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Literature review example

Time of Day, Attention and Productivity in School Children

Subject
Psychology
Type
Literature review
Citation style
APA 6
Level
Doctoral
Length
16 pages

About this sample

This doctoral dissertation chapter examines whether children's attention and productivity at school depend on the time of day they learn, and whether morning instruction produces better performance. It first describes the literature search strategy, including databases, a ten-year publication window and quality scoring, and then begins a synthesis of research on individual differences and intellectual styles. The organisation moves from an introduction to the selection methods and then to a thematic review of the literature.

  • Time-of-day preference for studying
  • Children's attention and productivity in school
  • Morning versus evening learning performance
  • Literature search and selection methodology
  • Individual differences and intellectual styles

How it opens

Presented in Chapter 2 is a research synthesis that relates to the aspect of time-of-day preference for studying and how it affects learning and coping. Included in this chapter is a review and synthesis of peer-reviewed literature that focus on the issues relating to whether children's attention and level of productivity in school are affected by the time of day that they learn. In effect, is it true that those taught and tested in the morning perform better than those who learn at other times of the day? In undertaking the literature search, multiple computerized search engines were utilized to identify diverse and relevant research. The use of interdisciplinary diverse peer-reviewed literature is significant in this study because of the increased likelihood to get a comprehensive data set to enable a holistic and detailed insight into the research area (Goodwin, 2009). With the interdisciplinary peer-reviewed literature, it is possible to understand the area of individual differences in education and the determinants of academic performance, and identify the key theories and ideas for inquiry which make it possible to build a strong empirical and theoretical foundation for the study. It was important to be selective in using a significant number of articles and materials in the study. The resource materials varied in quality, length and detail level, and decisions about inclusion or exclusion of data was based on relevance and quality.

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