Systematic review as class assignments?

Is there better teaching opportunity than assigning systematic reviews in a semester?

Carrie Price tweeted about the phenomenon of assigning students a systematic review within a semester. Her tweet got a lot of attention from medical educators and librarians alike. We reached out to Carrie to find out more on the topic and she shares her thoughts with us.

If you’re teaching faculty who has assigned systematic-style literature reviews to your students for a semester project, it might be time to revisit the exercise. Trying to fit a full systematic review into a semester is almost always problematic.

The goal, after all, is to have students leave with skills they can use in real-life research scenarios, and not frustration and a misunderstanding of the comprehensive literature review process. Consider that a true systematic review requires a full expert team that includes librarians, statisticians, and methodologists; follows a rigorous methodology that includes adopting a critical appraisal tool and a standard for synthesizing the evidence; and takes on average 67.3 weeks to complete (Borah et al., 2017). Expecting students to grasp this process in the scope of a typical semester is a big ask, and often leaves them defeated and discouraged, with more questions than answers they started with.

What are some options?

Here are some exercises that can incorporate that will equip students with a better understanding of the systematic review process and evidence syntheses overall. Think of this as a buffet – use one assignment or several.

Rapid Review Exercise

A rapid review provides a rapid synthesis of knowledge about a policy or clinical practice issue and attempts to inform an evidence-based decision quickly. It follows many of the stages of a systematic knowledge synthesis but may modify stages to shorten the timeline.