Literature Reviews of, and for, Educational Research: A Commentary on Boote and Beile’s “Scholars Before Researchers”

Abstract

n their article Scholars Before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Review in Research Preparation (Educational Researcher, August/September 2005), David N. Boote and Penny Beile argue that the literature review is the fundamental task of dissertation and research preparation. They claim that doctoral students receive minimal formal training, and little guidance from faculty or published sources, in how to analyze and synthesize research literature (p. 5). As a result, they argue, most dissertation literature reviews are poorly conceptualized and written (p. 4), and Doctoral students may not be learning what it means to make and justify educational (p. 9). They conclude that Literature reviewing should be a central focus of predissertation coursework, integrated throughout the program (p. 12). Many of Boote and Beile's claims are consistent with my experience in teaching and advising doctoral students, and the authors perform a valuable service in raising important, and often neglected, issues that bear on conducting a literature review for a doctoral dissertation in education. I agree with their assessment of the majority of dissertation literature reviews, and with their emphasis on the importance of learning to identify, analyze, and integrate research literature competently. In my view, however, the authors' conception of a proper dissertation literature review undercuts the value of their insights. They repeatedly use the terms thorough and to describe the type of dissertation literature review they recommend, and although they criticize the idea, held by many doctoral students, that such reviews should be exhaustive (p. 7), the authors' overall message is clearly that dissertation reviews should be a broad and comprehensive review of the literature dealing with a particular field or topic. Comprehensiveness and breadth are two of their criteria for assessing coverage, the first of their standards for evaluating dissertation literature reviews and the one to which they devote the most discussion.