Comparison of different approaches to literature review
Systematic literature reviews
Meta-analysis
Meta-synthesis and Meta-summary
PsycInfo tricks & Varia
100

One seeks to generate cumulative knowledge and aims for generalisation while the other is unsystematic and non-reproducible and instead uses a more subjective approach.

What are the differences between a narrative review and a systematic literature review?

100

A review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review

What is the definition of a systematic literature review?

100

Set of statistical procedures designed to accumulate research results across studies in order to estimate the relations between variables

What is the definition of meta-analysis?

100

Qualitative

What types of studies - qual/quant - do meta-summary and meta-synthesis synthesize and analyze?

100

Both seek to summarize or synthesize evidences to answer a specific research question and use a collection of diverse studies

What are similarities between a narrative review and a systematic literature review?

100

AND, OR, NOT
- AND will search for all of your search terms
- OR will search for at least one of your search terms
- DO NOT USE “NOT”

What are Boolean search operators and how do they work?

100

Quantitative

What types of studies - quan/qual - do meta-analysis synthesize and analyze?

100

Making the “sum” by quantitatively aggregating qualitative findings

What is the main purpose of a Meta-summary?

100

They allow for the collection of diverse types of studies, for the exploration of broader or more abstract questions, and they are easier and less time-consuming

What value do narrative reviews still have nowadays?

100

Narrative reviews, meta-summary and meta-syntheses

What types of literature reviews could be used to synthesize qualitative research findings?

100

Scoping; planning; searching; screening & assessing eligibility; assessing quality

What are the five stages of conducting a systematic literature review?

100

Graphical and tabular with narrative commentaries

How are the results of a meta-analysis typically presented?

100

Not only to summarize the results from previous qualitative research papers, but also to present new perspectives on topics through interpreting findings from different qualitative studies and creating ‘meta-themes’

What are the purposes of a meta-synthesis?

100

By holding the SHIFT key

How do you select several limiters (for example several languages) for the papers you want to include/exclude on PsycInfo?

200

Meta-synthesis, meta-summary, and narrative review

Which literature review methods don’t typically imply conducting a quality evaluation of the selected papers?

200

- * adds different word ending (weigh* -> weighing, weight)
- * adds a word in between (midsummer* dream -> midsummer night’s dream)

What are truncation symbols and how do they work?

200

The strength of the relationship between two variables

What does effect size measure?

200

An overall theme, merging themes from different qualitative papers, that can be created by the author of a Meta-synthesis

What is a third order construct?

200

Any literature produced in electronic or print format that has not been controlled by commercial publishers, like technical or research reports from government agencies, reports and working papers from scientific research groups and committees, doctoral dissertations, conference proceedings, etc.

What is the “gray literature”?

200

They all are systematic approaches to reviewing or analyzing the literature.

What do systematic literature reviews, meta-analysis, meta-synthesis, and meta-summary have in common?

200

? when a character is unknown: (wom?n -> woman, women)

# when there MIGHT be another character (colo#r -> color, colour)

What are wildcard symbols and how do they work?

200

The PRISMA flow diagram

What is typically used in Meta-analysis and systematic literature review to keep track of each step in the selection of included papers, and of the numbers excluded at each of these steps?

200

Languages

What can you select as a limiter in PsycInfo but not PsycArticles?

M
e
n
u