Types of Review Articles

This week I would like to share a somewhat different approach to SoTL research in the article “Synthesis of the Types and Trends of Review Articles” by Xiuwen, Razali and Sulaiman (2022). The researchers employed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. They identified the published articles specific to the review genres via a structured keyword search in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar (2019–2022). A mixed analysis approach (e.g., qualitative analysis combined with quantitative analysis) was conducted to further examine the selected articles using the data visualization software CiteSpace.

The authors identified 14 types of reviews:

1. Rapid review (aim to shorten the time to get a general idea of the currently existing literature of a specific field without an extensive time investment)

2. Scoping review (provides a preliminary assessment of the potential size and the scope of accessible research literature)

3. State-of-the-art review (identifies current and emerging trends in educational disciplines, research priorities, and standardizations in a topic)

4. Systematic review (Cochrane Collaboration defines as a comprehensive high-level summary of primary research on given research questions aiming to identify, select, synthesize, and appraise all high-quality evidence pertinent to the research questions)

5. Systematic search and review (incorporates the strengths of critical reviews with a comprehensive, systematic, and effective search process; informs broad research questions and gives evidence-based suggestions)

6. Systematized review (systematized reviews differ from systematic reviews as a researcher can conduct a systematized review individually using one or more databases, and the researcher codes and analyzes all accessible results systematically.)

7. Umbrella review (overview of reviews, review of reviews, summary of systematic reviews, or synthesis of reviews, sharing the highest level of evidence accessible)

8. Critical review (showcase the writers’ essential ideas toward current research and evaluate quality; goes beyond simple descriptions to generate vital analysis and conceptual innovations)

9. Literature review (searching accessible literature to identify research gaps, make decisions about methods and contribute to the existing body of work)

10. Mapping review/systematic map (present a comprehensive picture of the status quo of a specific field via classification and counting contributions related to the categories, using a visual synthesis of the data)

11. Meta-analysis (form of statistical analysis of data from independent primary studies focusing on the same question, aiming to generate an evaluation of the studied field)

12. Mixed studies review/mixed-methods review (any combination of approaches, in which at least one of the elements is a literature (usually systematic) review - challenges include appraising and synthesizing quantitative research and qualitative research)

13. Overview (aims to survey the literature and describe its features; applied for diverse types of literature review, with different degrees of systematicity - Initially regarded as synonymous with “systematic review”)

14. Qualitative systematic review/qualitative evidence synthesis (integrating the findings from qualitative studies; aims to aggregate the results from qualitative studies to build a comprehensive understanding of the issues)

References

Xiuwen Z., Razali, A. & Sulaiman, T. (2022). Synthesis of the types and trends of review articles, Education Research International, Article ID 9431277, 19 pages. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9431277

Update: I will now be sharing the SoTL blogs on new Mastodon account at https://newsie.social/@jacehargis