Sample Title Slide

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Systematic Approaches to Literature Reviewing
Dr Tamara OConnor Student Learning
Development Trinity College Dublin toconnor_at_tcd.i
e
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Workshop Overview

• Explain elements of the systematic review process
  
• Explore how these might be used or adapted to
  support thesis literature review
• Contextualise this within other approaches to
  managing and working with the literature

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The Literature Review ?
Literature reviews introduce a topic,
summarise the main issues and provide some
illustrative examples.

• from www.eppi.ioe.ac.uk

Agree? Disagree?
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Literature Matters

• From Holbrook et al (2007)

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Agree? or Disagree?
If they are to be considered a reliable source of
research evidence they should record how the
primary studies were sought and selected and how
they were analysed to produce their conclusions.
Readers need to be able to judge whether all of
the relevant literature is likely to have been
found, and how the quality of studies was
assessed.
1 Agree? 5 Disagree? 10
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Systematic Reviews

• A review of a clearly formulated question that
  uses systematic and explicit methods to identify,
  select and critically appraise relevant research,
  and to collect and analyse data from the studies
  that are included within the review. Statistical
  methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to
  analyse and summarise the results of the included
  studies. 
• from www.sebc.bangor.ac.uk

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Systematic v.s. Narrative reviews

• Agreed standards
• High degree of focus
• Minimise bias
• Context and differences
• Bias of empirical studies
• Strengths of both approaches

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Key features of SR

• - of the systematic review process you might
  want to adopt or adapt
• Explicit and transparent methods
• Standard set of stages
• Accountable, replicable and updateable

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Systematic Reviews

• Seven steps (of a Cochrane Review)
• Formulating a problem
• Locating and selecting studies
• Critical appraisal of studies
• Collecting data
• Analyzing and presenting results
• Interpreting results
• Improving and updating reviews

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1. Formulating a Problem

• What is your research question?
• Clear and unambiguous
• Answerable
• Relevant
• Positively worded
• Free of bias

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1. Formulating a Problem
Example Questions?
Standard SR question contains subject-
intervention- outcome- comparator
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2. Locating and selecting studies

• Phase 1- Identify the Research
• a broad but defined, systematic sweep
• Defined search terms record recall and
  precision
• Defined search arena - e.g. databases, citation
  indices, reference lists from primary and review
  articles, grey literature, conference
  proceedings, research registers, the internet,
  individual researchers/practitioners
• Other broad search limits

TIPS! Document the search protocol and record
what research was found Systematically manage
the search output, e.g. using endnote
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2. Locating and selecting studies

• Phase 2- Selection/Screening
• select from research using criteria related to
  your research question
• Develop inclusion or exclusion statements, these
  might relate to study outcomes, research design,
  methods used, population worked with etc.
• e.g. studies with a mixed population of men and
  women
• e.g. random control trials only
• e.g. maximum exposure time of 10mins

TIPS! Document the statements and their
purpose (might be pragmatic or research
related)
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3. Critical appraisal of studies

• Assessing the quality of methodology is a
  critical part of the systematic review process
• No standard approach but there are hierarchies
  in fields of study
• Quality of methodology, results, conclusions
• Balance

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3. Critical appraisal of studies
What would be appropriate to consider when
critically appraising research in your area?

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4. Collect data analyse

• Evaluate
• Synthesise results of literature review
• Tables to compare
• Descriptive
• Meta-analysis

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No. Date Research Q Design Sample Method Variables Analysis Results Conc Issues
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
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Write up literature review

• Example
• Background
• Purpose/Research question
• Method
• Findings
• Discussion
• Implications/Recommendations

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What next?
How might I adapt this process? Something I want
to work on is.. One idea Im thinking about
is..
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SR websites

• Centre for Evidence-based Conservation
  -http//www.cebc.bangor.ac.uk/
• Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (medical)
  -http//www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/index.htm
• Cochrane Collaboration (international- medical)
  -http//www.cochrane.org/
• EPPI-Centre, Institute of Education -
  http//eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/
• Social Policy and Social Care -http//www.york.ac
  .uk/inst/chp/srspsc/index.htm
• Campbell Collaboration http//www.campbellcollabo
  ration.org/
• If you read one article, an example here of a
  review of the ways studies in reviews are
  appraised - http//www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/artic
  lerender.fcgi?artid521688
• If you prefer power-point, how about this one on
  mixed method reviews http//www.ccsr.ac.uk/metho
  ds/events/challenges/documents/JamesThomasESRCMeth
  odologicalchallenges.ppt

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References

• Cresswell, J.W. (2003) Research design
  qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods
  approaches. Thousand Oaks,CA Sage Publications.
• Fink, A. (2005) Conducting research literature
  reviews From the internet to paper, 2nd ed.
  Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications.
• Hart, C. (2001) Doing a literature search
  Comprehensive guide for the social sciences.
  London Sage Publications.
• Holbrook, A., Bourke, S., Fairbairn, H. Lovat,
  T. (2007) Examiner comments on the literature
  review in Ph.D. theses. Studies in Higher
  Education, 32 (3), 337-356.