perceived as well-intentioned but clumsy and potentially as subversive of the goal of improving research education as it is conducive to it.

They fear that introducing coursework will make more difficult and prolonged the transition of the doctoral student from one directed primarily by staff to a novice researcher, responsible in a significant way for his or her own project. The latter person is one able to see suggestions offered by supervisors not so much as directions as options from which the candidate is expected to make a considered choice. Since many students find taking that responsibility a frightening prospect, supervisors are nervous of introducing teaching strategies that may encourage students as seeing instructors as the primary determiners of their work. Yet most believed that there was a counterbalance to this possible negative effect. They hoped that coursework would make the expertise of a wider group of staff available to the students they supervised. They also saw that it possessed the potential for easing the work of supervision since not every supervisor would have to cover every aspect of undertaking a research project as comprehensively as they had previously done.

Academic staff were reassured by the initiative taken by the course designer to investigate their views as the basis for planning the course and by the proposal that the course, once taught, would be reviewed by the Graduate Forum to allow it to be modified in any way thought desirable. These strategies were perceived as ensuring that the course matched the goals of the supervisors and students. The staff evinced confidence that they would have sufficient control of the coursework to guard against any disruption to their personal styles of working with the students whose research they supervised.

All the academic staff began the interview by confessing to be insufficiently information literate themselves when it came to exploring library-based resources. They were therefore grateful that I, an academic in Library and Information Studies, and the liaison librarian for the school, were the staff who would teach the course as they believed their students would gain from us skills and knowledge that they themselves did not possess. It is important to note, however, that they saw the learning we offered their students as supplementary to their own training of their students in information-seeking behaviour, not as a substitute for it. One academic summarised the views of all succinctly when he said 'I'm glad you'll show them how to use the library well'. He continued that in future he would expect students to bring more examples of what they had found to meetings with him. But he then went on to indicate that this would in no way diminish the materials he was in the habit of collecting for each of them to peruse.

Unstructured interviews can result in the collection of a diversity of data ranging so broadly from interview to interview that only small areas of discussion overlap on key topics of the research. In this study that did not happen, no doubt because the interviews grew out of meetings at which the subjects had taken part in discussions germane to the research goal. Whatever the reason, four out of the six interviews followed a broad pattern of the subject putting forward views of what the course should cover, then talking generally about changes in research education, then reverting towards the end of the interview to how he or she expected the course on the literature review to complement his/her manner of research supervision. While the other two interviews were more varied, certain points emerged from all six, highly pertinent to the research goal. These were that the academics concerned believed that:

• what a course on the literature review should/would cover was efficient searching techniques for library-based information sources
• that information literacy refers to the possession of such techniques
• that being information literate (as defined in such terms) was only one of the strategies that a researcher needed to have the information base for research, and
• that it was the supervisors' responsibility to induct students into the ways they themselves built and maintained their specialist knowledge bases.

Building and maintaining personal knowledge bases meant:

• directing students to books, articles, conference proceedings, which they considered relevant, often providing students with copies from their personal collections of these materials
• advising students of conferences they should attend, at which they should give papers, at which they should endeavour to hear and, if possible, to meet particular presenters, and
• involving students in seminars provided by groups other than their own, encouraging them to hear visiting speakers on topics relevant to their own work.

Discussion of the views of academic staff
The informality of the interviews, the colleagiality of the project, the common background all parties had in regard to the research goal, the familiarity of the subjects with the researcher resulted in relaxed, frank discussions by which some themes emerged that may not have done so had subjects been constrained by a formal interview schedule, taping of their remarks and a wary desire to respond appropriately to an unknown researcher. These were that though academic staff declared themselves to be deficient in regard to their levels of information literacy, it is my perception that they believe themselves to be so only in a limited and specific sense relating to library-based information systems. Further, they do not consider this deficiency to be important enough to invest their time and effort in addressing it. Their admissions are not spurious or hypocritical: they acknowledge that they have limited abilities in regard to the identification and retrieval of information in certain contexts and there was implied in their admissions, a regret for their lack. However, it could be argued that their unwillingness to invest their time and effort in expanding their skills shows their 'deficiency' to be principally a construct of information literacy campaigns which have made any sensible person aware of the vast possibilities for searching for information. It is also a factor of the experience of some in learning how to use certain databases or search tools only to find that if they are not using them regularly, that what they have remembered has become obsolete. The desired solution of most for coping with the universe of potentially useful information that does not come within the scope of their personal techniques for keeping up to date is to have the liaison librarian either do their searching for them or to work with them. In short beyond a certain boundary, they want the experts to do the job for them, not to be taught by the experts how to do it for themselves.

Academic staff revealed that their information seeking behaviours and the means by which they keep themselves up to date in their specialist areas are quite different from those implied as basic practice in standards of information literacy. The researchers in the school focus their attention tightly on their personal expertise, building their own collections of journals and books of key interest. They are members of professional associations, attend conferences and correspond with people around the world working in their field. Their networks of contacts and their conference attendance ensure they know of new developments before those developments become part of the published record. Their most valued library support service is the current awareness profile that the liaison librarian helps them develop and review on an annual basis, since this provides them with tailored services to their desktop. When they need to go beyond these strategies and what they find by means of favourite search engines, they seek an appointment with their liaison librarian to supplement their own efforts with her expertise. Her support is highly valued. One academic expressed the fear that the principal threat to her ability to be sure she had a robust information basis for her research was the possibility that cuts to the library budget would reduce the capacity of library staff to provide expert support for researchers.

Some academic staff mentioned that they had gone to workshops offered by library staff and would occasionally go again for specific skills, but they were very selective in regard to those they would attend, having to be convinced of the probable high relevance of the session to their needs. One said she was not interested in going to sessions to learn about sources that she may use irregularly because she had found that too often when she did return to an information service after some months, it 'looked different'.

Finally, two members of staff spoke of bureaucratic measures of quality assurance and risk management as being more of a hindrance than a help to the achievement of the desirable objectives. They feared the imposition of sets of procedures that were mandatory in regard to every student rather than recommended as complicating the personalisation of education which should occur in the last stage of the student's formal education. Since these changes were pending, rather than currently in practice, the academics hoped these fears would be unfounded. But the bases for that hope was that in the case of doctoral students, much teaching and learning would still take place in the context of the student/supervisor relationship rather than in the classroom. Their fears arose in part from the impact of quality assurance and risk management measures introduced elsewhere in the school's programs.

Views of the liaison librarian
The liaison librarian was interviewed because of her responsibility in regard to supporting research education in the school. Moreover, she will be a teacher in the course under discussion. Her concerns were twofold. Firstly, she was determined that she would be working with students as far as possible in the same manner as previously, that is, with them as individuals, rather than by conducting classes. She saw value in the introduction of a course on the literature review as it would help ensure she saw all rather than most research students and that she did so in a context in which her role and expertise were explicit. Secondly, the key to the success of the course lay in carefully specifying how students would be assessed. She wanted all course documents to make clear that the judgment of the literature review completed by each student was an academic matter that lay with the student, his/her supervisor, and ultimately, the examiners of the thesis. She proposed that the assessment for the section of the course for which she would be responsible would be based primarily on checklists showing the processes the student had completed satisfactorily and student attendance at individual appointments with her at intervals throughout the semester for her to monitor their progress technically.

Discussion of the views of the liaison librarian
The issue of assessment highlighted the fact that the course is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The librarian's aim of retaining sessions with individual students underlines her recognition of the special efficacy of one-to-one teaching and its appropriateness at this most demanding educational level.

The views of the students
The students, like the academic staff, all identified a personal need to become more information literate. In their case, the confessional rite appeared to arise from heartfelt concern that their literature reviews would be sufficiently comprehensive to support their research. There was one student who said that he was willing to learn more, but that he was reasonably confident that he could already find 'what he needed'. The others expressed an eagerness to take advantage of any help given, some being fearful that their work would be undermined or even invalidated because they had missed some vital source of information. They expressed willingness to attend a number of sessions in which general demonstrations might be given or exercises set for them, but they were approving when told that individual sessions with either or both instructors would be the mainstay of the course. 'I would want to be able to talk about my needs, not listen to how someone else's would be met', said one.

Discussion of the views of the students
Threading through the students' remarks were their anxieties about the research they were working on, the size and order of the task they had set themselves, fears of personal inadequacy, and, specifically related to the proposed course, the possibility of missing something that was critical to their enquiry either altogether or finding it at a point that would force a major reconsideration of what they had done after they were well advanced. One revealed she had discussed this nightmare scenario with her supervisor who had reassured her that consistent surveying of information sources in her area of interest would prevent the problem from arising.

Yet despite such fears, the students were definite that what help was offered them, either as part of a course or on an ad hoc basis, needed to be provided on their terms only. Anything they undertook had to be both timely and relevant in their personal terms. Some attacked the notion of being asked to do exercises that were deemed 'good for you' by someone else. Indeed, they demonstrated that they were all independent, self-motivated learners (as one would hope) and would be impatient with any course they did not judge to have immediate returns for them. One said that the main worry she would have in regard to the introduction of coursework was that the timing of what was being offered might not match with her need for it.

Conclusions

The principal conclusion to be drawn from the study was that the main stakeholders, the students and their supervisors, wanted to maintain doctoral education in as personalised a form as possible. To the supervisors, this meant being able to work with their students, each of them according to their own particular existing practice, generally built around monthly private meetings with each student individually and monthly seminars of their relevant research group. To the students this meant being able to determine personally, or at least in agreement with his/her principal supervisor, when, what, and how to work. Both parties were pleased at the prospect of being able to draw on proffered expertise. The supervisors had the hope that their students would gain extra skills. The students were pleased to accept help with the proviso it was given in a form which did not compromise their independence of action. It is evident that the people involved in research education evaluate any proposal in regard to it by means of a complex formula which weighs the effectiveness of the time and effort required of them personally against the possible benefit to themselves. Thus successful innovation in this area must be carefully tuned to the needs of the students and their supervisors. Mandatory activities must be minimal and clearly useful to the learners.

The outcome

A course has been designed as a series of activities that each student will undertake in conjunction with the instructors after consultations with each student and his/her supervisor. The formal requirements will be minimal and concentrated early in the semester. For a substantial period after initial activities, it will be up to the student to initiate further action as he or she sees fit, but a certain number of meetings with the instructors must be completed by the end of the semester for successful completion of the course.

The principles guiding the construction of the course and its conduct are:

• teaching the literature review in a generic fashion as a series of abstracted steps is a nonsense and to be avoided, and
• class sessions are to be minimal in number, sessions with individual students to be the norm.

These principles are derived from research, not merely that of the present study, but from a wealth of work done in regard to information literacy in general. They are also shaped by the nature of the students who will be taking the course and the nature of the assessment of its product.

By the time students reach the level of doctoral research, each will have:

• very specialised areas of interest. These require the development of specific profiles for information searching and monitoring
• disparate levels of skills. The axiom 'start where the students are' in this case will mean that individualised diagnosis of students' strengths and weaknesses will be necessary, and
• highly developed personal learning styles. By learning styles I mean not just psychological predispositions to learning in a way dictated by a bias to a particular sense but the complex patterns of learning and working habits that determine how and when they study.

Another major reason for customising the course is that the success of the product is to be judged by other than the instructors. The instructors have the responsibility to expose students to techniques that will assist them in completing a comprehensive literature search. They can attest to what students have done and how successfully they have completed certain technical procedures. They cannot, nor should they attempt, to assess the product of the course, in so far as that product becomes the basis of the student's research and a part of the final thesis. These matters must be evaluated by the supervisors and the students in the first place and ultimately the theses examiners.

For the course designer, the test comes first in the implementation of the course in the immediate future, then in the evaluation of it by the school's Graduate Forum. Neither of these landmarks has been reached at the time of writing.

Notes

1. It should be noted that 'course' is used in this paper to a single unit of study in a degree program. In terms of common Australian usage, the word 'subject' is normally used for such a unit and the word course is used to refer to the whole of the study required for a degree. However, the University of South Australia has adopted international terminology and so 'subjects' are now 'courses' and 'courses', 'programs'.
2. P Macauley Pedagogic continuity in doctoral supervision: passing on, or passing by, of information skills. Paper presented at Quality in Post Graduate Research - Making Ends Meet. International Conference jointly presented by the University of Adelaide, The Flinders University of South Australia and the University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, 13-14 April 2000 (copy of paper supplied to researcher by author), p5.
3. For example, Fink's 1998 work, Conducting Research Literature Reviews: from paper to the Internet (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage) contains useful checklists and exercises, but is relevant only in relation to techniques. It actually exemplifies the way in which certain assumptions in regard to literature review training would be counterproductive in this instance.
4. R N Page 'Reshaping Graduate Preparation in Educational Research Methods: One School's Experience' Educational Researcher vol 30 no 5 2001 p22

Associate Professor Maureen Nimon, School of Communications, Information and New Media, University of South Australia, Magill Campus, St Bernard's Road, Magill SA 5072. E-mail: maureen.nimon@unisa.edu.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address).