This is a decommissioned version of ERA which is running to enable completion of migration processes. All new collections and items and all edits to existing items should go to our new ERA instance at https://ualberta.scholaris.ca - Please contact us at erahelp@ualberta.ca for assistance!
- 174 views
- 139 downloads
What Synthesis Methodology Should I Use?
-
What Synthesis Methodology Should I Use? A Review and Analysis of Approaches to Research Synthesis
-
- Author(s) / Creator(s)
-
Background: When we began this process, we were doctoral students and a faculty member in a research methods course. As students, we were facing a review of the literature for our dissertations. We encountered several different ways of conducting a review but were unable to locate any resources that synthesized all of the various synthesis methodologies. Our purpose is to present a comprehensive overview and assessment of the main approaches to research synthesis. We use ‘research synthesis’ as a broad overarching term to describe various approaches to combining, integrating, and synthesizing research findings. Methods: We conducted an integrative review of the literature to explore the historical, contextual, and evolving nature of research synthesis. We searched five databases, reviewed websites of key organizations, hand-searched several journals, and examined relevant texts from the reference lists of the documents we had already obtained. Results: We identified four broad categories of research synthesis methodology including conventional, quantitative, qualitative, and emerging syntheses. Each of the broad categories was compared to the others on the following: key characteristics, purpose, method, product, context, underlying assumptions, unit of analysis, strengths and limitations, and when to use each approach. Conclusions: The current state of research synthesis reflects significant advancements in emerging synthesis studies that integrate diverse data types and sources. New approaches to research synthesis provide a much broader range of review alternatives available to health and social science students and researchers.
-
- Date created
- 2016-03-30
-
- Subjects / Keywords
-
- Type of Item
- Article (Published)
-
- License
- © 2016 Schick-Makaroff, K., MacDonald, M., Plummer, M., Burgess, J., & Neander, W. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.