CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy)

Scribbr (2020) How to write a literature review: 3 minute step-by-step guide.  Available at: https://youtu.be/zIYC6zG265E (Accessed: 29 June 2021).

Literature reviews are often conducted as an introduction to a research project.  However, they can also be used to gain an overview of the publications or research or evidence available as an introduction to a topic.

For the latter, you will be expected to develop a systematic search strategy to identify and locate the most relevant material (Aveyard, 2019).  This means including, as part of your text, the keywords and resources used for your review and the decisions made regarding your selection of materials. 

Reference:

Aveyard, H. (2019) Doing a literature review in health and social care: a practical guide.4th edn. London: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education.

Themes and keywords

• Which themes are you including? 
• Which are the principal key words or search terms for each theme? 
• Are there obvious alternative search terms that should be included?  For example, 'international' could also be described as 'global' or 'worldwide'.

Your initial searches on the topic will help you ascertain relevant search terms.

Item types

• Which types of material are you including in your review?  This can be restricted to research articles or encompass policy papers, textbooks, reports, conference presentations, blogs and more.

Resources

• Which bibliographic resources are most relevant to your topic, and the types of material identified above?  Options include bibliographic databases and Google Scholar (journal and research papers); the library's OneSearch (books, exemplars and more), Google or other general search engines (policy papers, blogs ...).

Additional selection criteria

• Which other factors will determine your selection of individual items?  For example:
  • Does a specific date range for publication apply? 
  • Are you only interested in a specific scenario or environment?
  • Are you focusing on a specific population?

Please remember:

• Your decision making will be influenced, in part, by the restricted nature of your assignment and related timescale.
• You will be accessing and reading multiple items for each assignment.  Some of these will be relevant throughout our programme, or in other contexts. See the Keeping Track of your Sources page on this guide for advice on noting details methodically.

There are several tools available to help researchers formulate a robust research question or hypothesis.  These may be helpful in refining your topic and developing a search strategy for your assignments.

Tools for:

• Quantitative studies:
  • PICO
  • PIO
  • PICOT
  • PICOS
  • FINER
• Qualitative studies:
  • PEO
  • SPIDER
  • SPICE
  • ECLIPSE
• Mixed methods studies:
  • SPIDER
  • FINER