Description
Assignment Details
This assignment begins with the sources you found and used in Units 6 and 7 to create basic annotations of each of those sources. Return to that collection of annotated sources, and determine 1 topical area related to your research problem that you judge to be especially important or interesting to you at this time. Your task in this Individual Project (IP) assignment is to synthesize key ideas from what those chosen sources articulate related to the study findings being reported.
As a doctoral student, it is vital that you develop the skill of how to synthesize sources that are related, i.e., where authors of several articles are making similar points about their research on a specific topic that is related to your specific research interest. The idea is, when possible, to see if you can bring together at least 2–3 sources that are making similar points related to various aspects of your research topic (or a subtopic). This helps to build evidence of the foundations for your dissertation topic, i.e., areas where other scholars have been pursuing similar research problems, or where gaps in knowledge exist that still need to be studied.
The following is an example of literature synthesis from the realm of organization development and change (Issah & Zimmerman, 2016):
The success of change efforts is dependent upon employee willingness to change. Attitude toward change is a variable that has been linked to employee acceptance of new procedures/policies (Calabrese, 2002; Clawson, 1999; Greenberg & Baron, 2000; Robbins, 2000). Moreover, many barriers to both individual and organizational/institutional change have been documented in the literature (Greenberg & Baron, 2000; Robbins, 2000).
Please note that you can also find examples of literature synthesis in the literature review chapter of most dissertations by accessing ProQuest Theses and Dissertations Global. Specifically, search for CTU and other institutions’ dissertations published in the last 12 months in ProQuest that are related to your topic to locate additional examples of literature synthesis. You will benefit most from studying literature reviews in dissertations produced by practitioner doctorate degrees (e.g., DM, DCS) as contrasted with those produced for the research doctorate (e.g., PhD).
