Here's a breakdown:
Conceptual Literature:
* Focus: Explores and defines concepts. It aims to clarify the meaning of a concept, its components, and its relationship to other concepts.
* Purpose: To establish a framework for understanding a phenomenon.
* Methodology: Often involves analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of existing information. This may include examining definitions, historical perspectives, and different viewpoints on the concept.
* Examples:
* A paper defining "sustainability" in the context of urban planning.
* An article exploring the different interpretations of "democracy" in various political systems.
Theoretical Literature:
* Focus: Proposes and tests theories. It aims to explain how phenomena work, why they happen, and how they relate to each other.
* Purpose: To build a model or framework for understanding and predicting phenomena.
* Methodology: Involves the development and testing of hypotheses, using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and statistical analysis.
* Examples:
* A study testing the validity of the "social cognitive theory" in predicting consumer behavior.
* A paper developing a new theory of "cultural capital" and its impact on educational attainment.
In essence, conceptual literature lays the groundwork by defining and clarifying the meaning of concepts, while theoretical literature builds upon this groundwork by proposing and testing theories that explain and predict phenomena.
Here's a helpful analogy:
* Conceptual literature is like building a foundation for a house. You need to define and clarify the terms and ideas before you can start building anything.
* Theoretical literature is like building the house itself. You use the concepts as building blocks to construct a model or framework for understanding the world.
Keep in mind that these are not strict categories. Some literature may overlap between conceptual and theoretical aspects. The key is to understand the primary focus of the work and how it contributes to our understanding of the topic.