Content area
Full Text
Introduction
The primary purpose of a literature review is to assist readers in understanding the whole body of available research, informing readers on the strengths and weaknesses of studies within that body (De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2008). It is defined by its guiding concept or topical focus: an account of what was previously published on a specific topic. This prevents reliance on one research study that may not be in accordance with findings from other studies (Dunst, Trivette, & Cutspec, 2002).
All practitioners who work with children with hearing loss have a professional obligation to be current in their knowledge base and, as such, to maintain a basic library of information. However, given the multitudinous cross-cultural journals, books, conferences, and electronic sources of information, keeping up with recent developments and research findings can be an impossible, if not daunting, process. Therefore, the value of good literature reviews can never be underestimated.
Comprehensively reviewing and publishing aggregate research findings that pertain to a topic are important because such findings can:
* Represent an important scientific contribution.
* Guide the decision-making process of practitioners, administrators, and parents.
* Facilitate the development of practice guidelines.
* Strengthen advocacy capacity.
* Enhance professional development.
* Provide opportunities for practitioners who might like to publish yet do not have necessary resources.
* Establish the author as an "expert" on the research question.
* Guide practitioners into new lines of inquiry, improving methodological insights.
* Facilitate the direction of research by determining what needs to be done.
* Review and expand the topical lexicon.
* Place the body of research in a historical context.
* Enable researchers to secure substantial grant funding for research.
* Uncover many reasons why a larger body of evidence provides unequivocal or equivocal support for a particular strategy in multiple circumstances or with different environmental variables.
(Baum & McMurray-Schwarz, 2007; Dunst et al., 2002; Grady & Hearst, 2007; Hemingway & Brereton, 2009; Randolph, 2009.)
Types of Literature Reviews
Literature reviews can be published as a book, a book chapter, a dissertation, a stand-alone manuscript, or as a prelude that provides justification for a clinical study submitted for publication in peer-review journals, e.g. The Volta Review. Regardless of how a review is presented for publication,...