Research Synthesis Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The belief that language instruction should be done exclusively in the target language and that 'native-speakers' are better language teachers is still around. In this context, there are language teachers who perceive code-switching as detrimental to language learning, while others believe L1 usage should not be excluded and can enhance L2 learning (Tian & Macaro, 2012). Seeking to understand what recent research has found on the effects of code-switched instruction on L2 learning, we conducted a research synthesis of experimental studies published from 2008 to 2018. Our research questions were 1) what are the effects of code-switched instruction on second language learning?; 2) does code-switched instruction lead to better learning results than target-language-only instruction?; and 3) what are the learning contexts of the research investigating code-switched instruction and who are their participants?. Eight out of the nine studies found that the code-switched instruction outperformed instruction done exclusively in the target language, with positive effects, such as reduced anxiety, being reported in all of them. Considering our results, we argue that code-switching is not necessarily a sign of diminished linguistic competence and that it is not detrimental to language learning.

This white paper, Researching Invention Education, compiles contributions from a community of individuals and organizations working in Invention Education (IvE) in the United States. IvE is a term that refers to the practice of teaching students how to problem-solve and think like inventors in order to become positive change-makers in the world. The paper was written by researchers interested in IvE who attended the 2018 InventEd convening hosted by The Lemelson Foundation. The group worked together for a year to publish their findings that were then uncovered at the 2019 InventEd convening in Alexandria, Virginia. Supported by The Lemelson Foundation, the research in this paper includes thought-provoking insights into the current trends in IvE, how IvE can be integrated into other disciplines, and identifies opportunities for future growth of this emerging but significant field.

- by Audra Skukauskaite and +1
- •
- Literature Review, White Paper, Research Synthesis, Research and Innovation

This review aims to show the potential nutritional waste and by-products of cocoa in animals through scientific studies. Indeed, research indicates that the waste and by-products generally contain cocoa 12-17% protein, major minerals (Ca, P, K, Na) and fibers that predispose them to feed. Tested in ruminants, chickens, snails, pigs and rabbits, they have been beneficial to low levels. Because these foods contain theobromine, antintritionnel factor, witch limits their use in livestock. However, appropriate treatments can help to increase the quantities of waste and by-products of cocoa in animal diets.

- by INNSPUB Journals
- •
- Organic agriculture, Agriculture, Plant Breeding, Research

This chapter reviews contributions of qualitative perspectives to the understanding of classroom discourse and interaction. We present a brief overview of qualitative research development with
a focus on contributions of language-based qualitative research approaches. We then analyze how classroom interaction and discourse are studied in four purposefully selected journals:
Journal of Classroom Interaction, Applied Linguistics, Language and Education, and Linguistics and Education. Through analysis of how classroom interaction and discourse are used in the
titles of the research articles published in these journals, we make visible the variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives used to study diverse phenomena of classroom life.
This diversity of perspectives makes visible the need for dialogues across disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological research groups to build deeper understandings of classroom
discourse and interaction and other phenomena in education. Qualitative research approaches expand understandings of educational phenomena by: 1) making visible the role of language in constructing classroom life; 2) shifting the focus on processes rather than outcomes; 3) demonstrating how learning and education are overtime phenomena linked to moment-bymoment
interactions; 4) emphasizing the intertextual nature of human interaction; and 5) questioning terminologies and phenomena under study.

- by Denise Krohn Ramon
- •
- Discourse Analysis, Research Methodology, Ethnography, Qualitative Research

"Researchers compare nations to broaden their views, build and test theories across settings, study transnational processes, assess the scope of beliefs, and learn from diverse policies. Most such studies use quantitative methods, a few use qualitative methods, and fewer still combine quantitative and qualitative methods. Intertwining multiple types of data strands allows researchers to highlight complexities of constructs. In this study, I synthesize research that has used mixed methods for cross-national comparison in order to identify current challenges and make
recommendations for the future use of mixed methods research. I then define both comparative and mixed methods research, before providing criteria for evaluating articles. Then I discuss the results of eight articles that comprise the corpus before ending with a discussion of challenges, recommendations, and considerations for future research."

- by Debbie Miller
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- Mixed Methods, Comparative Research, Research Synthesis
- by Arja Rautio and +1
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- Epidemiology, Health Outcomes, Public Health, Meta-Analysis

The exponential growth of research and enormity of the body of knowledge that has been accumulated in applied linguistics make the need for quality and reliable synthesis of the available research more pressing than ever. Traditional reviews seek to critique existing research, provide an overview of the research, and/or contextualize a new study. Research syntheses aim at reaching conclusions by means of aggregating the totality of the empirical research that has been carried out on a certain topic. In this chapter, we discuss the procedures and best practices of each of the two approaches and conclude by making a comparison between the two approaches and proposing ways to integrate them

Research synthesis and meta-analysis provide a pathway to bring together findings in a given domain with greater systematicity, objectivity, and transparency than traditional reviews. The same techniques and corresponding benefits can be and have been applied to examine methodological practices in second language (L2) research (e.g., Plonsky, 2013). In the first half of this paper, we integrate findings, trends, and critiques from a number of syntheses to both illustrate the potential of this approach and to promote more methodologically informed research practices. Our emphasis here is on study designs and sampling practices. In the second half, we provide an example of a methodological synthesis that reviews the use of one particular statistical technique as applied in L2 research: exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Here and throughout the chapter, we provide specific recommendations for primary research as well as for future efforts to synthesize methodological practices in the field.

The authors investigate the intellectual pillars of service marketing and its evolution through key subareas during 1992-2009 using a citation-based approach. They thereby derive insights for the most promising research directions. The results reveal dynamics influences of different research topics on service marketing. In a graphical representation, the authors further show that the main topics largely have changed their research orientation over time. For example, online service and technology infusion literature reveal an increasingly operational and customer orientation. A citation-based measure of the importance of research opportunities and its comparison to the topics found in recent literature reviews indicates that research into managing business-to-business services and service infusion, complaint handling and service recovery, and enhancing and managing the service value chain are promising topics. These results assist academics and practitioners by revealing what we know about service research and what we need to know in the future.

- by Werner H Kunz
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- Service Marketing, Research Trends, Research Synthesis, Cocitation Analysis
- by A Georges L Romme
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- Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Research Methodology, Narrative

Within the field of restorative justice, at least three voices may be heard: the voice of theory, the voice of practice, and the voice of research, which is the focus of this Article. Data from seven evaluation studies of restorative justice and court programs from around the world are combined on twelve psychological outcomes, such as judgments of fairness, accountability, increased respect, and reductions in fear. Despite substantial differences in the implementation of the restorative justice programs and the persons and cases included, the data were remarkably consistent: restorative justice outperformed court procedures on almost every variable for victims and offenders. In addition, connections between the benefits of restorative justice and recent psychiatric research on youth suicide are sketched, with the possible benefits of restorative justice (as compared to court) in saving lives. Overall, restorative justice emerged as a compelling and effective alternative to court in all measured outcomes.

- by Barton Poulson
- •
- Psychology, Evaluation Research, Restorative Justice, Research Synthesis

تلقي هذه المقالة الضوء على بعض الفرائض الغائبة في البحث التربوي، ومن أهمها إهمال البحث التركيبي الذي يمثل تجسيرًا للفجوة البحثية وإضافة لمعارفنا في موضوع ما من خلال تشكيل التعميمات، وهي محاولة للإسهام في حل الصراعات في الأدبيات، وتحديد القضايا المركزية للبحث المستقبلي. مع وضع فروق بين مصطلح البحث التركيبي والمصطلحات ذات العلاقة، وركزت المقالة على تقسيم مراجعات الأدبيات: السمة، والفئات، وتطور مفهوم البحث التركيبي، ومراحله.

This scoping review explores the causal relationship between morphological instruction and reading development in young L2 learners by synthesizing 12 primary studies published between 2004 and 2019 (N = 1,535). These studies focused on reading English as the target language and involved participants between kindergarten and Grade 12 from four countries (China, Egypt, Singapore, and the USA). Findings suggested that (a) morphological instruction led to consistent and positive gains in L2 children's morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge, and the effect sizes (Cohen's ds) ranged from small to large; and (b) the relationship between morphological instruction and other outcomes such as phonological awareness, word reading accuracy, word reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension was inconclusive. Notably, transfer effects of L2 English morphological instruction on novel word learning in English or on reading development in an additional language were only examined and observed in four primary studies. Discussion was provided regarding future instructional and research design.

- by Sihui Ke and +1
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- Reading Comprehension, Second Language Reading, Research Synthesis, Word Decoding

Abstract
Background: Systematic reviews of qualitative and quantitative evidence can provide a rich understanding of
complex phenomena. This type of review is increasingly popular, has been used to provide a landscape of
existing knowledge, and addresses the types of questions not usually covered in reviews relying solely on either
quantitative or qualitative evidence. Although several typologies of synthesis designs have been developed, none
have been tested on a large sample of reviews. The aim of this review of reviews was to identify and develop a
typology of synthesis designs and methods that have been used and to propose strategies for synthesizing
qualitative and quantitative evidence.
Methods: A review of systematic reviews combining qualitative and quantitative evidence was performed. Six
databases were searched from inception to December 2014. Reviews were included if they were systematic reviews
combining qualitative and quantitative evidence. The included reviews were analyzed according to three concepts
of synthesis processes: (a) synthesis methods, (b) sequence of data synthesis, and (c) integration of data and
synthesis results.
Results: A total of 459 reviews were included. The analysis of this literature highlighted a lack of transparency in
reporting how evidence was synthesized and a lack of consistency in the terminology used. Two main types of
synthesis designs were identified: convergent and sequential synthesis designs. Within the convergent synthesis
design, three subtypes were found: (a) data-based convergent synthesis design, where qualitative and quantitative
evidence is analyzed together using the same synthesis method, (b) results-based convergent synthesis design,
where qualitative and quantitative evidence is analyzed separately using different synthesis methods and results of
both syntheses are integrated during a final synthesis, and (c) parallel-results convergent synthesis design consisting
of independent syntheses of qualitative and quantitative evidence and an interpretation of the results in the
discussion.
Conclusions: Performing systematic reviews of qualitative and quantitative evidence is challenging because of
the multiple synthesis options. The findings provide guidance on how to combine qualitative and quantitative
evidence. Also, recommendations are made to improve the conducting and reporting of this type of review.Keywords: Systematic review, Research synthesis, Mixed studies review, Mixed methods review, Integrative review, Mixed methods research

- by Mathieu Bujold and +1
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- Mixed Methods Research, Systematic review, Research Synthesis
- by Luiz Fernando Capretz
- •
- Software Engineering, Personality, Research Synthesis, Meta-ethnography

This research study attempted to synthesize research studies,create an instructional model to better communicative English skills from the research synthesis, and investigate the results of implementing the instructional model for Thai learners.The target population was 1) 173 graduate research studies on communicative English skill development of the top five Thai universities in the 2015 QS World Ranking in the field of education and 2) one English teacher in the primary, the lower secondary, the upper secondary and the tertiary levels each and 27 primary level students, 23 lower secondary level students, 37 upper secondary level students and 25 tertiary level students.
The results were 1)173 research studies met the evaluation criteria.The numbersof the studies conducted at the primary, lower secondary, upper secondary/vocational certificate and undergraduate/ high vocational certificate levels was36, 41, 49 and 47, respectively. The results of the synthesis withcontent analysis were seven categories representing the structure of the instructional model;these were Preparation, Lead-in, Activation, Development, Solidification, Evaluation and Revision. The instructional methods in each category were grouped into themes which formed a spectrum composed of instructional and learning management, psychological strategy implementation, language teaching, communication strategy teaching, integrative development between cognitive and communicative skills, and explicit performance support. Therefore, the instructional model comprised seven stages. The stages were defined as follows: (1) Preparation was arranging activities, contentand the learning environment (2) Lead-in was giving knowledge, arousing interest, and setting rules for learning and activities, (3) Activationwas teaching language knowledge and strategies together with thinking skills or working skills, (4) Developmentwas teaching language knowledge together with higher order thinking skills and transferring the practiceto learners or assigning them to perform language and higher order thinking tasks themselves, (5) Solidification was assigning learners to perform language and higher order thinking tasks themselves and assessing themselvesas well as further language teaching tocorrect errors, (6) Evaluation was assessing learners’ progress or judging overall quality and (7) Revision was assigning more situations or activities for practice. Also, the themes together with the methods led to the underlinedprinciples which were the communicative approach, active learning, scaffolding and learning assessment 2) the learning achievement of the students of each level ranged from 69 to 91.20 percent and was rated as average to very good and the variation was dependent on their learning behavior and attitudes and 3) the conclusion from the teachers’opinions depicted the model’s performance focused and activities wasa good contribution to improvement of real-life communication skill and higher order thinking.

- by Thassanant Unnanantn
- •
- Communication, Education, English language, Active Learning

Araştırma sentezi genel olarak belirli bir konu alanında yapılmış nitel, nicel veya karma yöntemli birincil çalışmaların belirli ölçütlere göre ve çeşitli yaklaşımlarla bir araya getirilerek o konu alanı hakkında bir sonuca varma yöntemidir. Özellikle uygulayıcılara ve politika yapıcılara alacakları kararlar konusunda çok önemli bilgiler veren araştırma sentezi çalışmaları ulusal alanyazında ne yazık ki hak ettiği değeri görememektedir. Bunun temel nedeni kanımızca araştırma sentezi yöntemleri konusunda bir kavram kargaşasının olması ve belirli bir standardın olmamasıdır. Bu kitapta bu eksiği gidermek için araştırma sentezi yöntemlerinin nasıl uygulanacağı, yorumlanacağı ve rapor edileceği adım adım tanıtılmıştır.
Bu kitap genel olarak Cooper (2007, 2010) tarafından önerilen araştırma sentezi basamakları takip edilerek yazılmıştır. Kitapta sırasıyla araştırma sentezi probleminin nasıl ifade edileceği, alanyazının nasıl taranacağı, araştırma raporlarından bilgilerin nasıl çıkarılacağı, araştırma raporlarının kalitesinin nasıl değerlendirileceği, çalışma sonuçlarının nasıl analiz edilip birleştirileceği, elde edilen sonuçların nasıl yorumlanıp rapor edileceği uygulama örnekleriyle ve çeşitli bilgisayar yazılımları kullanılarak gösterilmiştir. Böylece okuyucunun çok iyi bir istatistik bilgisi olmadan kitapta verilen örnekleri kullanarak adım adım kendi kendine öğrenmesi hedeflenmiştir. Bu nedenle kitapta mümkün olduğunca formüllerden uzak durulmaya çalışılmıştır; ancak paket programlarının eksik kaldığı durumlarda basit düzeyde bazı formüller verilmiştir.
Bu kitabın en özgün yanı araştırma sentezi yöntemlerine getirdiği sınıflamadır. Buna göre araştırma sentezi yöntemleri nitel, nicel ve karma yöntem olarak sınıflanmıştır. Bu kitapta nicel yöntem olarak oy sayımı ve meta-analiz, nitel yöntem olarak meta-özet ve tematik sentez tanıtılmıştır. Karma araştırma sentezi yönteminde ise nicel meta-analiz ile nitel tematik sentezin nasıl bir araya getirilerek bileştirileceği anlatılmıştır.

- by Sedat Kanadlı
- •
- Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review, Research Synthesis

Chapter two, the literature review, is arguably the longest and most difficult part to writing a dissertation. Often this singular chapter can account for the majority of the time spent developing a proposal. The lessons captured in this presentation offer insights and methods for doctoral students to streamline their research processes. Although geared for doctoral students, this presentation is applicable for any student writing a capstone requiring a literature review component.

- by Carter Matherly, PhD
- •
- Dissertations, Research Synthesis, Chapter 2

We examine what we know about science learning inside classrooms in American urban elementary schools that educate predominately low-income students of color (African Americans and Latino/as). Mindful of a Freirean liberatory framework for education, we analyze research published in journals in the last decade that addresses classroom learning issues, what learning takes place and how, benefits (perceived and conceived) of science learning, when classroom learning is more successful and for whom, and the relationship between teaching and learning. The research synthesis points to the usefulness of various constructs, such as, language, identity, hybridity, and meaning making in exploring and understanding science learning in urban elementary school classrooms of students who usually have limited access, participation, and achievement in science.

- by Eli Tucker-Raymond and +1
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- Science Education, Urban Education, Equity, Research Synthesis

There is a contradiction in the literature about the effect of REACT strategy on science achievement. This study aims to resolve this contradiction by determining the effect of REACT strategy on student science achievement and the factors affecting this strategy by integrating findings obtained from both qualitative and quantitative studies. The study was conducted using a mixed-research synthesis by including 19 quantitative and 10 qualitative studies. Data obtained from quantitative findings were combined using a meta-analysis method, and data from qualitative findings were combined using a thematic synthesis method. It was attempted to explain the variance between studies included in the metaanalysis by using analytic themes derived from the thematic synthesis. As a result of the meta-analysis, teaching based on the REACT strategy was found to have a strong effect on science achievement (ES = 1.041, 95% CI: 0.7876 to 1.2948). The thematic synthesis yielded four descriptive themes, “teaching-learning process in the REACT strategy”, “learning outcomes in the REACT strategy”, “limitations of the REACT strategy”, and “recommendations for practice”. Teaching based on the REACT strategy was found to contribute largely to the learning process and learning outcomes. Some limitations were found in practice, and recommendations were determined to address these limitations.

- by sedat kanadlı
- •
- Science Education, Meta-Analysis, Research Synthesis

Internationalization is a trend topic for higher education context. Student mobility as a significant component of internationalization presents academic, social, political, and economic gains for higher education institutions. In this aspect, ensuring life satisfaction of international students is significant to utilize from opportunities. The purpose of the study is to synthesize research in Turkey in relation to life satisfaction of international student. Content analysis was used as research design in the current study. Thirty-five studies were reviewed by following steps of systematic review. The researchers identified mostly life satisfaction domains as follow: academic, social and cultural, support service, and demographic effects. It was concluded that countries which are more developed, had western culture, and provided long standing internationalization activities connect satisfaction of international students to cultural issues and comparisons in macro level whereas the countries which are developing or undeveloped, had eastern context, and provided novice internationalization activities associate satisfaction of international students to tangible life situations. More empirical studies for future researchers and activities enhancing intercultural interaction for practitioners were recommended.

- by Seyithan Demirdağ
- •
- Diversity, Internationalization, Cultural Diversity, Life Satisfaction

This article highlights some of the absent duties in educational research. The most important of these is the neglect of the synthesis research, which represents a bridging of the research gap and the addition of our knowledge on a subject by creating generalizations and serious attempts to resolve conflicts in the literature. This article attempts to distinguish between the term synthesis research and related terms. The article focuses on the division of literature reviews: the Characteristic, categories, and the evolution of the concept of structural research and its stages

This scoping review explores the causal relationship between morphological instruction and reading development in young L2 learners by synthesizing 12 primary studies published between 2004 and 2019 (N = 1,535). These studies focused on reading English as the target language and involved participants between kindergarten and Grade 12 from four countries (China, Egypt, Singapore, and the USA). Findings suggested that (a) morphological instruction led to consistent and positive gains in L2 children’s morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge, and the effect sizes (Cohen’s ds) ranged from small to large; and (b) the relationship between morphological instruction and other outcomes such as phonological awareness, word reading accuracy, word reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension was inconclusive. Notably, transfer effects of L2 English morphological instruction on novel word learning in English or on reading development in an additional language were only examined a...

Purpose This study aimed to synthesise the available knowledge on how participant engagement in supported employment (SE) interventions is presented, defined, and conceptualised. We also aimed to develop a working definition of participant engagement in SE based on the results of our study. Methods This systematic scoping review was conducted following the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. The following databases were systematically searched: EBSCO, SCOPUS, Social Care Online, and JSTOR. We included peer-reviewed publications in English based on empirical studies. Results Sixteen articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. Thematic framework analysis resulted in three themes conveying the concept of participant engagement: self-determined choice, empowerment, and collaboration/working alliance. We suggest that participant engagement in SE is an active multifaceted process that involves the empowerment of participants, participants' exercise of self-determined informed choice, and their collaboration with SE practitioners in a working alliance. Conclusions Participant empowerment, self-determined choice, and collaboration are important aspects of participant engagement in SE. The study results will appeal to SE practitioners and make significant contributions to the broader field of other vocational services supporting people in (re-)entering the competitive labour market.

- by Erika Gubrium
- •
- Supported Employment, Scoping review, Research Synthesis, Labor Activation

To examine the contributions of maternal and paternal age on offspring externalizing and internalizing problems , this study analyzed problem behaviors at age 10-12 years from four Dutch population-based cohorts (N = 32,892) by a multiple informant design. Bayesian evidence synthesis was used to combine results across cohorts with 50% of the data analyzed for discovery and 50% for confirmation. There was evidence of a

- by Mariëlle Zondervan-Zwijnenburg and +1
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- Bayesian Evidence Synthesis, Child Behavior Problems, Evidence Synthesis, Research Synthesis

This book review presents our summary and evaluation of A Psycholinguistic Approach to Technology and Language Learning. The review places the book within a broader context of the field and evaluates whether the editors have achieved their goals by first offering an informative synthesis of each chapter in this edited collection. Following the synthesis, we provide a critical commentary on this edited volume in terms of its organization, content, ideal readership, and contribution to advancing the field of SLA through mediation of digital technologies. We believe that this volume has great potential to drive the field forward by inviting cognitive and socially-oriented researchers and practitioners to reflect on and improve current research and practice in the field. We also underscore three means by which this volume’s appeal could be further strengthened, which also point to the areas that warrant further research. These means include the addition of chapters on eye-tracking studies and of studies that address the link between attention and awareness and SLA when learners use innovative digital technologies, as well as the inclusion of both published and unpublished studies in the three research syntheses presented in this book. We conclude by stating our overall positive appraisal of the book.

- by Erika Gubrium
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- Supported Employment, Scoping review, Clinical Sciences, Research Synthesis
- by Pentti Nieminen
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- Epidemiology, Health Outcomes, Public Health, Meta Analysis
- by Mohammad Nourian
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- Teacher Training, Research Synthesis, Contrastive Studies, سنتز پژوهی
- by Audra Skukauskaite
- •
- Research Methodology, Ethnography, Literature Review, Transparency

Social justice entails opposing discrimination and working towards eliminating structuralviolence. The problem of overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples across Canada’s criminaljustice system, a site of structural violence, has persisted for decades. Most studies uncoveredthrough this review and meta-analysis indicated Indigenous disadvantage in criminal sentencing.Specifically, Indigenous peoples were at much greater risk of receiving punitive sentences thannon-Indigenous people. Additionally, the disparity was observed to be significantly greateramong women than men. This synthesis also elucidated the paucity of data and research relatedto Indigenous peoples’ involvement with the court system. Implications and future researchneeds are discussed.

- by Amy Alberton
- •
- Criminology, Criminal Justice, Indigenous or Aboriginal Studies, Political Science

The purpose of the present research was to extract the effective components of the virtual curriculum in order to achieve common points in previous research and present a framework for implementing virtual curriculum with collaborative approach. The research method is qualitative and based on the synthesis strategy. The statistical population consist of the resources related to the purpose of the research. In total, out of 112 researches, 49 samples were selected purposefully, and the effective components of the curriculum of virtual universities extracted and, by analyzing them a framework for presentation of virtual curriculum in virtual universities was presented. The results of the analysis show that the most important components are effective components include participation components, input components, evaluation, logic and infrastructure. In the following, the effective components of the virtual curriculum based on the participatory approach and not the identification factor which included the component of the participation return, group composition, technology component, job assignments, group roles, processes and training, time, group skill instruction, are learners' prior knowledge and incentives were surveyed and described.

Meta-analysis has become increasingly popular in management research to quantitatively inte-grate research findings across a large number of studies. In an effort to help shape future appli-cations of meta-analysis in management, this study chronicles and evaluates the decisions that management researchers made in 69 meta-analytic studies published between 1980 and 2007 in 14 management journals. It performs four meta-analyses of relationships that have been stud-ied with varying frequency in management research, to provide empirical evidence that meta-analytical decisions influence results. The implications of the findings are discussed with a focus on the changes that seem appropriate.

- by Inge Geyskens
- •
- Management, Marketing, Psychology, Business and Management

We have recently witnessed a growing awareness of methodological research issues in the field of applied linguistics, which led to what Plonsky (2017) has referred to as-methodological awareness‖ (p. 517). To make a positive contribution to this nascent movement, this study, drawing on synthetic techniques, sought to describe the cumulative and developmental status of research paradigms and substantive/topical issues in an EFL context. As such, we analyzed a sample of 663 unpublished applied linguistics MA theses which were distributed over a 30-year period. The cumulative results revealed the distribution of the studies in a good range of substantive issues with-researching language classroom issues‖ as the most frequent topic in the data set and-research methods or researching research methodology", "psycholinguistics", and "sociolinguistics" as the least frequent issues across a wide range of age groups, proficiency levels, and time span. As for the cumulative analysis of research approaches, the results revealed that about 72% of the included MA theses were quantitative; around 18% of the studies employed mixed methods research; and a smaller percentage of the studies (11%, n=72) used a qualitative research approach. Chronologically, a clear increasing pattern of research paradigms was notable across time. Implications for the research consumers (e.g., supervisors, journal reviewers, postgraduate students, and material developer) are discussed.

Background: Systematic reviews of qualitative and quantitative evidence can provide a rich understanding of complex phenomena. This type of review is increasingly popular, has been used to provide a landscape of existing knowledge, and addresses the types of questions not usually covered in reviews relying solely on either quantitative or qualitative evidence. Although several typologies of synthesis designs have been developed, none have been tested on a large sample of reviews. The aim of this review of reviews was to identify and develop a typology of synthesis designs and methods that have been used and to propose strategies for synthesizing qualitative and quantitative evidence. Methods: A review of systematic reviews combining qualitative and quantitative evidence was performed. Six databases were searched from inception to December 2014. Reviews were included if they were systematic reviews combining qualitative and quantitative evidence. The included reviews were analyzed ac...

- by MAthieu Bujold
- •
- Mixed Methods Research, Medicine, Systematic Reviews, Systematic review

With the development of new approaches in education and progress in e-learning, evaluation has became a considerable challenge in this area. The purpose of this study is extracting the most important components, tools and methods of evaluating e-learning in order to achieve common points in these studies and presenting a comprehensive framework for evaluation of e-learning systems. In this study, the researchers used research synthesis method in which researchers selected 25 samples by purposive sampling among statistical population including 78 researches about e-learning evaluation and extracted the evaluation tools, components and methods were used in these researches and presented a framework for e-learning evaluation by analysis of these cases. The findings of this research include components, tools and methods used in e-learning evaluation in various researches and presenting a comprehensive framework in this regard. The results of this study showed that the most important components are usability, content and information quality, accessibility, communication, interaction and interfaces, management and controllability, technical system and services and supporting, also the most important tools for evaluation are questionnaire, checklist and interview and finally the most important methods are case study, survey and documental analysis.