Procedures for writing a thesis (part 2)

Here is the link to part 1

        CHAPTER TWO 

LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Chapter Introduction It is good practice to have in the first section of a chapter (apart from chapter one which introduces the problem statement) an introduction to the chapter. The chapter introduction should show what the chapter is about (what it seeks to achieve) and how the chapter is structured into subsections. If the chapter is about a literature review, you could state so and indicate that the purpose of the literature review is to analyse past papers in the area for the purpose of identifying the gap in literature which the study would fill and as well to identify methodological approaches that may be relevant to your study.
With regard to how the chapter is structured, it is good practice to arrange the literature review subsections according to the objectives of the study. This would enable the researcher identify all the relevant literature and methodological approaches within the specific context of each of the objectives and therefore permit a more rigorous work.

Definition of Terms A definition of relevant terms is sometimes included either in the first chapter or in the early parts of the second (literature review) chapter. It is believed that the definition of terms should be in the first chapter if the author is simply stating the definitions as operational definitions of the terms in the context in which the terms would be used in the thesis. If however, he is comparing definitions of different authors, then what he/she is doing is more in the line of a comparative review of literary terms and should accordingly should more appropriately be in the second (literature review) chapter.

Theoretical Framework It is not essential that every thesis should have a theoretical framework. A theoretical framework is not a literature review as some thesis writers erroneously assume. A theoretical framework is a framework of theories or models that have the potential to provide answers to the study aims. For example, a person who is looking at the impact of churches or mosques or road widening etc on rental values could have in his theoretical framework an examination of rent models/theories such as thiose of Ricardo, Von Thunen, Hurd, Haig, Allred Marshall, Alonso etc. A researcher who is looking at valuation of cultural heritage property may wish to consider a theoretical framework of models such as the market valuation models (direct comparison, investment, cost approaches etc) vis a vis the environmental valuation models (contingent valuation, hedonic models, travel cost/travel time etc). The writer might wish to state the model, its designer, depict its progress of ideas in a figure as well as the models formulae if it is a mathematical model. He may also wish to state some papers that have used the model and the criticisms/limitations of the model if available. It is important that the researcher select the particular model that he would be adopting in the study.

Literature Review– Many writers write a literature review as if writing lecture notes providing all kinds of information about the subject matter from textbooks, lecture notes, personal knowledge/experience and newspaper articles. This is a very wrong approach to writing a literature review.
A literature review is supposed to focus primarily on journal/conference proceeding/book of readings papers, and only secondarily on views expressed in textbooks.
It is advisable to organise the literature review in to subsections according to the objectives of the study. If for example, an objective is to examine factors that influence the relationship between x and y, then there should be a section in the literature review which examines empirical papers across the world that have previously examined factors influencing x on y.
When the literature review subsections have been so arranged, then within the subsections, the review of papers should proceed using empirical papers that address the subject matter of that objective. The preferred approach to undertaking postgraduate literature review in Estate Management is an author-by-author approach where empirical papers are chronologically reviewed to ascertain the gap in literature which the researcher would fill. In this approach, the papers to be reviewed should be arranged chronologically. In other words, the reviewer should start with the research work that was conducted earliest on the subject matter and proceed to the next in the next paragraph and so on.
Within each paragraph, the reviewer should bring out the author, the year of publication, the location of the author/research, the aim of the study, the methodology, the findings and a critique of the work. The critique should point out the gap - what the paper under review has not done or not done properly which the present study would do. This may have to do with limitations in methodology, or even the area of coverage/ location of the study. If for example, the earlier study had a limited sample size or the coverage area was restricted to say Lagos, rather than the whole southwest or other parts of Nigeria and the reviewer intends to improve on what he is criticizing in his own thesis, then it should be included in the critique.

Conceptual Framework The conceptual framework is a framework of the researchers expectations, that is, what papers (in the literature review) and the theoretical framework as well as the researchers own experience lead the researcher to expect with regard to all his objectives, presented in a kind of flow chart (framework). Where the researcher is dealing with objectives that have to do with examining factors, then the factors gathered in literature would have to be presented. Following the flow chart, the writer should explain the contents in more detail.
In some Universities such as OAU, the conceptual expectations may lead to the formulation of express hypothesis or a priori expectations concerning some or all of the objectives which are to be tested in the research process. A hypothesis is an educated guess that can be supported by theory and previous research which is temporarily adopted to explain the facts covered by the study. If results confirm the predictions, then the hypothesis might be accepted to be correct but could still be subject to further testing. If results contradict the predictions, then the hypothesis might be rejected as incorrect or incomplete.

A hypothesis may be directional or non-directional. Hypothesis which are derived from literature are usually directional. A directional relationship provides more information about the direction of the relationship between the variables. .The hypothesis must be testable, meaning that the variables must be measurable. The hypothetical statement would usually have to be converted into a null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is created by adding the words no or not to the statement. An example would be: There is no significant relationship between valuations and selling prices.
Hypothesis are usually tested at levels of significance. A level of significance is the percentage probability of rejecting a hypothesis when it should have been accepted (type 1 error) or of accepting a hypothesis when it should have been rejected (type 2 error). The usual levels of significance at which hypotheses are tested are 1 and 5 per cent. The higher the significance level at which the test is conducted, the higher the probability of a type 1 or type 2 error.