Systematic approaches to reviewing literature

In medicine, systematic reviews are the standard way to review evidence. This method is rapidly growing in importance in other disciplines. Systematic review is now used to describe theory, concepts, methods and evidence. The 4 ECTS course offered at WU is interdisciplinary. In addition to what they require to do their own review, participants learn about research in other disciplines and they will learn how to report their research in ways that are more broadly accessible. Types of research questions supported:

• What is the evidence on (insert topic)?
• What models/theories are used to study (insert interest)?
• How does the literature understand (insert concept)?
• How is (concept) measured?
• What is known about…?
• What works?
• How is (insert any topic of interest) reported?

This course introduces evidence review methods ranging from meta-analysis (statistical review of quantitative evidence) through to meta-ethnography (synthesis of qualitative evidence through abstraction). Several forms of thematic content analysis appropriate for the description of theory, concepts and methods will also be introduced. Participants will be broken into small working groups for instruction by the analysis methods appropriate for their research question.