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How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

  • Search for relevant literature
  • Evaluate sources
  • Identify themes, debates, and gaps
  • Outline the structure
  • Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

  • Quick Run-through
  • Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

  • Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
  • Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
  • Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
  • Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
  • Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Literature review guide

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

  • Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
  • Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
  • Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
  • Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

  • Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
  • Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
  • Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

  • Your university’s library catalogue
  • Google Scholar
  • Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
  • Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
  • EconLit (economics)
  • Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

  • What question or problem is the author addressing?
  • What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
  • What are the key theories, models, and methods?
  • Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
  • What are the results and conclusions of the study?
  • How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

  • Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
  • Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
  • Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
  • Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
  • Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

  • Most research has focused on young women.
  • There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
  • But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

  • Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
  • Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
  • Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

  • Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
  • Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
  • Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
  • Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

  • Sampling methods
  • Simple random sampling
  • Stratified sampling
  • Cluster sampling
  • Likert scales
  • Reproducibility

 Statistics

  • Null hypothesis
  • Statistical power
  • Probability distribution
  • Effect size
  • Poisson distribution

Research bias

  • Optimism bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Implicit bias
  • Hawthorne effect
  • Anchoring bias
  • Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

  • To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
  • To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
  • To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
  • To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
  • To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

  • An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
  • A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
  • Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
  • Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
  • Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
  • Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
  • Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

  • Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
  • Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

  • Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
  • Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
  • Qualitative versus quantitative research
  • Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
  • Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
  • Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

  • It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
  • Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
  • Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
  • Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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  • Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

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Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

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Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

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Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

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Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

  • Explains the background of research on a topic.
  • Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
  • Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
  • Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
  • Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
  • Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

  • Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
  • Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
  • If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

  • This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

  • use the tabs on this guide
  • Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
  • More on the Medical Library web page
  • ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

  • Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
  • Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
  • Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
  • Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
  • Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
  • Ask your librarian for help at any time.
  • Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

  • What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
  • Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
  • What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
  • Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
  • If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
  • How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

  • Review the abstracts carefully.  
  • Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
  • Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Literature reviews as independent studies: guidelines for academic practice

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Review articles or literature reviews are a critical part of scientific research. While numerous guides on literature reviews exist, these are often limited to the philosophy of review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures, triggering non-parsimonious reporting and confusion due to overlapping similarities. To address the aforementioned limitations, we adopt a pragmatic approach to demystify and shape the academic practice of conducting literature reviews. We concentrate on the types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions of literature reviews as independent, standalone studies. As such, our article serves as an overview that scholars can rely upon to navigate the fundamental elements of literature reviews as standalone and independent studies, without getting entangled in the complexities of review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures.

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1 Introduction

A literature review – or a review article – is “a study that analyzes and synthesizes an existing body of literature by identifying, challenging, and advancing the building blocks of a theory through an examination of a body (or several bodies) of prior work (Post et al. 2020 , p. 352). Literature reviews as standalone pieces of work may allow researchers to enhance their understanding of prior work in their field, enabling them to more easily identify gaps in the body of literature and potential avenues for future research. More importantly, review articles may challenge established assumptions and norms of a given field or topic, recognize critical problems and factual errors, and stimulate future scientific conversations around that topic. Literature reviews Footnote 1 come in many different formats and purposes:

Some review articles conduct a critical evaluation of the literature, whereas others elect to adopt a more exploratory and descriptive approach.

Some reviews examine data, methodologies, and findings, whereas others look at constructs, themes, and theories.

Some reviews provide summaries by holistically synthesizing the existing research on a topic, whereas others adopt an integrative approach by assessing related and interdisciplinary work.

The number of review articles published as independent or standalone studies has been increasing over time. According to Scopus (i.e., search database ), reviews (i.e., document type ) were first published in journals (i.e., source type ) as independent studies in 1945, and they subsequently appeared in three digits yearly from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, four digits yearly from the early 2000s to the late 2010s, and five digits in the year 2021 (Fig.  1 ). This increase is indicative that reviewers and editors in business and management research alike see value and purpose in review articles to such a level that they are now commonly accepted as independent, standalone studies. This development is also reflected in the fact that some academic journals exclusively publish review articles (e.g., the Academy of Management Annals , or the  International Journal of Management Reviews ), and journals publishing in various fields often have special issues dedicated to literature reviews on certain topic areas (e.g., the Journal of Management and the Journal of International Business Studies ).

figure 1

Full-year publication trend of review articles on Scopus (1945–2021)

One of the most important prerequisites of a high-quality review article is that the work follows an established methodology, systematically selects and analyzes articles, and periodically covers the field to identify latest developments (Snyder 2019 ). Additionally, it needs to be reproducible, well-evidenced, and transparent, resulting in a sample inclusive of all relevant and appropriate studies (Gusenbauer and Haddaway 2020; Hansen et al. 2021 ). This observation is in line with Palmatier et al. ( 2018 ), who state that review articles provide an important synthesis of findings and perspectives in a given body of knowledge. Snyder ( 2019 ) also reaffirmed this rationale, pointing out that review articles have the power to answer research questions beyond that which can be achieved in a single study. Ultimately, readers of review articles stand to gain a one-stop, state-of-the-art synthesis (Lim et al. 2022a ; Popli et al. 2022) that encapsulates critical insights through the process of re-interpreting, re-organizing, and re-connecting a body knowledge (Fan et al. 2022 ).

There are many reasons to conduct review articles. Kraus et al. ( 2020 ) explicitly mention the benefits of conducting systematic reviews by declaring that they often represent the first step in the context of larger research projects, such as doctoral dissertations. When carrying out work of this kind, it is important that a holistic overview of the current state of literature is achieved and embedded into a proper synthesis. This allows researchers to pinpoint relevant research gaps and adequately fit future conceptual or empirical studies into the state of the academic discussion (Kraus et al., 2021 ). A review article as an independent or standalone study is a viable option for any academic – especially young scholars, such as doctoral candidates – who wishes to delve into a specific topic for which a (recent) review article is not available.

The process of conducting a review article can be challenging, especially for novice scholars (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2015 ). Therefore, it is not surprising that numerous guides have been written in an attempt to improve the quality of review studies and support emerging scholars in their endeavors to have their work published. These guides for conducting review articles span a variety of academic fields, such as engineering education (Borrego et al. 2014 ), health sciences (Cajal et al. 2020 ), psychology (Laher and Hassem 2020 ), supply chain management (Durach et al. 2017 ), or business and entrepreneurship (Kraus et al. 2020 ; Tranfield et al. 2003 ) – the latter were among the first scholars to recognize the need to educate business/management scholars on the roles of review studies in assembling, ascertaining, and assessing the intellectual territory of a specific knowledge domain. Furthermore, they shed light on the stages (i.e., planning the review, conducting the review, reporting, and dissemination) and phases (i.e., identifying the need for a review, preparation of a proposal for a review, development of a review protocol, identification of research, selection of studies, study quality assessment, data extraction and monitoring progress, data synthesis, the report and recommendations, and getting evidence into practice) of conducting a systematic review. Other scholars have either adapted and/or developed new procedures (Kraus et al. 2020 ; Snyder 2019 ) or established review protocols such as the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram (Moher et al. 2015 ). The latter provides a checklist that improves transparency and reproducibility, thus reducing questionable research practices. The declarative and procedural knowledge of a checklist allows users to derive value from (and, in some cases, produce) methodological literature reviews.

Two distinct and critical gaps or issues provide impetus for our article. First, while the endeavors of the named scholars are undoubtedly valuable contributions, they often encourage other scholars to explain the methodology of their review studies in a non-parsimonious way ( 1st issue ). This can become problematic if this information distracts and deprives scholars from providing richer review findings, particularly in instances in which publication outlets impose a strict page and/or word limit. More often than not, the early parts (i.e., stages/phases, such as needs, aims, and scope) of these procedures or protocols are explained in the introduction, but they tend to be reiterated in the methodology section due to the prescription of these procedures or protocols. Other parts of these procedures or protocols could also be reported more parsimoniously, for example, by filtering out documents, given that scientific databases (such as Scopus or Web of Science ) have since been upgraded to allow scholars to select and implement filtering criteria when conducting a search (i.e., criterion-by-criterion filtering may no longer be necessary). More often than not, the procedures or protocols of review studies can be signposted (e.g., bracket labeling) and disclosed in a sharp and succinct manner while maintaining transparency and replicability.

Other guides have been written to introduce review nomenclatures (i.e., names/naming) and their equivalent philosophical underpinnings. Palmatier et al. ( 2018 ) introduced three clearly but broadly defined nomenclatures of literature reviews as independent studies: domain-based reviews, theory-based reviews, and method-based reviews. However, such review nomenclatures can be confusing due to their overlapping similarities ( 2nd issue ). For example, Lim et al. ( 2022a ) highlighted their observation that the review nomenclatures associated with domain-based reviews could also be used for theory-based and method-based reviews.

The two aforementioned issues – i.e., the lack of a parsimonious understanding and the reporting of the review methodology , and the confusion emerging from review nomenclatures – are inarguably the unintended outcomes of diving into an advanced (i.e., higher level) understanding of literature review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures from a philosophical perspective (i.e., underpinnings) without a foundational (i.e., basic level) understanding of the fundamental (i.e., core) elements of literature reviews from a pragmatic perspective. Our article aims to shed light on these issues and hopes to provide clarity for future scholarly endeavors.

Having a foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies is (i) necessary when addressing the aforementioned issues; (ii) important in reconciling and scaffolding our understanding, and (iii) relevant and timely due to the proliferation of literature reviews as independent studies. To contribute a solution toward addressing this gap , we aim to demystify review articles as independent studies from a pragmatic standpoint (i.e., practicality). To do so, we deliberately (i) move away from review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures, and (ii) invest our attention in developing a parsimonious, scaffolded understanding of the fundamental elements (i.e., types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions) of review articles as independent studies.

Three contributions distinguish our article. It is worth noting that pragmatic guides (i.e., foundational knowledge), such as the present one, are not at odds with extant philosophical guides (i.e., advanced knowledge), but rather they complement them. Having a foundational knowledge of the fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies is valuable , as it can help scholars to (i) gain a good grasp of the fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies ( 1st contribution ), and (ii) mindfully adopt or adapt existing review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures to better suit the circumstances of their reviews (e.g., choosing and developing a well-defined review nomenclature, and choosing and reporting on review considerations and steps more parsimoniously) ( 2nd contribution ). Therefore, this pragmatic guide serves as (iii) a foundational article (i.e., preparatory understanding) for literature reviews as independent studies ( 3rd contribution ). Following this, extant guides using a philosophical approach (i.e., advanced understanding) could be relied upon to make informed review decisions (e.g., adoption, adaptation) in response to the conventions of extant review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures (Fig.  2 ).

figure 2

Foundational and advanced understanding of literature reviews as independent studies

2 Fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies

A foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies can be acquired through the appreciation of five fundamental elements – i.e., types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions – which are illustrated in Fig.  3 and summarized in the following sections.

figure 3

Fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies

There are two types of literature reviews as independent studies: systematic literature reviews ( SLRs ) and non-systematic literature reviews ( non-SLRs ). It is important to recognize that SLRs and non-SLRs are not review nomenclatures (i.e., names/naming) but rather review types (i.e., classifications).

In particular, SLRs are reviews carried out in a systematic way using an adopted or adapted procedure or protocol to guide data curation and analysis, thus enabling transparent disclosure and replicability (Lim et al. 2022a ; Kraus et al. 2020 ). Therefore, any review nomenclature guided by a systematic methodology is essentially an SLR. The origin of this type of literature review can be traced back to the evidence-based medicine movement in the early 1990s, with the objective being to overcome the issue of inconclusive findings in studies for medical treatments (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2015 ).

In contrast, non-SLRs are reviews conducted without any systematic procedure or protocol; instead, they weave together relevant literature based on the critical evaluations and (subjective) choices of the author(s) through a process of discovery and critique (e.g., pointing out contradictions and questioning assertions or beliefs); they are shaped by the exposure, expertise, and experience (i.e., the “3Es” in judgement calls) of the author(s). Therefore, non-SLRs are essentially critical reviews of the literature (Lim and Weissmann 2021 ).

2.2 Focuses

Unlike Palmatier et al. ( 2018 ) who considered domain-based reviews, theory-based reviews, and method-based reviews as review nomenclatures, we consider domain , theory , and method as three substantive focuses that can take center stage in literature reviews as independent studies. This is in line with our attempt to move away from review nomenclatures when providing a foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies.

A review that is domain-focused can examine: (i) a  concept (e.g., customer engagement; Lim et al. 2022b ; digital transformation; Kraus et al. 2021 ; home sharing; Lim et al. 2021 ; sharing economy; Lim 2020 ), (ii) a context (e.g., India; Mukherjee et al. 2022a ), (iii) a discipline (e.g., entrepreneurship; Ferreira et al. 2015 ; international business; Ghauri et al. 2021 ), (iv) a field (e.g., family business; Lahiri et al. 2020 ; Rovelli et al. 2021 ; female entrepreneurship; Ojong et al. 2021 ), or (v) an outlet (e.g., Journal of Business Research ; Donthu et al. 2020 ; Management International Review ; Mukherjee et al. 2021 ; Review of Managerial Science ; Mas-Tur et al. 2020 ), which typically offer broad, overarching insights.

Domain-focused hybrids , such as the between-domain hybrid (e.g., concept-discipline hybrid, such as digital transformation in business and management; Kraus et al. 2022 ; religion in business and entrepreneurship; Kumar et al. 2022a ; personality traits in entrepreneurship; Salmony and Kanbach 2022 ; and policy implications in HR and OB research; Aguinis et al., 2022 ) and the within-domain hybrid (e.g., the concept-concept hybrid, such as customer engagement and social media; Lim and Rasul 2022 ; and global business and organizational excellence; Lim 2022 ; and the discipline-discipline hybrid, such as neuromarketing; Lim 2018 ) are also common as they can provide finer-grained insights.

A review that is theory-focused can explore a standalone theory (e.g., theory of planned behavior; Duan and Jiang 2008 ), as well as a theory in conjunction with a domain , such as the concept-theory hybrid (e.g., behavioral control and theory of planned behavior; Lim and Weissmann 2021 ) and the theory-discipline hybrid (e.g., theory of planned behavior in hospitality, leisure, and tourism; Ulker-Demirel and Ciftci 2020 ), or a theory in conjunction with a method (e.g., theory of planned behavior and structural equation modeling).

A review that is method-focused can investigate a standalone method (e.g., structural equation modeling; Deng et al. 2018 ) or a method in conjunction with a domain , such as the method-discipline hybrid (e.g., fsQCA in business and management; Kumar et al. 2022b ).

2.3 Planning the review, critical considerations, and data collection

The considerations required for literature reviews as independent studies depend on their type: SLRs or non-SLRs.

For non-SLRs, scholars often rely on the 3Es (i.e., exposure, expertise, and experience) to provide a critical review of the literature. Scholars who embark on non-SLRs should be well versed with the literature they are dealing with. They should know the state of the literature (e.g., debatable, underexplored, and well-established knowledge areas) and how it needs to be deciphered (e.g., tenets and issues) and approached (e.g., reconciliation proposals and new pathways) to advance theory and practice. In this regard, non-SLRs follow a deductive reasoning approach, whereby scholars initially develop a set of coverage areas for reviewing a domain, theory, or method and subsequently draw on relevant literature to shed light and support scholarly contentions in each area.

For SLRs, scholars often rely on a set of criteria to provide a well-scoped (i.e., breadth and depth), structured (i.e., organized aspects), integrated (i.e., synthesized evidence) and interpreted/narrated (i.e., describing what has happened, how and why) systematic review of the literature. Footnote 2 In this regard, SLRs follow an inductive reasoning approach, whereby a set of criteria is established and implemented to develop a corpus of scholarly documents that scholars can review. They can then deliver a state-of-the-art overview, as well as a future agenda for a domain, theory, or method. Such criteria are often listed in philosophical guides on SLR procedures (e.g., Kraus et al. 2020 ; Snyder 2019 ) and protocols (e.g., PRISMA), and they may be adopted/adapted with justifications Footnote 3 . Based on their commonalities they can be summarized as follows:

Search database (e.g., “Scopus” and/or “Web of Science”) can be defined based on justified evidence (e.g., by the two being the largest scientific databases of scholarly articles that can provide on-demand bibliographic data or records; Pranckutė 2021 ). To avoid biased outcomes due to the scope covered by the selected database, researchers could utilize two or more different databases (Dabić et al. 2021 ).

Search keywords may be developed by reading scholarly documents and subsequently brainstorming with experts. The expanding number of databases, journals, periodicals, automated approaches, and semi-automated procedures that use text mining and machine learning can offer researchers the ability to source new, relevant research and forecast the citations of influential studies. This enables them to determine further relevant articles.

Boolean operators (e.g., AND, OR) should be strategically used in developing the  string   of search keywords (e.g., “engagement” AND “customer” OR “consumer” OR “business”). Furthermore, the correct and precise application of quotation marks is important but is very frequently sidestepped, resulting in incorrect selection processes and differentiated results.

Search period (e.g., between a specified period [e.g., 2000 to 2020] or up to the latest full year at the time or writing [e.g., up to 2021]) can be defined based on the justified scope of study (e.g., contemporary evolution versus historical trajectory).

Search field (e.g., “article title, abstract, keywords”) can be defined based on justified assumptions (e.g., it is assumed that the focus of relevant documents will be mentioned in the article title, abstract, and/or keywords).

Subject area (e.g., “business, management, and accounting”) can be defined based on justified principles (e.g., the focus of the review is on the marketing discipline, which is located under the “business, management, and accounting” subject area in Scopus).

Publication stage (e.g., “final”) can be defined based on justified grounds (e.g., enabling greater accuracy in replication).

Document type (e.g., “article” and/or “review”), which reflects the type of scientific/practical contributions (e.g., empirical, synthesis, thought), can be defined based on justified rationales (e.g., articles selected because they are peer-reviewed; editorials not selected because they are not peer-reviewed).

Source type (e.g., “journal”) can be defined based on justified reasons (e.g., journals selected because they publish finalized work; conference proceedings not selected because they are work in progress, and in business/management, they are usually not being considered as full-fledged “publications”).

Language (e.g., “English”) can be determined based on justified limitations (e.g., nowadays, there are not many reasons to use another language besides the academic lingua franca English). Different spellings should also be considered, as the literature may contain both American and British spelling variants (e.g., organization and organisation). Truncation and wildcards in searches are recommended to capture both sets of spellings. It is important to note that each database varies in its symbology.

Quality filtering (e.g., “A*” and “A” or “4*”, “4”, and “3”) can be defined based on justified motivations (e.g., the goal is to unpack the most originally and rigorously produced knowledge, which is the hallmark of premier journals, such as those ranked “A*” and “A” by the Australian Business Deans Council [ABDC] Journal Quality List [JQL] and rated “4*”, “4”, and “3” by the Chartered Association of Business Schools [CABS] Academic Journal Guide [AJG]).

Document relevance (i.e., within the focus of the review) can be defined based on justified judgement (e.g., for a review focusing on customer engagement, articles that mention customer engagement as a passing remark without actually investigating it would be excluded).

Others: Screening process should be accomplished by beginning with the deduction of duplicate results from other databases, tracked using abstract screening to exclude unfitting studies, and ending with the full-text screening of the remaining documents.

Others: Exclusion-inclusion criteria interpretation of the abstracts/articles is obligatory when deciding whether or not the articles dealt with the matter. This step could involve removing a huge percentage of initially recognized articles.

Others: Codebook building pertains to the development of a codebook of the main descriptors within a specific field. An inductive approach can be followed and, in this case, descriptors are not established beforehand. Instead, they are established through the analysis of the articles’ content. This procedure is made up of several stages: (i) the extraction of important content from titles, abstracts, and keywords; (ii) the classification of this content to form a reduced list of the core descriptors; and (iii) revising the codebook in iterations and combining similar categories, thus developing a short list of descriptors (López-Duarte et al. 2016 , p. 512; Dabić et al. 2015 ; Vlacic et al. 2021 ).

2.4 Methods

Various methods are used to analyze the pertinent literature. Often, scholars choose a method for corpus analysis before corpus curation. Knowing the analytical technique beforehand is useful, as it allows researchers to acquire and prepare the right data in the right format. This typically occurs when scholars have decided upon and justified pursuing a specific review nomenclature upfront (e.g., bibliometric reviews) based on the problem at hand (e.g., broad domain [outlet] with a large corpus [thousands of articles], such as a premier journal that has been publishing for decades) (Donthu et al. 2021 ). However, this may not be applicable in instances where (i) scholars do not curate a corpus of articles (non-SLRs), and (ii) scholars only know the size of the corpus of articles once that corpus is curated (SLRs). Therefore, scholars may wish to decide on a method of analyzing the literature depending on (i) whether they rely on a corpus of articles (i.e., yes or no), and (ii) the size of the corpus of articles that they rely on to review the literature (i.e., n  = 0 to ∞).

When analytical techniques (e.g., bibliometric analysis, critical analysis, meta-analysis) are decoupled from review nomenclatures (e.g., bibliometric reviews, critical reviews, meta-analytical reviews), we uncover a toolbox of the following methods for use when analyzing the literature:

Bibliometric analysis measures the literature and processes data by using algorithm, arithmetic, and statistics to analyze, explore, organize, and investigate large amounts of data. This enables scholars to identify and recognize potential “hidden patterns” that could help them during the literature review process. Bibliometrics allows scholars to objectively analyze a large corpus of articles (e.g., high hundreds or more) using quantitative techniques (Donthu et al. 2021 ). There are two overarching categories for bibliometric analysis: performance analysis and science mapping. Performance analysis enables scholars to assess the productivity (publication) and impact (citation) of the literature relating to a domain, method, or theory using various quantitative metrics (e.g., average citations per publication or year, h -index, g -index, i -index). Science mapping grants scholars the ability to map the literature in that domain, method, or theory based on bibliographic data (e.g., bibliographic coupling generates thematic clusters based on similarities in shared bibliographic data [e.g., references] among citing articles; co-citation analysis generates thematic clusters based on commonly cited articles; co-occurrence analysis generates thematic clusters based on bibliographic data [e.g., keywords] that commonly appear together; PageRank analysis generates thematic clusters based on articles that are commonly cited in highly cited articles; and topic modeling generates thematic clusters based on the natural language processing of bibliographic data [e.g., article title, abstract, and keywords]). Footnote 4 Given the advancement in algorithms and technology, reviews using bibliometric analysis are considered to be smart (Kraus et al. 2021 ) and technologically-empowered (Kumar et al. 2022b ) SLRs, in which a review has harnessed the benefits of (i) the machine learning of the bibliographic data of scholarly research from technologically-empowered scientific databases, and (ii) big data analytics involving various science mapping techniques (Kumar et al. 2022c ).

Content analysis allows scholars to analyze a small to medium corpus of articles (i.e., tens to low hundreds) using quantitative and qualitative techniques. From a quantitative perspective , scholars can objectively carry out a content analysis by quantifying a specific unit of analysis . A useful method of doing so involves adopting, adapting, or developing an organizing framework . For example, Lim et al. ( 2021 ) employed an organizing (ADO-TCM) framework to quantify content in academic literature based on: (i) the categories of knowledge; (ii) the relationships between antecedents, decisions, and outcomes; and (iii) the theories, contexts, and methods used to develop the understanding for (i) and (ii). The rapid evolution of software for content analysis allows scholars to carry out complex elaborations on the corpus of analyzed articles, so much so that the most recent software enables the semi-automatic development of an organizing framework (Ammirato et al. 2022 ). From a qualitative perspective , scholars can conduct a content analysis or, more specifically, a thematic analysis , by subjectively organizing the content into themes. For example, Creevey et al. ( 2022 ) reviewed the literature on social media and luxury, providing insights on five core themes (i.e., luxury brand strategy, luxury brand social media communications, luxury consumer attitudes and perceptions, engagement, and the influence of social media on brand performance-related outcomes) generated through a content (thematic) analysis. Systematic approaches for inductive concept development through qualitative research are similarly applied in literature reviews in an attempt to reduce the subjectivity of derived themes. Following the principles of the approach by Gioia et al. ( 2012 ), Korherr and Kanbach ( 2021 ) develop a taxonomy of human-related capabilities in big data analytics. Building on a sample of 75 studies for the literature review, 33 first-order concepts are identified. These are categorized into 15 second-order themes and are finally merged into five aggregate dimensions. Using the same procedure, Leemann and Kanbach ( 2022 ) identify 240 idiosyncratic dynamic capabilities in a sample of 34 studies for their literature review. They then categorize these into 19 dynamic sub-capabilities. The advancement of technology also makes it possible to conduct content analysis using computer assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDA) software (e.g., ATLAS.ti, Nvivo, Quirkos) (Lim et al. 2022a ).

Critical analysis allows scholars to subjectively use their 3Es (i.e., exposure, expertise, and experience) to provide a critical evaluation of academic literature. This analysis is typically used in non-SLRs, and can be deployed in tandem with other analyses, such as bibliometric analysis and content analysis in SLRs, which are used to discuss consensual, contradictory, and underexplored areas of the literature. For SLRs, scholars are encouraged to engage in critical evaluations of the literature so that they can truly contribute to advancing theory and practice (Baker et al. 2022 ; Lim et al. 2022a ; Mukherjee et al. 2022b ).

Meta-analysis allows scholars to objectively establish a quantitative estimate of commonly studied relationships in the literature (Grewal et al. 2018 ). This analysis is typically employed in SLRs intending to reconcile a myriad of relationships (Lim et al. 2022a ). The relationships established are often made up of conflicting evidence (e.g., a positive or significant effect in one study, but a negative or non-significant effect in another study). However, through meta-analysis, scholars are able to identify potential factors (e.g., contexts or sociodemographic information) that may have led to the conflict.

Others: Multiple correspondence analysis helps to map the field, assessing the associations between qualitative content within a matrix of variables and cases. Homogeneity Analysis by Means of Alternating Least Squares ( HOMALS ) is also considered useful in allowing researchers to map out the intellectual structure of a variety of research fields (Gonzalez-Loureiro et al. 2015 ; Gonzalez-Louriero 2021; Obradović et al. 2021 ). HOMALS can be performed in R or used along with a matrix through SPSS software. In summary, the overall objective of this analysis is to discover a low dimensional representation of the original high dimensional space (i.e., the matrix of descriptors and articles). To measure the goodness of fit, a loss function is used. This function is used minimally, and the HOMALS algorithm is applied to the least squares loss functions in SPSS. This analysis provides a proximity map, in which articles and descriptors are shown in low-dimensional spaces (typically on two axes). Keywords are paired and each couple that appears together in a large number of articles is shown to be closer on the map and vice-versa.

When conducting a literature review, software solutions allow researchers to cover a broad range of variables, from built-in functions of statistical software packages to software orientated towards meta-analyses, and from commercial to open-source solutions. Personal preference plays a huge role, but the decision as to which software will be the most useful is entirely dependent on how complex the methods and the dataset are. Of all the commercial software providers, we have found the built-in functions of (i) R and VOSviewer most useful in performing bibliometric analysis (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017 ; R Core Team 2021 ; Van Eck and Waltman 2014 ) and (ii) Stata most useful in performing meta-analytical tasks.

Many different analytical tools have been used. These include simple document counting, citation analysis, word frequency analysis, cluster analysis, co-word analysis, and cooperation analysis (Daim et al. 2006 ). Software has also been produced for bibliometric analysis, such as the Thomson Data Analyzer (TDA), which Thomson Reuters created, and CiteSpace developed by Chen ( 2013 ). VOSviewer helps us to construct and visualize bibliometric networks, which can include articles, journals, authors, countries, and institutions, among others (Van Eck and Waltman 2014 ). These can be organized based on citations, co-citations, bibliographic coupling, or co-authorship relations. In addition, VOSviewer provides text mining functions, which can be used to facilitate a better understanding of co-occurrence networks with regards to the key terms taken from a body of scientific literature (Donthu et al. 2021 ; Wong 2018 ). Other frequently used tools include for bibliometric analysis include Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny in R, CitNetExplorer, and Gephi, among others.

2.5 Contributions

Well-conducted literature reviews may make multiple contributions to the literature as standalone, independent studies.

Generally, there are three primary contributions of literature reviews as independent studies: (i) to provide an overview of current knowledge in the domain, method, or theory, (ii) to provide an evaluation of knowledge progression in the domain, method, or theory, including the establishment of key knowledge, conflicting or inconclusive findings, and emerging and underexplored areas, and (iii) to provide a proposal for potential pathways for advancing knowledge in the domain, method, or theory (Lim et al. 2022a , p. 487). Developing theory through literature reviews can take many forms, including organizing and categorizing the literature, problematizing the literature, identifying and exposing contradictions, developing analogies and metaphors, and setting out new narratives and conceptualizations (Breslin and Gatrell 2020 ). Taken collectively, these contributions offer crystalized, evidence-based insights that both ‘mine’ and ‘prospect’ the literature, highlighting extant gaps and how they can be resolved (e.g., flags paradoxes or theoretical tensions, explaining why something has not been done, what the challenges are, and how these challenges can be overcome). These contributions can be derived through successful bibliometric analysis, content analysis, critical analysis, and meta-analysis.

Additionally, the deployment of specific methods can bring in further added value. For example, a performance analysis in a bibliometric analysis can contribute to: (i) objectively assessing and reporting research productivity and impact ; (ii) ascertaining reach for coverage claims ; (iii) identifying social dominance and hidden biases ; (iv) detecting anomalies ; and (v) evaluating ( equitable ) relative performance ; whereas science mapping in bibliometric analysis can contribute to: (i) objectively discovering thematic clusters of knowledge ; (ii) clarifying nomological networks ; (iii) mapping social patterns ; (iv) tracking evolutionary nuances ; and (v) recognizing knowledge gaps (Mukherjee et al. 2022b , p. 105).

3 Conclusion

Independent literature reviews will continue to be written as a result of their necessity, importance, relevance, and urgency when it comes to advancing knowledge (Lim et al. 2022a ; Mukherjee et al. 2022b ), and this can be seen in the increasing number of reviews being published over the last several years. Literature reviews advance academic discussion. Journal publications on various topics and subject areas are becoming more frequent sites for publication. This trend will only heighten the need for literature reviews. This article offers directions and control points that address the needs of three different stakeholder groups: producers (i.e., potential authors), evaluators (i.e., journal editors and reviewers), and users (i.e., new researchers looking to learn more about a particular methodological issue, and those teaching the next generation of scholars). Future producers will derive value from this article’s teachings on the different fundamental elements and methodological nuances of literature reviews. Procedural knowledge (i.e., using control points to assist in decision-making during the manuscript preparation phase) will also be of use. Evaluators will be able to make use of the procedural and declarative knowledge evident in control points as well. As previously outlined, the need to cultivate novelty within research on business and management practices is vital. Scholars must also be supported to choose not only safe mining approaches; they should also be encouraged to attempt more challenging and risky ventures. It is important to note that abstracts often seem to offer a lot of potential, stating that authors intend to make large conceptual contributions, broadening the horizons of the field.

Our article offers important insights also for practitioners. Noteworthily, our framework can support corporate managers in decomposing and better understanding literature reviews as ad-hoc and independent studies about specific topics that matter for their organization. For instance, practitioners can understand more easily what are the emerging trends within their domain of interest and make corporate decisions in line with such trends.

This article arises from an intentional decoupling from philosophy, in favor of adopting a more pragmatic approach. This approach can assist us in clarifying the fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies. Five fundamental elements must be considered: types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions. These elements offer a useful frame for scholars starting to work on a literature review. Overview articles (guides) such as ours are thus invaluable, as they equip scholars with a solid foundational understanding of the integral elements of a literature review. Scholars can then put these teachings into practice, armed with a better understanding of the philosophy that underpins the procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures of literature reviews as independent studies.

Data availability

Our manuscript has no associate data.

Our focus here is on standalone literature reviews in contrast with literature reviews that form the theoretical foundation for a research article.

Scoping reviews, structured reviews, integrative reviews, and interpretive/narrative reviews are commonly found in review nomenclature. However, the philosophy of these review nomenclatures essentially reflects what constitutes a good SLR. That is to say, a good SLR should be well scoped, structured, integrated, and interpreted/narrated. This observation reaffirms our position and the value of moving away from review nomenclatures to gain a foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies.

Given that many of these considerations can be implemented simultaneously in contemporary versions of scientific databases, scholars may choose to consolidate them into a single (or a few) step(s), where appropriate, so that they can be reported more parsimoniously. For a parsimonious but transparent and replicable exemplar, see Lim ( 2022 ).

Where keywords are present (e.g., author keywords or keywords derived from machine learning [e.g., natural language processing]), it is assumed that each keyword represents a specific meaning (e.g., topic [concept, context], method), and that a collection of keywords grouped under the same cluster represents a specific theme.

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Kraus, S., Breier, M., Lim, W.M. et al. Literature reviews as independent studies: guidelines for academic practice. Rev Manag Sci 16 , 2577–2595 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-022-00588-8

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Scholarly Articles: How can I tell?

  • Journal Information

Literature Review

  • Author and affiliation
  • Introduction
  • Specialized Vocabulary
  • Methodology
  • Research sponsors
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The literature review section of an article is a summary or analysis of all the research the author read before doing his/her own research. This section may be part of the introduction or in a section called Background. It provides the background on who has done related research, what that research has or has not uncovered and how the current research contributes to the conversation on the topic. When you read the lit review ask:

  • Does the review of the literature logically lead up to the research questions?
  • Do the authors review articles relevant to their research study?
  • Do the authors show where there are gaps in the literature?

The lit review is also a good place to find other sources you may want to read on this topic to help you get the bigger picture.

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How to Write a Literature Review

What is a literature review.

  • What Is the Literature
  • Writing the Review

A literature review is much more than an annotated bibliography or a list of separate reviews of articles and books. It is a critical, analytical summary and synthesis of the current knowledge of a topic. Thus it should compare and relate different theories, findings, etc, rather than just summarize them individually. In addition, it should have a particular focus or theme to organize the review. It does not have to be an exhaustive account of everything published on the topic, but it should discuss all the significant academic literature and other relevant sources important for that focus.

This is meant to be a general guide to writing a literature review: ways to structure one, what to include, how it supplements other research. For more specific help on writing a review, and especially for help on finding the literature to review, sign up for a Personal Research Session .

The specific organization of a literature review depends on the type and purpose of the review, as well as on the specific field or topic being reviewed. But in general, it is a relatively brief but thorough exploration of past and current work on a topic. Rather than a chronological listing of previous work, though, literature reviews are usually organized thematically, such as different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or specific issues or concepts involved in the topic. A thematic organization makes it much easier to examine contrasting perspectives, theoretical approaches, methodologies, findings, etc, and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of, and point out any gaps in, previous research. And this is the heart of what a literature review is about. A literature review may offer new interpretations, theoretical approaches, or other ideas; if it is part of a research proposal or report it should demonstrate the relationship of the proposed or reported research to others' work; but whatever else it does, it must provide a critical overview of the current state of research efforts. 

Literature reviews are common and very important in the sciences and social sciences. They are less common and have a less important role in the humanities, but they do have a place, especially stand-alone reviews.

Types of Literature Reviews

There are different types of literature reviews, and different purposes for writing a review, but the most common are:

  • Stand-alone literature review articles . These provide an overview and analysis of the current state of research on a topic or question. The goal is to evaluate and compare previous research on a topic to provide an analysis of what is currently known, and also to reveal controversies, weaknesses, and gaps in current work, thus pointing to directions for future research. You can find examples published in any number of academic journals, but there is a series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles. Writing a stand-alone review is often an effective way to get a good handle on a topic and to develop ideas for your own research program. For example, contrasting theoretical approaches or conflicting interpretations of findings can be the basis of your research project: can you find evidence supporting one interpretation against another, or can you propose an alternative interpretation that overcomes their limitations?
  • Part of a research proposal . This could be a proposal for a PhD dissertation, a senior thesis, or a class project. It could also be a submission for a grant. The literature review, by pointing out the current issues and questions concerning a topic, is a crucial part of demonstrating how your proposed research will contribute to the field, and thus of convincing your thesis committee to allow you to pursue the topic of your interest or a funding agency to pay for your research efforts.
  • Part of a research report . When you finish your research and write your thesis or paper to present your findings, it should include a literature review to provide the context to which your work is a contribution. Your report, in addition to detailing the methods, results, etc. of your research, should show how your work relates to others' work.

A literature review for a research report is often a revision of the review for a research proposal, which can be a revision of a stand-alone review. Each revision should be a fairly extensive revision. With the increased knowledge of and experience in the topic as you proceed, your understanding of the topic will increase. Thus, you will be in a better position to analyze and critique the literature. In addition, your focus will change as you proceed in your research. Some areas of the literature you initially reviewed will be marginal or irrelevant for your eventual research, and you will need to explore other areas more thoroughly. 

Examples of Literature Reviews

See the series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles to find many examples of stand-alone literature reviews in the biomedical, physical, and social sciences. 

Research report articles vary in how they are organized, but a common general structure is to have sections such as:

  • Abstract - Brief summary of the contents of the article
  • Introduction - A explanation of the purpose of the study, a statement of the research question(s) the study intends to address
  • Literature review - A critical assessment of the work done so far on this topic, to show how the current study relates to what has already been done
  • Methods - How the study was carried out (e.g. instruments or equipment, procedures, methods to gather and analyze data)
  • Results - What was found in the course of the study
  • Discussion - What do the results mean
  • Conclusion - State the conclusions and implications of the results, and discuss how it relates to the work reviewed in the literature review; also, point to directions for further work in the area

Here are some articles that illustrate variations on this theme. There is no need to read the entire articles (unless the contents interest you); just quickly browse through to see the sections, and see how each section is introduced and what is contained in them.

The Determinants of Undergraduate Grade Point Average: The Relative Importance of Family Background, High School Resources, and Peer Group Effects , in The Journal of Human Resources , v. 34 no. 2 (Spring 1999), p. 268-293.

This article has a standard breakdown of sections:

  • Introduction
  • Literature Review
  • Some discussion sections

First Encounters of the Bureaucratic Kind: Early Freshman Experiences with a Campus Bureaucracy , in The Journal of Higher Education , v. 67 no. 6 (Nov-Dec 1996), p. 660-691.

This one does not have a section specifically labeled as a "literature review" or "review of the literature," but the first few sections cite a long list of other sources discussing previous research in the area before the authors present their own study they are reporting.

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How to Review a Journal Article

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For many kinds of assignments, like a  literature review , you may be asked to offer a critique or review of a journal article. This is an opportunity for you as a scholar to offer your  qualified opinion  and  evaluation  of how another scholar has composed their article, argument, and research. That means you will be expected to go beyond a simple  summary  of the article and evaluate it on a deeper level. As a college student, this might sound intimidating. However, as you engage with the research process, you are becoming immersed in a particular topic, and your insights about the way that topic is presented are valuable and can contribute to the overall conversation surrounding your topic.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!

Some disciplines, like Criminal Justice, may only want you to summarize the article without including your opinion or evaluation. If your assignment is to summarize the article only, please see our literature review handout.

Before getting started on the critique, it is important to review the article thoroughly and critically. To do this, we recommend take notes,  annotating , and reading the article several times before critiquing. As you read, be sure to note important items like the thesis, purpose, research questions, hypotheses, methods, evidence, key findings, major conclusions, tone, and publication information. Depending on your writing context, some of these items may not be applicable.

Questions to Consider

To evaluate a source, consider some of the following questions. They are broken down into different categories, but answering these questions will help you consider what areas to examine. With each category, we recommend identifying the strengths and weaknesses in each since that is a critical part of evaluation.

Evaluating Purpose and Argument

  • How well is the purpose made clear in the introduction through background/context and thesis?
  • How well does the abstract represent and summarize the article’s major points and argument?
  • How well does the objective of the experiment or of the observation fill a need for the field?
  • How well is the argument/purpose articulated and discussed throughout the body of the text?
  • How well does the discussion maintain cohesion?

Evaluating the Presentation/Organization of Information

  • How appropriate and clear is the title of the article?
  • Where could the author have benefited from expanding, condensing, or omitting ideas?
  • How clear are the author’s statements? Challenge ambiguous statements.
  • What underlying assumptions does the author have, and how does this affect the credibility or clarity of their article?
  • How objective is the author in his or her discussion of the topic?
  • How well does the organization fit the article’s purpose and articulate key goals?

Evaluating Methods

  • How appropriate are the study design and methods for the purposes of the study?
  • How detailed are the methods being described? Is the author leaving out important steps or considerations?
  • Have the procedures been presented in enough detail to enable the reader to duplicate them?

Evaluating Data

  • Scan and spot-check calculations. Are the statistical methods appropriate?
  • Do you find any content repeated or duplicated?
  • How many errors of fact and interpretation does the author include? (You can check on this by looking up the references the author cites).
  • What pertinent literature has the author cited, and have they used this literature appropriately?

Following, we have an example of a summary and an evaluation of a research article. Note that in most literature review contexts, the summary and evaluation would be much shorter. This extended example shows the different ways a student can critique and write about an article.

Chik, A. (2012). Digital gameplay for autonomous foreign language learning: Gamers’ and language teachers’ perspectives. In H. Reinders (ed.),  Digital games in language learning and teaching  (pp. 95-114). Eastbourne, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Be sure to include the full citation either in a reference page or near your evaluation if writing an  annotated bibliography .

In Chik’s article “Digital Gameplay for Autonomous Foreign Language Learning: Gamers’ and Teachers’ Perspectives”, she explores the ways in which “digital gamers manage gaming and gaming-related activities to assume autonomy in their foreign language learning,” (96) which is presented in contrast to how teachers view the “pedagogical potential” of gaming. The research was described as an “umbrella project” consisting of two parts. The first part examined 34 language teachers’ perspectives who had limited experience with gaming (only five stated they played games regularly) (99). Their data was recorded through a survey, class discussion, and a seven-day gaming trial done by six teachers who recorded their reflections through personal blog posts. The second part explored undergraduate gaming habits of ten Hong Kong students who were regular gamers. Their habits were recorded through language learning histories, videotaped gaming sessions, blog entries of gaming practices, group discussion sessions, stimulated recall sessions on gaming videos, interviews with other gamers, and posts from online discussion forums. The research shows that while students recognize the educational potential of games and have seen benefits of it in their lives, the instructors overall do not see the positive impacts of gaming on foreign language learning.

The summary includes the article’s purpose, methods, results, discussion, and citations when necessary.

This article did a good job representing the undergraduate gamers’ voices through extended quotes and stories. Particularly for the data collection of the undergraduate gamers, there were many opportunities for an in-depth examination of their gaming practices and histories. However, the representation of the teachers in this study was very uneven when compared to the students. Not only were teachers labeled as numbers while the students picked out their own pseudonyms, but also when viewing the data collection, the undergraduate students were more closely examined in comparison to the teachers in the study. While the students have fifteen extended quotes describing their experiences in their research section, the teachers only have two of these instances in their section, which shows just how imbalanced the study is when presenting instructor voices.

Some research methods, like the recorded gaming sessions, were only used with students whereas teachers were only asked to blog about their gaming experiences. This creates a richer narrative for the students while also failing to give instructors the chance to have more nuanced perspectives. This lack of nuance also stems from the emphasis of the non-gamer teachers over the gamer teachers. The non-gamer teachers’ perspectives provide a stark contrast to the undergraduate gamer experiences and fits neatly with the narrative of teachers not valuing gaming as an educational tool. However, the study mentioned five teachers that were regular gamers whose perspectives are left to a short section at the end of the presentation of the teachers’ results. This was an opportunity to give the teacher group a more complex story, and the opportunity was entirely missed.

Additionally, the context of this study was not entirely clear. The instructors were recruited through a master’s level course, but the content of the course and the institution’s background is not discussed. Understanding this context helps us understand the course’s purpose(s) and how those purposes may have influenced the ways in which these teachers interpreted and saw games. It was also unclear how Chik was connected to this masters’ class and to the students. Why these particular teachers and students were recruited was not explicitly defined and also has the potential to skew results in a particular direction.

Overall, I was inclined to agree with the idea that students can benefit from language acquisition through gaming while instructors may not see the instructional value, but I believe the way the research was conducted and portrayed in this article made it very difficult to support Chik’s specific findings.

Some professors like you to begin an evaluation with something positive but isn’t always necessary.

The evaluation is clearly organized and uses transitional phrases when moving to a new topic.

This evaluation includes a summative statement that gives the overall impression of the article at the end, but this can also be placed at the beginning of the evaluation.

This evaluation mainly discusses the representation of data and methods. However, other areas, like organization, are open to critique.

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A literature review of the research on students’ evaluation of teaching in higher education.

Luying Zhao&#x;

  • 1 Marxism School, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China
  • 2 School of Health Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
  • 3 School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China

Students’ evaluation of teaching is a teaching quality evaluation method and teacher performance evaluation tool commonly used in Chinese and foreign universities, and it is also a controversial hot issue in the field of teaching evaluation. At present, the research results of students’ evaluation of teaching in higher education are relatively rich, mainly focusing on reliability, validity and its influencing factors, construction of index system, problems in practical application and improvement strategies. The purpose of this article is to study the relevant research results of the current Chinese and foreign academic circles, in order to provide useful inspiration for the construction of the index system and practical application of the ideological and political theory course evaluation and teaching of Chinese college students.

Introduction

Students’ evaluations of teaching (SET) is an activity for students to evaluate teachers’ teaching effect and teaching quality, including the reliability, validity, content, form, organization, and management of teaching evaluation. In the 1920s, the earliest college student evaluation system in the world began in the United States. In 1915, Purdue University in the United States gave birth to the first student evaluation scale, and in 1927 began to use the standardized student evaluation scale to evaluate teachers’ teaching, which is considered to be the beginning of the student evaluation system ( De Neve, 1991 ; Theall et al., 2001 ). After the 1980s, the college student evaluation system began to be introduced into China while it was widely used in famous universities in western countries and became an important part of the western education system ( Tu et al., 2019 ). In 2001, the Ministry of education of the people’s Republic of China issued several opinions on Strengthening Undergraduate Teaching in Colleges and universities and improving teaching quality, which clearly pointed out that students should be involved in teaching management. Many colleges and universities across the country responded positively and gradually applied student evaluation to teaching management. Relevant research was gradually enriched, and many suggestions on student evaluation were gradually adopted and implemented by colleges and universities ( Wei and Liu, 2013 ). This article will systematically analyze the relevant theoretical achievements of the current Chinese and foreign academic circles, especially the European and American World College Students’ evaluation of teaching, in order to provide useful enlightenment for the construction of the index system and practical application of the evaluation of Ideological and political theory courses for Chinese college students.

Research methodology: Literature analysis and logical analysis

This article is a literature review, so two main approaches have been adopted: documentary analysis and logical analysis. In terms of literature analysis, a large amount of literature has been consulted in writing this article, and as there is a large body of literature relating to Students’ evaluation of teaching in higher education, the authors has followed three principles in selecting literature to read. The first is to look at the time of publication of the literature, with priority given to those published recently; the second is to look at journals and authors, with priority given to well-known journals and authors; the third is to look at citation rates, with priority given to those with high citation rates; and the fourth is to pay particular attention to the two types of articles that hold pro and con views on SET. In terms of logical analysis, this article argues that the three most critical factors associated with SET are the reliability and validity of SET, the indicator system of SET, the problems that arise in the application of SET, and the countermeasures taken. This article argues that, as a review, the four most critical factors related to SET are reliability and validity, indicator systems, problems arising in application and countermeasures to be taken, and evaluation of the above perspectives. Therefore, the logical framework of this article is: an analysis of the reliability and validity of relevant SETs in the existing literature, an analysis of the indicator system, and an analysis of the problems associated with their practical application, an evaluation of the above-mentioned views on relevant SETs, and finally, a conclusion and recommendations.

Research on the reliability and validity of students’ evaluation of teaching in higher education

In students’ evaluation of teaching, reliability refers to the degree to which students’ evaluation of teaching can stably reflect teachers’ actual teaching level, which is manifested in the stability or consistency of the evaluation results; Validity refers to whether students’ evaluation of teaching can achieve the expected goals and effects ( Hong, 2010 ). Whether, it is reliable and effective is directly related to whether students’ teaching evaluation can be applied to teachers’ teaching evaluation. According to the current research results of the academic circles, although there are many doubts about the reliability of College Students’ teaching evaluation, the traditional view that its reliability is high has not been overturned. The validity is also controversial ( Uttl, 2021 ). The mainstream view is that it is effective on the whole and has been supported by abundant literature.

Views on the reliability of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

A skeptical view of the reliability of student’s evaluation of teaching.

In the early research, due to the limitation of research design and method, scholars mostly used the average score of the class to measure the reliability of students’ teaching evaluation. Since this method ignored the differences between individual students, it exaggerated the students’ evaluation to a certain extent. Religious reliability ( Hocevar, 1991 ). With the development and application of statistics and data analysis methods, scholars began to use more scientific measurement tools to conduct empirical research on students’ teaching evaluation reliability. Cheng and Zhang (2016) tested the reliability of the samples from three levels: “inter-student reliability,” “intra-course consistency” and “inter-item reliability,” and concluded that the reliability index inflated due to scoring inertia It cannot explain the reliability of the teaching evaluation results, but shows that the reliability measurement contains more interference information. Gao et al. (2010) and other scholars used the intraclass correlation coefficient to comprehensively evaluate the reliability of students’ teaching evaluation and found that: in various indicators, students’ scores on teachers’ teaching are relatively consistent, so they can be It is judged that its rater reliability is high.

A favorable view of the reliability of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

In contrast to Gao et al. (2010) and Morley (2012) and other scholars used the intra class correlation coefficient to comprehensively evaluate the reliability of students’ teaching evaluation and found that students’ scores of teachers’ teaching are relatively consistent in all indicators, so it can be judged that their raters have high reliability also believe that the SET tool used in universities is reasonable, reliable, and effective.

Viewpoints on the validity of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

View of sufficient effectiveness.

He (2017) pointed out in his research that college students, as classroom participants and stakeholders, have the most say in the teaching effect, and have the necessary cognitive and judgment skills, so students’ evaluation of teaching is scientific, objective and accurate. Li et al. (2017) believe that compared with other teaching evaluation models, student evaluation of teaching has a more direct and economical advantage, and establishes a teaching system that is mainly based on student evaluation and supplemented by expert evaluation and peer evaluation. A quality assurance system is available. Foreign studies have also pointed out that, from the long-term practice of the student evaluation system in many colleges and universities, although there are doubts, its effectiveness is worthy of recognition ( Chau, 1997 ). Numerous colleges and universities in North America, Europe, and Asia are using student evaluations as a valid indicator to measure teaching effectiveness, or as one of the determinants of teacher promotion, tenure, pay-for-performance, or professional development ( Chen and Hoshower, 2003 ). Cashin and Downey (1992) even argue that student evaluations are more reliable and valid than any other data and can be used to improve teachers’ teaching.

View of insufficient effectiveness

Wang and Guan (2017) and Zhou and Qin (2018) believe that students’ teaching evaluation is students’ subjective value judgment of teachers’ teaching. Students may have unclear cognition of teaching evaluation or negative random evaluation, which leads to the deviation of teaching evaluation results and is difficult to truly reflect the problems in teaching practice. Gu et al. (2021) believes that students are still in the process of knowledge accumulation, and the dislocation of teaching evaluation subjects and perspectives caused by students’ teaching evaluation makes it difficult for them to accurately grasp the information of teaching activities, resulting in evaluation distortion. Morley (2012) , Spooren et al. (2013) and other foreign scholars pointed out that although the methods of measuring the effectiveness of students’ teaching evaluation in some typical studies are widely spread, some of them have logical problems, and educators have only reached a consensus on some characteristics of proving the effectiveness of teaching. Based on these characteristics, the effectiveness of students’ teaching evaluation cannot be clearly defined. Galbraith et al. (2012) also believes that the existing evidence is insufficient to support the effectiveness of SET as a general indicator to evaluate the teaching effect or student learning effect. This paragraph should be deleted) Wolfgang Stroebe (2020) also thinks that the existing evidence shows that students’ evaluation of teaching (sets) can not measure the teaching effect.

Factors affecting the reliability and validity of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

Since reliability is a necessary condition for validity, the effectiveness of student evaluation of teaching needs to be supported by reliable evaluation results, so the academic circles generally consider the factors affecting reliability and validity comprehensively. According to the current research results, the influencing factors can be divided into two categories: teaching factors and non-teaching factors. Teaching factors include teaching methods, teaching contents, teaching attitudes, teaching means, etc. Non-teaching factors include students’ individual factors, such as grade, gender, specialty, academic achievement, teaching evaluation attitude, etc.; teachers’ personal factors, such as teachers’ age, gender, professional title, teachers’ favorite degree by students ( Dennis, 2022 ); and curriculum factors, such as course form, course time, course importance, course difficulty, etc. As the teaching factors themselves belong to the content covered by the students’ evaluation of teaching, their influence on the evaluation results is positive. Therefore, the discussion of the influencing factors in the academic circles mainly focuses on the non-teaching factors that cause the deviation of the evaluation results.

Chinese scholars’ research on the influencing factors of College Students’ teaching evaluation is mainly to collect the data of influencing factor assumptions from students through questionnaires and interviews, and combined with the teaching evaluation results of specific colleges and universities, use statistical methods to select appropriate models for data analysis, so as to draw conclusions. Pan and Zhang (2016) concluded through empirical research that students’ subjective cognitive factors have a greater impact on the effectiveness of teaching evaluation than objective factors such as grade, gender, academic achievement, and so on. Li and Meng (2020) used the research method of grounded theory to draw a conclusion that students’ evaluation of teaching is affected by four factors: students, teachers, schools, and courses. If it is not handled properly, it is prone to adverse selection, which affects the effectiveness of teaching evaluation and the quality of school teaching. Long (2019) pointed out after analyzing the teaching evaluation data of students in Shantou University business school that there is no inevitable positive correlation between the teaching evaluation scores obtained by teachers and students’ grades of the course, and the teaching workload of teachers has a significant negative impact on the teaching evaluation scores.

Western scholars’ research on the influencing factors of students’ teaching evaluation is more comprehensive, systematic, and in-depth than domestic. However, because the influencing factors of students’ teaching evaluation are too numerous, and there are certain differences in the survey objects selected by different students, there is no agreement on the degree of influence of each factor. Gallagher (2000) , Ginexi (2003) , Heckert et al. (2006) , and other scholars found through research that students’ characteristics (such as gender, personality, expected score of curriculum, emotion toward teachers, grade, learning expectation, major, attitude toward curriculum and teaching evaluation, the proportion of students participating in teaching evaluation in the total number of students, confidence in the effectiveness and influence of their teaching evaluation results, etc.), Teachers’ characteristics (such as gender, age, educational background, rank, relationship with students, charm and image, etc.) and curriculum characteristics (such as curriculum time, class size, curriculum nature, assessment form, etc.), and even whether the evaluation of teaching is anonymous, and whether the evaluated teachers participate in the evaluation process may have varying degrees of impact on the evaluation behavior of college students in a specific way ( Kekale, 2000 ).

Research on the indicators of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

In the process of college students’ teaching evaluation, reasonable teaching evaluation indicators are particularly important. It plays a key role in the accuracy and influence of teaching evaluation results, and is the premise and basis for students’ teaching evaluation to help improve teaching quality. The research and analysis of college students’ teaching evaluation index includes not only the construction of the specific content of the teaching evaluation index, but also the discussion of the theoretical principles that should be followed in the construction of the index. As the central link of college students’ teaching evaluation, the research on teaching evaluation indicators will provide valuable reference for improving students’ teaching evaluation system.

Principles of constructing teaching evaluation indicators for college students

According to the current research results, the most common view in the academic circle on the construction principle of teaching evaluation indicators is to adhere to the “student-centered.” The view of “student-centered” originated from the “child-centered theory” of American educator and psychologist John Dewey, which emphasizes that the essential purpose of education is to promote the comprehensive and harmonious development of students ( Ye, 2000 ). The student-centered evaluation index system requires that the evaluation scale should be designed from the perspective of students, based on students’ cognitive level and actual needs, and based on students’ real feelings and gains. Students’ development should become the starting point and foothold of building the teaching evaluation index system ( Lv, 2014 ).

In addition to the mainstream views, scholars such as Wu et al. (2015) also believe that the design of the index system of college students’ teaching evaluation should at least include the characteristics of orientation, academic, interaction, difference, measurability and growth. Jiang and Xiong (2021) pointed out that after analyzing the evaluation indicators of four national universities in Japan, students’ learning behavior and emotional investment should be included in the evaluation index system, and more students’ “learning” should be included in the evaluation field. Tsou (2020) proposed to use AHP to integrate student evaluation, expert evaluation, and regular teaching assessment into the teaching evaluation system to form a new method of “same platform evaluation.” Ching (2019) believes that in order to develop relevant and constructive set indicators, the participation of important stakeholders, such as school managers, teachers and students, is essential, and more importantly, the service attributes that students want (power, rich experience and experience) should be taken into account.

Contents of the teaching evaluation indicators of college students

In the specific content design of college students’ teaching evaluation indicators, Chinese scholars generally agree with the setting mode of secondary indicators. Yan and Wei (2016) believes that the setting of student evaluation indicators should follow the teaching principles of constructivism theory, highlight the core concept of teacher led and student-centered, design secondary indicators covering six aspects: teaching methods, teaching content, teaching attitude, teacher ethics and style, learning elements, learning effects, and set open questions for students to express their opinions and suggestions. Zhang et al. (2017) started with five first-level indicators of teaching attitude, teaching implementation, Teaching means and methods, teaching ability and level, and teaching effect based on literature research and teaching evaluation experience in colleges and universities. There are 33 secondary evaluation indicators based on learning theory and closely related to teaching quality, covering all aspects of the teaching process. Wu et al. (2015) , from the perspective of systems theory, combined teaching evaluation theory, Chinese and other teaching evaluation cases and empirical research results, and designed a comprehensive index covering teaching enthusiasm, teaching organization, learning value, and teacher-student relationship, teaching content, teaching interaction, homework and assessment of 7 single indicators of evaluation index system. It is also worth mentioning that Zhang et al. (2019) optimized the student evaluation index system based on the new era’s requirements for higher education teaching quality, and constructed an index system of three levels: general education indicators, subject sharing indicators and school specific indicators, and added the relevant contents of “moral education” and “ideological politics” to the general education indicators.

Universities in some countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia have set up special teaching evaluation and development institutions, whose members are composed of experts from different disciplines, and experts collectively discuss and formulate standardized student teaching evaluation scales. The evaluation indicators of the scale mainly refer to D. L stufflebeam’s CIPP evaluation model ( Zhou, 2012 ). The CIPP model advocates helping managers (the makers of the indicator system) to systematically obtain and use evaluation feedback information in order to meet their needs or to utilize information resources as much as possible. Most of the colleges and universities in Western countries refer to this model, starting from the traditional student evaluation index, and divide it into three dimensions: background condition, process, and result to design evaluation index to systematically evaluate teacher teaching ( Kellaghan and Stufflebeam, 2003 ; Zhao, 2010 ). Another SEEQ model has also been praised by foreign universities. The SEEQ evaluation index is composed of four parts: core index, characteristics of students and courses, additional index (supplementary questions) and open evaluation. Among them, the core index requires students to evaluate nine parts of teachers’ teaching. These nine parts include Academic, emotional, organizational, collaboration, personal communication, curriculum development, assessment, homework, and overall impression of teachers ( Richardson, 2005 ; Marsh, 2007 ; Schellhase, 2010 ). Chinese scholars Jiang and Lu (2019) also found in their research on the students’ teaching evaluation system in ten first-class foreign universities that Stanford, MIT, Cornell and other colleges and universities evaluate students’ overall experience of the course and achieve the learning goals of the course. The evaluation of the situation and the evaluation of knowledge acquisition and skill development are included in the student evaluation index.

Research on the problems and countermeasures in the practical application of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

Since the student evaluation system has been widely used in major colleges and universities in the world, it has not only achieved certain results, but also exposed many problems in practical application. The academic circles have abundant research results on the problems and improvement strategies in the practice of college students’ teaching evaluation. Although the opinions of various scholars are occasionally lacking, they are generally similar. This article summarizes the main points of view.

Problems existing in the practice of teaching evaluation by college students

First, the function of teaching evaluation is alienated. There is a game between teaching managers, teachers and students in the existing student teaching evaluation system, that is, managers focus more on teachers’ “teaching” rather than students’ “learning.” Exaggerating the degree of teaching evaluation’s response to teachers’ teaching level weakens its function of teaching improvement ( Becker and William, 2000 ; Jiang et al., 2018 ; Liang et al., 2020 ). Second, the evaluation index system is unscientific. According to the existing research, the unscientific aspects of teaching evaluation indicators are mainly reflected in the neglect of the subject status of students in teaching evaluation, the failure to distinguish the evaluation indicators of different professional courses, the too many invalid indicators and the complicated content, and the lack of theoretical guidance for the construction of the indicator system, etc ( Ching, 2019 ; Sun, 2021 ). Constantinou and Wijnen-Meijer (2022) also pointed out that students, peers, curriculum managers and self-evaluation should be included in teaching evaluation ( Chan, 2019 ). Third, the use of teaching evaluation results is unreasonable. In many colleges and universities, students’ teaching evaluation is a mere formality, only using quantitative scores to evaluate teachers’ performance, ignoring the value of qualitative teaching evaluation data; at the same time, the processing of teaching evaluation data is too simplistic, and a reasonable result feedback mechanism has not been formed ( Chan, 2019 ). Fourth, the management system is imperfect. Restricted by subjective and objective conditions, at present, the management of students’ teaching evaluation in Colleges and universities at home and abroad is relatively extensive ( Li et al., 2019 ), most of which are implemented by educational administration departments or entrusted to third-party evaluation institutions for operation, and few of them set up special organizations or establish clear rules and regulations to standardize the implementation of teaching evaluation.

Improvement strategies for student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education

In view of the problems existing in the actual operation of College Students’ teaching evaluation, scholars at home and abroad have given suggestions for improvement from different angles. Sun and Sun (2020) believe that the failure of students’ teaching evaluation is caused by various games in teaching evaluation, and the fundamental solution is to change the function from the role of personnel management and summative evaluation of teachers. Tools, transforming into links and means of the ongoing process of diagnosing and developing teacher teaching. Long and Wang (2019) pointed out in their research that the use of the student teaching evaluation system should clarify the value, clarify the standards, and set the rules, and conduct a comprehensive evaluation from the aspects of clarifying the purpose of evaluation, optimizing the evaluation indicators, enriching the evaluation forms, and rationally using the results. It is comprehensively constructed to realize the teaching academic value of students’ evaluation of teaching. Xu (2017) believes that timely self-improvement is an important part of the new student teaching evaluation system, so the student teaching evaluation process should be optimized based on the principle of continuous improvement, and a problem tracking and monitoring guarantee mechanism should be established. Through his research, Svinicki (2010) showed that open evaluation plays an important role in students’ teaching evaluation. The limitation of pure quantitative evaluation on students’ expression should be reduced as much as possible and more open possibilities should be provided in terms of teaching evaluation indicators. Marsh and Herbert (1987) put the perspective on the feedback of teaching evaluation results, and believed that the influence and effectiveness of students’ teaching evaluation results can be expanded through three feedback methods: summary of students’ teaching evaluation results, summary materials for each teacher, and teaching expert advice given in combination with students’ teaching evaluation results. Hassanein et al. (2012) concluded from a SET study conducted in nursing schools that improving the teaching evaluation process must take into account the diversity of student characteristics, student evaluation goals, teaching methods, and institutional context.

Comments on existing research

Research perspective.

The original intention of the student evaluation system is to let students, as the main body of teaching, evaluate teachers’ teaching behavior. However, with the popularization and development of the system in colleges and universities around the world, the conflicts of interest among teaching managers, teachers and students in teaching evaluation are gradually revealed. In this game, managers put the focus of students’ teaching evaluation on teachers, and take teaching evaluation as a simple and effective tool to measure teachers’ performance. In fact, students’ expression of teachers’ teaching is limited and controllable. In the current research results, scholars at home and abroad have a more profound understanding of the absence of students’ evaluation of teaching, generally shifting the research perspective to the concept of “student-centered” evaluation of teaching, and considering “the actual needs of students” and “promoting the all-round development of students” in the research of various parts such as the function, content and results of evaluation of teaching. However, the current research perspective is lack of comprehensiveness, and the seemingly reasonable transformation cannot resolve the contradiction between the three in the student evaluation system. Overemphasizing the student standard will magnify the deviation of the system in the evaluation of teachers’ teaching quality, and increase the cost and burden of teaching managers.

Research contents

The academic research on college students’ teaching evaluation mainly focuses on reliability, validity and its influencing factors, evaluation indicators, deficiencies in practical application and improvement strategies, among which the research results on the effectiveness of teaching evaluation are the most abundant. With the wide application of the student teaching evaluation system, the research scope of validity has expanded from the initial analysis of rationality to the research on the reliability of students’ teaching evaluation results and the final validity of students’ teaching evaluation. In terms of influencing factors, although researchers have formed a relatively unified view on its main categories, due to the large number of subtle factors and different research perspectives, the influence results of specific factors are also different, making the research results of this part complex and full of controversy. In terms of evaluation indicators, the research on the theory of index construction has been relatively complete, and the combination of qualitative and quantitative evaluation can generally be used, which reflects the academic quality of index construction. However, there are still different strengths and weaknesses in the design of specific evaluation indicators, and there is a lack of a comprehensive, systematic and authoritative index design framework, so it is difficult to form a unified opinion and promote its application. In terms of problems and countermeasures in practice, scholars at home and abroad have relatively unanimous opinions on the problems existing in the current teaching evaluation process of college students, and have carried out a relatively comprehensive analysis. However, the countermeasures proposed for the problem are too vague and unconvincing, and it is necessary to further verify and concretize them in the application process to obtain more effective improvement suggestions.

Research methods

At present, scholars’ research on students’ teaching evaluation system is no longer limited to literature, but more to empirical investigation and statistical analysis. In recent years, in terms of the reliability and validity of students’ teaching evaluation and its influencing factors, more and more researchers have used statistical methods such as independence test, multiple regression analysis, ordered regression model (OLM) to analyze the data of students’ teaching evaluation. The correct and reasonable use of appropriate data processing methods has significantly improved the scientificity of the research on the effectiveness of students’ teaching evaluation. In order to build a scientific and reasonable evaluation index, researchers prefer to use questionnaires, interviews, random sampling and other methods to conduct empirical research on the subjects and cases of teaching evaluation in colleges and universities. However, a good empirical study is extremely difficult to operate, which requires a large sample size and will also cost more time, human resources and other resources. Therefore, the evidence of empirical research in the current results is still relatively shallow, and we can try to combine it with big data and artificial intelligence algorithms to supplement it with diversified research methods.

Research trends

According to the current research trend in academia, first of all, researchers will continue to explore the influencing factors of students’ teaching evaluation. The influencing factors of college students’ teaching evaluation are extremely complex, but it is extremely important to overcome the negative effects of interfering factors and improve the limitation of students’ teaching evaluation. Therefore, the research on this issue in academic circles will continue to deepen. Secondly, the rapid development of the Internet has innovated the form of students’ teaching evaluation, and students’ online teaching evaluation has become the current mainstream model. While online teaching evaluation brings convenience to the students’ teaching evaluation system, new problems such as the weakening of the realism of the scene and the difficulty of supervising the process have also appeared. In addition, how to solve the shortcomings of the online teaching evaluation system, such as strong subjectivity of students, low teacher participation, and imperfect application of result feedback, is also becoming a problem worth exploring for researchers. Finally, the integrated development of multi-disciplinary and multi-angle will be the key direction of future research on the teaching evaluation system of college students. Scholars have found in their research that the content involved in the student evaluation system is far beyond the field of education, and its scope also covers psychology, sociology, statistics, economics and many other disciplines. Therefore, some researchers have integrated and analyzed student evaluation of teaching with other disciplines. It is foreseeable that in future research, scholars will view the improvement and development of the student evaluation system from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Conclusion and recommendations

In this article, we have provided a more in-depth analysis of the theories and methods of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education in China and abroad, and point out the desirable experiences and shortcomings of them. Firstly, in terms of the reliability and validity of student’s evaluation of teaching, the current research has made great progress in terms of validation methods, and some scholars have been able to use appropriate data analysis models to improve the persuasiveness of the results. Secondly, the research on the theory and structure of the evaluation indicators for university students generally revolves around the “student-centered theory” and “secondary indicator structure,” the rationality of which has been confirmed; however, the academic circle has not yet formed a unified opinion or standard on the selection of the specific content of the evaluation indicators. However, there is no unified opinion or standard on the selection of the specific content of evaluation indicators, and fewer scholars have paid attention to the differentiation of the indicators for different courses. Finally, regarding the problems and countermeasures in the application of student’s evaluation of teaching in higher education, current research has analyzed the process of student’s evaluation of teaching from the aspects of purpose, indicator system, application of results and process management in an all-round way and found the shortcomings, however, the scholars’ expressions of improvement measures are still abstract and lack of pertinence, making it difficult to carry out concrete operations. In view of the above analysis, this article improves the research on student’s evaluation in Western higher education from a Chinese perspective, and at the same time provides a reference for the construction of an indicator system for student evaluation in Chinese universities, taking into account the actual situation of Chinese universities. The future research will be based on the successful experience of student evaluation in universities, improve the problems, explore the influence mechanism of different factors on student evaluation in universities, optimize the indicator system and management system of student evaluation, especially the indicator system of student evaluation in ideological and political theory courses in Chinese higher education will be constructed in accordance with the characteristics of Chinese ideological and political theory courses, so as to improve the teaching quality of ideological and political theory courses in Chinese higher education. We will make our contribution to improving the teaching quality of ideological and political theory courses in Chinese higher education.

Author contributions

SY: conceptualization, resources, writing-review and editing, and supervision. SY, LZ, and PX: methodology. LZ and PX: formal analysis. LZ and YC: investigation. SY and YC: project administration. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was funded by National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for Undergraduate (No. 202210316091Y).

Acknowledgments

We thank all authors for their participation in this study and their insightful comments during the revision process.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: students’ evaluation of teaching, review, comments, higher education, indicator systems

Citation: Zhao L, Xu P, Chen Y and Yan S (2022) A literature review of the research on students’ evaluation of teaching in higher education. Front. Psychol . 13:1004487. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1004487

Received: 27 July 2022; Accepted: 29 August 2022; Published: 29 September 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Zhao, Xu, Chen and Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Shuangsheng Yan, [email protected]

† These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship

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  • Case report
  • Open access
  • Published: 14 February 2024

‘Skip’ osteoporosis vertebral compression fractures caused by electrical injury: a case report and review of the literature

  • Ruili Jia 1 ,
  • Yanhao Sun 2 ,
  • Chong Liu 3 ,
  • Rui-chao Liu 3 &
  • Yubin Long 2  

Journal of Medical Case Reports volume  18 , Article number:  55 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Introduction

Electrical injuries rarely result in fractures, such as long bone fractures and spinal fractures. A few articles have reported osteoporosis vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) caused by electrical injuries. Here, we present a rare case of 37-year-old male suffering from the 9th thoracic (T9) and 5th lumbar (L5) OVCFs after receiving a electric shock.

Case presentation

A 37-year-old Han male experienced an electric shock (480 V direct current) at the working time and felt immediately serious back pain. He did not fall and lose consciousness. X-ray and magnetic resonance imaging showed acute OVCFs, as well as dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry indicated osteoporosis. Normal laboratory tests can avoid secondary osteoporosis resulting from metabolic diseases and tumors. Finally, he was diagnosed with acute discontinuous OVCFs (T9 and L5). The patient denied having a history of back pain, whereas, he had a history of smoking, alcohol abuse, and congenital heart disease (tetralogy of Fallot) were associated with osteoporosis. Considering no local kyphosis and < 50% anterior body compression, we selected conservative treatment for this patient. At a 1-year and 3-year follow-up, the lateral thoracic and lumbar radiography demonstrated no instability of the spine, and the back pain has been relieved.

Conclusions

This rare case reminds us the importance of consulting a detailed medical history when we encounter young patients receiving electrical injuries. Discontinuously OVCFs must not be overlooked, even though we encounter a young man.

Peer Review reports

Fractures caused by electric shock are not very common. According to previous articles [ 1 , 2 ], the most common fractures after electrical injuries were posterior fracture dislocation of the humeral head, humeral neck fractures, or scapular fractures, while vertebral fractures were extremely rare [ 3 , 4 ], especially vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). Osteoporosis vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs), the most common osteoporotic fracture in the aging population, commonly lead to severe pain among symptomatic patients [ 5 ], which is often induced by minimal trauma such as low-grade fall or slip down injury [ 6 ]. Regarding vertebral fractures, Wimar [ 3 ] showed a rare case of lumbar burst fracture due to low voltage shock, and Sinha [ 4 ] presented a case of thoracic compression fracture caused by electrically induced injury. Furthermore, in terms of OVCFs, to our best knowledge, only a case has been reported by Jeon [ 7 ] in which a 76-year old female patient suffered from acute OVCF at the thoracic spine after using an electrical automated massage chair. In clinical practice, the treatment can be divided into surgical treatment and conservative treatment, including nonpharmacological and pharmacological methods, such as supplementary calcium, vitamin D, anti-resorptive agents, hormone therapy, and anabolic agents [ 8 ].

To our knowledge, there has been no case report focusing on discontinuous OVCFs caused by electrical injuries. We present a rare case of a 37-year-old man with the 9th thoracic and 5th lumbar OVCFs as a result of an electrical injury.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the institutional review board of our hospital before data collection and analysis. There is no need to write informed consent forms from patients because this is a retrospective study.

A 37-year-old Han man with a dominant right hand, a factory worker with a history of smoking, alcohol abuse, and receiving heart surgery due to congenital heart disease (tetralogy of Fallot), was hospitalized after an electric shock (480 V direct current). He suffered from an electrical shock while preparing to change the wires of a machine. According to the statement of the patient and eyewitness (coworkers), this patient drew back his left hand instantaneously and then tossed it into the arms of his colleagues, feeling immediately serious back pain. The patient recalled that his back was forcefully contracted and stretched excessively at the time of the injury. He did not fall and lose consciousness during the accident.

Physical examination revealed restricted back mobility, discomfort, and percussion pain in the 9th thoracic (T9) and 5th lumber (L5) areas. Functions (sensory and motor) of all peripheral nerves were tested and were normal. He denied chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath and the history of back pain. Lateral X-rays of the thoracic and lumber regions revealed T9 and L5 vertebral compression fractures (VCFs) (Fig. 1 a, b), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI, Fig. 2 a, b) revealed acute VCFs (T9 and L5) which were commonly caused by osteoporosis [ 6 ]. Surprisingly, it was worth noting that the young patient suffered from osteoporosis, which was proved by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurement (T score was less than − 2.5 in the spine, femoral neck, and 1/3 radius). Other normal laboratory tests can avoid secondary osteoporosis caused by metabolic diseases and tumors. Finally, this patient was diagnosed with acute discontinuous OVCFs (T9 and L5). We chose anti-osteoporosis therapy, such as supplementary calcium, vitamin D, and anti-resorptive agents because there was no local kyphosis and < 50% anterior body compression. At 1-year follow-up, back pain was relieved and an X-ray showed no local kyphosis and less than 50% anterior body compression, but the height of the vertebral column was still lost, as shown in Fig. 3 a, b. The height of the vertebral column generally recovers at 3-year follow up (Fig. 4 a–d) and bone mineral density was − 2.5 in the spine, femoral neck, and 1/3 radius by DXA.

figure 1

Radiology date of the patient at the time of injury. a The lateral X-ray showed 9th thoracic (T9) vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). b The lateral X-ray showed 5th lumbar (L5) VCFs. Arrows showed the T9 and L5 fracture

figure 2

Radiology date of the patient at the time of injury. a Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed T9 VCFs. b MRI showed L5 VCFs

figure 3

Radiology date of the patient at 1-year follow-up. a The lateral X-ray showed showed T9. b The lateral X-ray showed L5

figure 4

Radiology date of the patient at 3-year follow-up. a The lateral X-ray showed showed T9. b The lateral X-ray showed L5. c Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed T9 VCFs. d MRI showed L5 VCFs. Arrows showed the T9 and L5 fracture

Electrical injuries, which cause tissue destruction and organ dysfunction, are a typical occurrence in emergency departments [ 8 ]. However, fractures, especially vertebral fractures, are uncommon. After reviewing related articles, Stone N [ 9 ] came to the conclusion that proximal humerus and scapular fractures were the most common fractures after an electrical shock. A 20-year-old man suffered a rare case of lung injury and two fractures in the arches of the C1 vertebrae after an accidental high-voltage electrocution [ 10 ]. Wimar [ 3 ] was the first to report a 62-year-old man who had a lumbar burst fracture as a result of a low-voltage electrical shock. Sinha [ 4 ] described a case of a thoracic compression fracture caused by electricity. A case of two thoracic compression fractures due to a shock from a conducted energy weapon was also reported by Winslow [ 11 ]. The thoracolumbar junction is the most commonly involved area for OVCFs [ 12 ], while low lumbar fractures account for 1.2% to 2% of all spinal injuries [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. To our knowledge, no literature has described ‘Skip’ OVCFs. As far as we know, this was the first case of a 37-year-old man experiencing discontinuous OVCFs (T9 and L5) after receiving an electrical shock without falling.

There were three possible explanations for our findings. First, the osteoporosis in this patient played a crucial role in developing VCFs. Amazingly, it was atypical for a 37-year-old man with osteoporosis. What was the best way to explain this phenomenon? After excluding some causes of secondary osteoporosis, such as metabolic diseases and tumors, we combed through his medical records and discovered possible risk factors such as his work schedule (night shift work) and a history of smoking, drinking, and the tetralogy of Fallot. Night shift work may have an indirect influence on bone physiology, which might be a risk factor for osteoporosis [ 16 ]. Smoking and alcohol abuse, both of which this patient had, were substantial risk factors for osteoporosis [ 17 , 18 , 19 ]. In addition, individuals with complicated congenital heart disease had lower overall bone mineral density than healthy controls [ 20 ]. The abovementioned might be important factors related to the patient with osteoporosis. Second, bone has the largest resistance of any biological tissue, implying that when exposed to an electrical current, it creates the most heat or energy, which may lead to fracture. Third, forceful muscle contraction due to electric shock may contribute to T9 and L5 VCFs. According to previous studies [ 3 , 4 , 10 , 11 ], the mechanism of fracture after electrical injury might be associated with forceful muscle contraction. As an example, the infraspinatus and teres minor greatly contracted along with the deltoid, latissimus dorsi, and teres major, forcing the humeral head superiorly and posteriorly against the acromion and medially against the glenoid fossa, which caused the humeral head to lodge behind the glenoid rim [ 2 ]. Similarly, strong contraction of back muscles due to electrical injury may lead to the fracture of the T9 and L5 VCFs.

To our knowledge, discontinuous OVCFs across seven segments have not been reported in patients with falling, let alone this patient receiving an electric shock. Due to its unique anatomical and biomechanical features, such as its position below the pelvic brim and the peak of the lumbar lordosis, as well as the stabilizing impact of the iliolumbar ligaments that protect this area from severe damage, a low lumbar vertebra fracture is an uncommon entity. Butler [ 15 ] described 14 cases of L5 burst fractures caused by axial compressive pressures during flexion. To our knowledge, this was the first study to describe the L5 OVCFs. We inferred that the great contraction of back muscles and energy generated by electrical current caused the L5 OVCFs. However, we did not understand the underlying mechanism of discontinuous OVCFs, which needs to be studied in the future.

Osteoporotic fracture prevention necessitates the identification of patients at risk and the use of both pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments to reduce such risk factors [ 21 ]. So far, several clinical risk factors have been discovered [ 22 ]. A variety of imaging modalities are used to assess bone condition in terms of density and quality, as well as biochemical markers. Bone metabolism studies have also been conducted. Various medications interfere with bone metabolism, especially calcium Vitamin D, anti-resorptive therapy, hormone therapy, and other treatments with anabolic steroids [ 8 ]. We chose anti-resorptive therapy for this patient because there was no local kyphosis and 50% anterior body compression, and no back discomfort was reported at 1-year follow-up, indicating that conservative therapy was also an effective method at 1-year follow-up. Loss of vertebral height still existed in the X-ray of the 1-year follow-up, but there was general recovering at the 3-year follow-up. Bone mineral density is recovery from − 2.5 at the time of injury to − 1.0 at 3-year follow-up. What we are concerned about is facet degeneration and adjacent vertebral disease, or even local kyphosis in a longer follow-up. Thus, a longer follow-up must be performed to observe changes in the curvature of the spine and recover vertebral height.

This rare case reminds us of the importance of consulting a detailed medical history, including their history, living habits, working habits, and environment, when we encounter young patients receiving electrical injuries. Fractures, especially discontinuous OVCFs as present in this case, must not be overlooked, even though we encounter a young man. Furthermore, our outcomes at 3-year follow-up demonstrate the efficacy of anti-osteoporosis therapy.

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This research was funded by the Science and Technology Project and Intellectual Prop-erty Bureau of Baoding City, China, grant number 2041ZF260; the Science and Technology Project and Intellectual Prop-erty Bureau of Baoding City, China, grant number 2241ZF245; the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China, grant number H2022104011.

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Jia, R., Sun, Y., Liu, C. et al. ‘Skip’ osteoporosis vertebral compression fractures caused by electrical injury: a case report and review of the literature. J Med Case Reports 18 , 55 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-024-04358-w

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Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.

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Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet].

Chapter 9 methods for literature reviews.

Guy Paré and Spyros Kitsiou .

9.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing the contents of many empirical and conceptual papers. Among other methods, literature reviews are essential for: (a) identifying what has been written on a subject or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) aggregating empirical findings related to a narrow research question to support evidence-based practice; (d) generating new frameworks and theories; and (e) identifying topics or questions requiring more investigation ( Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015 ).

Literature reviews can take two major forms. The most prevalent one is the “literature review” or “background” section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses ( Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013 ). It may also provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research as one that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed study ( Hart, 1998 ; Levy & Ellis, 2006 ).

The second form of literature review, which is the focus of this chapter, constitutes an original and valuable work of research in and of itself ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Rather than providing a base for a researcher’s own work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the community interested in a particular area or topic ( Mulrow, 1987 ). The so-called “review article” is a journal-length paper which has an overarching purpose to synthesize the literature in a field, without collecting or analyzing any primary data ( Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006 ).

When appropriately conducted, review articles represent powerful information sources for practitioners looking for state-of-the art evidence to guide their decision-making and work practices ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, high-quality reviews become frequently cited pieces of work which researchers seek out as a first clear outline of the literature when undertaking empirical studies ( Cooper, 1988 ; Rowe, 2014 ). Scholars who track and gauge the impact of articles have found that review papers are cited and downloaded more often than any other type of published article ( Cronin, Ryan, & Coughlan, 2008 ; Montori, Wilczynski, Morgan, Haynes, & Hedges, 2003 ; Patsopoulos, Analatos, & Ioannidis, 2005 ). The reason for their popularity may be the fact that reading the review enables one to have an overview, if not a detailed knowledge of the area in question, as well as references to the most useful primary sources ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Although they are not easy to conduct, the commitment to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one’s academic community ( Paré et al., 2015 ; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Most, if not all, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medical informatics publish review articles of some type.

The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review articles in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

As explained in Templier and Paré (2015) , there are six generic steps involved in conducting a review article:

  • formulating the research question(s) and objective(s),
  • searching the extant literature,
  • screening for inclusion,
  • assessing the quality of primary studies,
  • extracting data, and
  • analyzing data.

Although these steps are presented here in sequential order, one must keep in mind that the review process can be iterative and that many activities can be initiated during the planning stage and later refined during subsequent phases ( Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013 ; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ).

Formulating the research question(s) and objective(s): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the need for the review itself ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ), identify the review’s main objective(s) ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ; Webster & Watson, 2002 ). Importantly, they also need to articulate the research question(s) they propose to investigate ( Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ). In this regard, we concur with Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) that clearly articulated research questions are key ingredients that guide the entire review methodology; they underscore the type of information that is needed, inform the search for and selection of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent analysis. Searching the extant literature: The next step consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of material to be considered in the review ( Cooper, 1988 ). There exist three main coverage strategies. First, exhaustive coverage means an effort is made to be as comprehensive as possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of most other works in a given field or area. Often authors who adopt this strategy will search for relevant articles in a small number of top-tier journals in a field ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In the third strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that have been central or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how problems or questions were framed, introduced new methods or concepts, or engendered important debate ( Cooper, 1988 ). Screening for inclusion: The following step consists of evaluating the applicability of the material identified in the preceding step ( Levy & Ellis, 2006 ; vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). Once a group of potential studies has been identified, members of the review team must screen them to determine their relevance ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding certain studies. This exercise requires a significant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at least two independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must also be in place ( Liberati et al., 2009 ; Shea et al., 2009 ). Assessing the quality of primary studies: In addition to screening material for inclusion, members of the review team may need to assess the scientific quality of the selected studies, that is, appraise the rigour of the research design and methods. Such formal assessment, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review team refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may affect their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the data and interpret the findings ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or considering through domain-based evaluations which study components have or have not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reflect on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity ( Shea et al., 2009 ). Extracting data: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Indeed, the type of data that should be recorded mainly depends on the initial research questions ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ). However, important information may also be gathered about how, when, where and by whom the primary study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Analyzing and synthesizing data : As a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, aggregate, organize, and compare the evidence extracted from the included studies. The extracted data must be presented in a meaningful way that suggests a new contribution to the extant literature ( Jesson et al., 2011 ). Webster and Watson (2002) warn researchers that literature reviews should be much more than lists of papers and should provide a coherent lens to make sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. There exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.g., frequency analysis, meta-analysis) and qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence ( Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005 ; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

9.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations

EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic. Our classification scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues’ (2015) typology. Below we present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

9.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the “traditional” way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative interpretation of prior knowledge ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). Put simply, a narrative review attempts to summarize or synthesize what has been written on a particular topic but does not seek generalization or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed ( Davies, 2000 ; Green et al., 2006 ). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a particular point of view ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ). As such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to certain studies in order to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary articles is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences ( Green et al., 2006 ). There are several narrative reviews in the particular eHealth domain, as in all fields, which follow such an unstructured approach ( Silva et al., 2015 ; Paul et al., 2015 ).

Despite these criticisms, this type of review can be very useful in gathering together a volume of literature in a specific subject area and synthesizing it. As mentioned above, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge and highlighting the significance of new research ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Faculty like to use narrative reviews in the classroom because they are often more up to date than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and expose students to peer-reviewed literature ( Green et al., 2006 ). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, thus helping researchers to determine research questions or formulate hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can also be used as educational articles to bring practitioners up to date with certain topics of issues ( Green et al., 2006 ).

Recently, there have been several efforts to introduce more rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, have contributed to advancing knowledge on how to structure a “traditional” review. For instance, Levy and Ellis (2006) proposed a generic framework for conducting such reviews. Their model follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three steps, namely: (a) literature search and screening; (b) data extraction and analysis; and (c) writing the literature review. They provide detailed and very helpful instructions on how to conduct each step of the review process. As another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a series of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of knowledge. Last, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify primary studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified articles, synthesize and analyze the findings, and effectively write and present the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a good example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the development process of mobile health ( m-health ) interventions for patients’ cancer care self-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is broad: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions can be drawn as a result of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on six electronic databases and Google Scholar . The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate manner. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening process. Both authors independently reviewed each of the identified articles to determine eligibility and extract study information. A flow diagram shows the number of studies identified, screened, and included or excluded at each stage of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a series of practical recommendations for m-health intervention development.

9.3.2. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a body of knowledge in a particular research topic reveals any interpretable pattern or trend with respect to pre-existing propositions, theories, methodologies or findings ( King & He, 2005 ; Paré et al., 2015 ). In contrast with narrative reviews, descriptive reviews follow a systematic and transparent procedure, including searching, screening and classifying studies ( Petersen, Vakkalanka, & Kuzniarz, 2015 ). Indeed, structured search methods are used to form a representative sample of a larger group of published works ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, authors of descriptive reviews extract from each study certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, data collection techniques, and direction or strength of research outcomes (e.g., positive, negative, or non-significant) in the form of frequency analysis to produce quantitative results ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). In essence, each study included in a descriptive review is treated as the unit of analysis and the published literature as a whole provides a database from which the authors attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the state of the art in a particular domain ( King & He, 2005 ).

In the fields of health sciences and medical informatics, reviews that focus on examining the range, nature and evolution of a topic area are described by Anderson, Allen, Peckham, and Goodwin (2008) as mapping reviews . Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually relate to publication patterns and trends. There is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be done. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of most works published in a particular area and they consider a specific time frame to be mapped.

An example of this approach in the eHealth domain is offered by DeShazo, Lavallie, and Wolf (2009). The purpose of this descriptive or mapping review was to characterize publication trends in the medical informatics literature over a 20-year period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this ambitious objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, impact factors, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical informatics articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term analysis also suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, average impact scores increased over time with two notable growth periods. Overall, patterns in research outputs that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline (DeShazo et al., 2009).

9.3.3. Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews attempt to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant literature on an emergent topic (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013 ; Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010). A scoping review may be conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activities in a particular area, determine the value of undertaking a full systematic review (discussed next), or identify research gaps in the extant literature ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In line with their main objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed research agenda for future works along with potential implications for both practice and research.

Unlike narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole point of scoping the field is to be as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be established to help researchers eliminate studies that are not aligned with the research questions. It is also recommended that at least two independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy and then the full articles for study selection ( Daudt et al., 2013 ). The synthesized evidence from content or thematic analysis is relatively easy to present in tabular form (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

One of the most highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published by Archer, Fevrier-Thomas, Lokker, McKibbon, and Straus (2011) . These authors reviewed the existing literature on personal health record ( phr ) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications, outcomes, and benefits. Seven databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phr s were used during this process. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts to determine inclusion status. A second screen of full-text articles, again by two independent members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phr s. All in all, 130 articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a large amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal evidence of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more research is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is little solid evidence from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the use of phr s. Hence, they suggested that more research is needed that addresses the current lack of understanding of optimal functionality and usability of these systems, and how they can play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-management ( Archer et al., 2011 ).

9.3.4. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of information, including research-based evidence from numerous clinical trials and evaluation studies, assessing the effectiveness of health information technologies and interventions ( Ammenwerth & de Keizer, 2004 ; Deshazo et al., 2009 ). It is unrealistic to expect that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resources to identify the available evidence in the area of their expertise and consider it when making decisions. Systematic reviews that involve the rigorous application of scientific strategies aimed at limiting subjectivity and bias (i.e., systematic and random errors) can respond to this challenge.

Systematic reviews attempt to aggregate, appraise, and synthesize in a single source all empirical evidence that meet a set of previously specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a clearly formulated and often narrow research question on a particular topic of interest to support evidence-based practice ( Liberati et al., 2009 ). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles ( Liberati et al., 2009 ) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can lead to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to aggregate a large body of research evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the same direction and of the same general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between study results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of interest based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them ( Cook, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997 ). The main procedures of a systematic review involve:

  • Formulating a review question and developing a search strategy based on explicit inclusion criteria for the identification of eligible studies (usually described in the context of a detailed review protocol).
  • Searching for eligible studies using multiple databases and information sources, including grey literature sources, without any language restrictions.
  • Selecting studies, extracting data, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two independent reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the process.
  • Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
  • Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
  • Interpreting results and drawing conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, but not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known as meta-analyses , these reviews use specific data extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by outcome of interest an effect size along with a confidence interval that reflects the degree of uncertainty behind the point estimate of effect ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008 ). Subsequently, they use fixed or random-effects analysis models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted average of the effect estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary effect size is a value that reflects the average magnitude of the intervention effect for a particular outcome of interest or, more generally, the strength of a relationship between two variables across all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses can create more precise and reliable estimates of intervention effects than those derived from individual studies alone, when these are examined independently as discrete sources of information.

The review by Gurol-Urganci, de Jongh, Vodopivec-Jamsek, Atun, and Car (2013) on the effects of mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments is an illustrative example of a high-quality systematic review with meta-analysis. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs to health systems. These authors sought to assess whether mobile phone-based appointment reminders delivered through Short Message Service ( sms ) or Multimedia Messaging Service ( mms ) are effective in improving rates of patient attendance and reducing overall costs. To this end, they conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases using highly sensitive search strategies without language or publication-type restrictions to identify all rct s that are eligible for inclusion. In order to minimize the risk of omitting eligible studies not captured by the original search, they supplemented all electronic searches with manual screening of trial registers and references contained in the included studies. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were performed inde­­pen­dently by two coders using standardized methods to ensure consistency and to eliminate potential errors. Findings from eight rct s involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to calculate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone call reminders.

Meta-analyses are regarded as powerful tools for deriving meaningful conclusions. However, there are situations in which it is neither reasonable nor appropriate to pool studies together using meta-analytic methods simply because there is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can use qualitative synthesis methods such as vote counting, content analysis, classification schemes and tabulations, as an alternative approach to narratively synthesize the results of the independent studies included in the review. This form of review is known as qualitative systematic review.

A rigorous example of one such review in the eHealth domain is presented by Mickan, Atherton, Roberts, Heneghan, and Tilson (2014) on the use of handheld computers by healthcare professionals and their impact on access to information and clinical decision-making. In line with the methodological guide­lines for systematic reviews, these authors: (a) developed and registered with prospero ( www.crd.york.ac.uk/ prospero / ) an a priori review protocol; (b) conducted comprehensive searches for eligible studies using multiple databases and other supplementary strategies (e.g., forward searches); and (c) subsequently carried out study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments in a duplicate manner to eliminate potential errors in the review process. Heterogeneity between the included studies in terms of reported outcomes and measures precluded the use of meta-analytic methods. To this end, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to describe the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing information for clinical knowledge, adherence to safety and clinical quality guidelines, and diagnostic decision-making.

In recent years, the number of systematic reviews in the field of health informatics has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can cause great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence ( Moher, 2013 ). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisal and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that decision-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated evidence. Umbrella reviews , also known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of evidence synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and contrast findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Umbrella reviews generally adhere to the same principles and rigorous methodological guidelines used in systematic reviews. However, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the primary study ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Unlike systematic reviews that have a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader research topics for which there are several potential interventions ( Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011 ). A recent umbrella review on the effects of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized evidence from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of home telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admissions ( Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015 ).

9.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews developed to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous evidence about complex interventions applied in diverse contexts in a way that informs policy decision-making ( Greenhalgh, Wong, Westhorp, & Pawson, 2011 ). They originated from criticisms of positivist systematic reviews which centre on their “simplistic” underlying assumptions ( Oates, 2011 ). As explained above, systematic reviews seek to identify causation. Such logic is appropriate for fields like medicine and education where findings of randomized controlled trials can be aggregated to see whether a new treatment or intervention does improve outcomes. However, many argue that it is not possible to establish such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such as social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent outcome ( Oates, 2011 ; Pawson, 2006 ; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ).

To circumvent these limitations, Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey, and Walshe (2005) have proposed a new approach for synthesizing knowledge that seeks to unpack the mechanism of how “complex interventions” work in particular contexts. The basic research question — what works? — which is usually associated with systematic reviews changes to: what is it about this intervention that works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and why? Realist reviews have no particular preference for either quantitative or qualitative evidence. As a theory-building approach, a realist review usually starts by articulating likely underlying mechanisms and then scrutinizes available evidence to find out whether and where these mechanisms are applicable ( Shepperd et al., 2009 ). Primary studies found in the extant literature are viewed as case studies which can test and modify the initial theories ( Rousseau et al., 2008 ).

The main objective pursued in the realist review conducted by Otte-Trojel, de Bont, Rundall, and van de Klundert (2014) was to examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, most importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. The research team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified six main ways which represent “educated guesses” to be tested against the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Two members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-step procedure. The authors then extracted data from the selected articles and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forward those mechanisms where patient portals contribute to outcomes and the variation in outcomes across different contexts.

9.3.6. Critical Reviews

Lastly, critical reviews aim to provide a critical evaluation and interpretive analysis of existing literature on a particular topic of interest to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important issues with respect to theories, hypotheses, research methods or results ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ; Kirkevold, 1997 ). Unlike other review types, critical reviews attempt to take a reflective account of the research that has been done in a particular area of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisal instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars about the weaknesses of prior research and strengthen knowledge development by giving focus and direction to studies for further improvement ( Kirkevold, 1997 ).

Kitsiou, Paré, and Jaana (2013) provide an example of a critical review that assessed the methodological quality of prior systematic reviews of home telemonitoring studies for chronic patients. The authors conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases to identify eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisal. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this particular area suffer from important methodological flaws and biases that impair their internal validity and limit their usefulness for clinical and decision-making purposes. To this end, they provide a number of recommendations to strengthen knowledge development towards improving the design and execution of future reviews on home telemonitoring.

9.4. Summary

Table 9.1 outlines the main types of literature reviews that were described in the previous sub-sections and summarizes the main characteristics that distinguish one review type from another. It also includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can be used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

Table 9.1. Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

As shown in Table 9.1 , each review type addresses different kinds of research questions or objectives, which subsequently define and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For example, in the case of narrative reviews, there is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles ( Green et al., 2006 ). Researchers are often relatively free to use a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific articles, describe their operational characteristics, present how the individual studies fit together, and formulate conclusions. On the other hand, systematic reviews are characterized by their high level of systematicity, rigour, and use of explicit methods, based on an “a priori” review plan that aims to minimize bias in the analysis and synthesis process (Higgins & Green, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.g., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may be conducted to discover patterns (e.g., descriptive reviews) or involve a synthesis approach that may include the critical analysis of prior research ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Hence, in order to select the most appropriate type of review, it is critical to know before embarking on a review project, why the research synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

9.5. Concluding Remarks

In light of the increased use of evidence-based practice and research generating stronger evidence ( Grady et al., 2011 ; Lyden et al., 2013 ), review articles have become essential tools for summarizing, synthesizing, integrating or critically appraising prior knowledge in the eHealth field. As mentioned earlier, when rigorously conducted review articles represent powerful information sources for eHealth scholars and practitioners looking for state-of-the-art evidence. The typology of literature reviews we used herein will allow eHealth researchers, graduate students and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences between review types.

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific type of review as being of higher quality than another ( Paré et al., 2015 ). As explained above, each type of review has its own strengths and limitations. Having said that, we realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should be considered seriously by prospective authors. In the present context, the notion of rigour refers to the reliability and validity of the review process described in section 9.2. For one thing, reliability is related to the reproducibility of the review process and steps, which is facilitated by a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or not, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is important that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and approach that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted appropriately. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of time covered, the articles selected in the search, and the application of backward and forward searches ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). In short, the rigour of any review article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the approach used. We refer those interested in the concepts of rigour and quality to the work of Templier and Paré (2015) which offers a detailed set of methodological guidelines for conducting and evaluating various types of review articles.

To conclude, our main objective in this chapter was to demystify the various types of literature reviews that are central to the continuous development of the eHealth field. It is our hope that our descriptive account will serve as a valuable source for those conducting, evaluating or using reviews in this important and growing domain.

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  • Cite this Page Paré G, Kitsiou S. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews. In: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.
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7T MRI for Cushing’s Disease: A Single Institutional Experience and Literature Review

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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Cushing disease is typically caused by a pituitary adenoma that frequently is small and challenging to detect on conventional MRI. High field strength 7T MRI can leverage increased signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios compared to lower-field strength MRI to help identify small pituitary lesions. We aim to describe our institutional experience with 7T MRI in patients with Cushing disease and perform a review of the literature.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 7T MRI findings in patients with pathology proven cases of Cushing disease from a single institution, followed by a review of the literature on 7T MRI for Cushing disease.

RESULTS: Our institutional experience identified Cushing adenomas in 10/13 (76.9%) patients on 7T, however only 5/13 (38.5%) lesions were discrete. Overall, the imaging protocols used were heterogeneous in terms of contrast dose as well as type of post-contrast T1-weighted sequences (Dynamic, 2D vs 3D, and type of 3D sequence). From our institutional data, specific post-gadolinium T1-weighted sequences were helpful in identifying a surgical lesion as follows: Dynamic Contrast Enhanced 2/7 (28.6%), 2D FSE 4/8 (50%), 3D SPACE 5/6 (83.3%), and 3D MPRAGE 8/11 (72.7%). The literature review identified Cushing adenomas in 31/33 (93.9%) patients on 7T.

CONCLUSIONS: 7T MRI for pituitary lesion localization in Cushing disease is a new technique with imaging protocols that varied widely. Further comparative research is needed to identify the optimal imaging technique as well as to assess the benefit of 7T over lower-field strength MRI.

ABBREVIATIONS: MRI = Magnetic Resonance Imaging, CT = Computed Tomography, 7T = 7 Tesla, DCE = Dynamic Contrast Enhanced

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    Literature reviews can take two major forms. The most prevalent one is the "literature review" or "background" section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses (Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013).

  26. 7T MRI for Cushing's Disease: A Single Institutional Experience and

    The literature review identified Cushing adenomas in 31/33 (93.9%) patients on 7T. CONCLUSIONS: 7T MRI for pituitary lesion localization in Cushing disease is a new technique with imaging protocols that varied widely. Further comparative research is needed to identify the optimal imaging technique as well as to assess the benefit of 7T over ...

  27. Acute choreo-dystonia in a newly diagnosed patient with diabetes

    Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a disease with diverse macrovascular and microvascular consequences. One of the unusual effects of hyperglycemia is involuntary movement, termed hyperglycemia-induced involuntary movement. This could range from hemibalismus, chorea, choreo-atethosis, tremors to dystonia. Chorea associated with dystonia is a less commonly reported manifestation.

  28. A practical guide to data analysis in general literature reviews

    This article is a practical guide to conducting data analysis in general literature reviews. The general literature review is a synthesis and analysis of published research on a relevant clinical issue, and is a common format for academic theses at the bachelor's and master's levels in nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, public health and other related fields.