A literature review and original research are two important components of many capstone projects at the undergraduate and graduate level. While both involve an in-depth exploration of a topic, they differ significantly in their overall goals and methodologies.
A literature review is a comprehensive examination of the scholarly works, research studies, and theories that have addressed a particular topic, issue, or research question. The goal of a literature review is to summarize and synthesize the key findings and perspectives of the scholarly literature on the subject. It demonstrates to the reader that the student or researcher has become an expert in the secondary source material published on the topic.
Conducting a literature review primarily involves locating, selecting, evaluating, and synthesizing relevant scholarly sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles, academic books, government reports, and scholarly reviews. It does not typically involve primary data collection or experimentation. The student examines, compares, and contrasts what previous researchers have said about the topic in their published work. Key elements of a strong literature review include identifying relationships and gaps in the literature, discussing major themes and perspectives, determining the significance of the topic based on previous works, and showing how the proposed research will address gaps or expand current understanding.
Original research, on the other hand, goes beyond just summarizing and critiquing existing literature to make an original contribution of new knowledge through primary data collection and analysis. With original research, the student identifies a specific research question or hypothesis and designs a study to directly investigate or test that question. This requires determining an appropriate research methodology such as qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. Primary data is then directly collected using methods like interviews, surveys, experiments, observations, or archival research. The data undergoes rigorous analysis using relevant analytic techniques in order to determine new findings, draw original conclusions, and potentially generalize the results. Original contributions involve producing results, theories, or insights that have not previously been published.
Some key characteristics that differentiate original research in a capstone project include:
Formulating a specific, focused research question that has not yet been fully explored or answered in existing literature. This helps ensure the study will yield original findings.
Choosing an appropriate research design (e.g. quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods) to directly investigate and answer the research question. This may involve experiments, field work, interviews, or other empirical methods.
Collecting primary data through hands-on methods like interviews, surveys, observations, experiments rather than solely relying on secondary data analysis.
Analyzing the original data through valid statistical or qualitative analytic techniques in order to discover new patterns, relationships, or theories that have not been previously described.
Drawing original conclusions and implications from the findings of the study. These conclusions should offer new insights, perspectives, or applications beyond what is described in existing literature.
Discussing the limitations, validity, and generalizability of the results to demonstrate rigor. As well as acknowledging how the findings specifically address gaps or expand current knowledge on the topic based on the original research question posed.
Following strict ethical guidelines when directly interacting with or observing human subjects during data collection for the study. This includes obtaining necessary permissions and ensuring confidentiality.
Having the research and methodology sections clearly describe the process well enough that other researchers could in theory replicate or build upon the original study.
A literature review primarily synthesizes and critically evaluates previous research whereas original research makes a novel empirical contribution through a focused research question directly investigated using valid methodology and analytic techniques. Both serve crucial roles in a capstone project, but one examines what is known while the other aims to discover what is not yet known about a topic through direct data collection and analysis. Understanding the distinction between these two approaches is vital for students conducting meaningful capstone work.