Educational research: Reviewing the literature

As educators, we are often concerned with maximising learning experiences and in exploring or understanding the factors that may contribute to successful educational endeavours. Much of this may transcend into educational research, in which the literature review will be the essential component in clarifying what is already known about the topicand in documenting any unanswered questions to take the research forward. This process will often scope concepts and theories, research methods and strategies, significant controversies, and inconsistencies in findings related to the area. The literature review is the informative, evaluative and critical synthesis of a particular topic and provides readers with a clear picture of the subject and its associated range of perspectives and opposing views. In most cases, they are invaluable to readers because they collect evidence from a variety of sources that is evaluated and synthesised into a readable format.This paper provides a narrative overview of the concepts and practices of literature searching for new educational researchers within physical sciences. A guidance checklist to searching the literature and a list of suggested publication outlets is also listed

A systematic literature review of undergraduate clinical placements in underserved areas.

Context: The delivery of undergraduate clinical education in underserved areas is increasing in various contexts across the world in response to local workforce needs. A collective understanding of the impact of these placements is lacking. Previous reviews have often taken a positivist approach by only looking at outcome measures. This review addresses the question: What are the strengths and weaknesses for medical students and supervisors of community placements in underserved areas? Methods: A systematic literature review was carried out by database searching, citation searching, pearl growing, reference list checking and use of own literature. The databases included MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science and ERIC. The search terms used were combinations and variations of four key concepts exploring general practitioner (GP) primary care, medical students, placements and location characteristics. The papers were analysed using a textual narrative synthesis. Findings: The initial search identified 4923 results. After the removal of duplicates and the screening of titles and abstracts, 185 met the inclusion criteria. These full articles were obtained and assessed for their relevance to the research question; 54 were then included in the final review. Four main categories were identified: student performance, student perceptions, career pathways and supervisor experiences. Conclusions: This review reflects the emergent qualitative data as well as the quantitative data used to assess initiatives. Underserved area placements have produced many beneficial implications for students, supervisors and the community. There is a growing amount of evidence regarding rural, underserved areas, but little in relation to inner city, deprived areas, and none in the UK

Sharpening the Search Saw: Lessons from Expert Searchers

Many students consider themselves to be proficient searchers and yet are disappointed or frustrated when faced with the task of locating relevant scholarly articles for a literature review. This bleak experience is common among higher education students, even for those in library and information science programs who have heightened appreciation for information resources and yet may settle for “good enough Googling” (Plosker, 2004, p. 34). This is in large part due to reliance on web search engines that have evolved relevance ranking into a vastly intelligent business, one in which we are both its customers and product (Vaidhyanathan, 2011). Google’s Hummingbird nest of search algorithms (Sullivan, 2013) provides quick and targeted hits, yet it can trigger blinders-on trust in first-page results. Concern for student search practices ranges from this permissive trust all the way to lost ability to recall facts and formulate questions (Abilock, 2015), lack of confidence in one’s own knowledge (Carr, 2010), and increased dependence on single search boxes that encourage stream-of-consciousness user input (Tucker, 2013); indeed, students may be high in tech savvy but lacking the critical thinking skills needed for information research tasks (Katz, 2007). Students have come to rely on web search engine intelligence—and it is inarguably colossal—to such an extent that they may fail to formulate a question before charging forward to search for its answer. “Google is known as a search engine, yet there is barely any searching involved anymore. The gap between a question crystallizing in your mind and an answer appearing at the top of your screen is shrinking all the time. As a consequence, our ability to ask questions is atrophying” (Leslie, 2015, para. 4). Highly accomplished students often lament their lack of skills for higher-level searching that calls for formulating pointed questions when struggling to develop a solid literature review. In addition, many are unaware that search results are filtered based on previous searches, location, and other factors extracted from personal search patterns by the search engine. Two students working side by side and entering the same search terms may receive quite different results on Google, yet the extent to which this ‘filter bubble’ (Pariser, 2011) is personalizing their search results is difficult to assess and to overcome. Just as important, it can be impossible to know what a search might be missing: how to know what’s not there? This portrayal of the information landscape may appear gloomy but, in fact, it could not be a more inspiring environment in which to do research, to find connections in ideas, and to benefit from and generate new ideas. A few lessons from expert searchers, focused on critical concepts and search practices, can sharpen a student’s search saw and move the proficient student-researcher, desiring more relevant and comprehensive search results, into a trajectory toward search expertise. For the lessons involved in this journey, the focus is on two areas: first, the critical concepts— called threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003)— found to be necessary for developing search expertise (Tucker et al., 2014); and, second, four strategic areas within search that can have significant and immediate impact on improving search results for research literature. The latter are grounded in the threshold concepts and positioned for application to literature reviews for graduate student studies

Apellicon: a web-based tool for constructing and curating Textpresso databases.

As more research literature in the biological sciences is made available in electronic format, text mining systems are increasingly being used to improve the ability of investigators to retrieve relevant information. Through the use of advanced indexing techniques that utilize biological ontologies, semantic databases, and other formal representations of biological concepts text mining systems have been able to effectively parse biological literature. While text mining systems are increasingly effective at creating the linkages required to provide context-specific search results, the systems themselves are difficult to set up and use by novice computer users due to the highly technical nature of the applications. Because most researchers in the biological sciences do not have a strong computer science background we have focused on improving the quality of existing, proven text mining systems by implementing a web-based GUI that greatly improves the workflow of these systems. Textpresso in particular has an excellent web-based interface for searching literature but does not have an easy to use administrative interface. We developed the Apellicon interface to enable a wide range of users to build and manage a Textpresso database. An important feature of Apellicon is that it can enable groups to collaborate in building a Textpresso database

Social isolation in mental health: a conceptual and methodological review

PURPOSE: Social isolation and related concepts have been discussed increasingly in the field of mental health. Despite this, there is a lack of conceptual clarity and consistency in the definition and operationalisation of these terms. This review aimed to provide a clear framework for social isolation and related concepts, and to identify well-established measures in the field of mental health for each conceptual domain discussed. METHODS: We used an iterative strategy of expert consultation and literature searching. A multi-disciplinary group of senior academics was consulted both before and after the literature searching to identify relevant terms, conceptual papers, or recommended measures. Our conceptual framework was also validated through expert consultation. We searched the Web of Science database using terms suggested by experts and subsequently identified further relevant studies through review articles and by reading full texts and reference lists of included studies. A narrative synthesis was conducted. RESULTS: We developed a model with five domains incorporating all the concepts relevant to social isolation in regular use in the mental health research literature. These five domains are: social network—quantity; social network—structure; social network—quality; appraisal of relationships—emotional; and appraisal of relationships—resources. We also identified well-developed measures suitable for assessing each of the five conceptual domains or covering multi-domains. CONCLUSIONS: Our review proposes a conceptual model to encompass and differentiate all terms relating to social isolation. Potential uses are in allowing researchers and intervention developers to identify precisely the intended outcomes of interventions, and to choose the most appropriate measures to use in mental health setting

PubMed By the Pics: Teaching How to Search the Easy Way

This session presents an innovative method for teaching PubMed searching skills using visual graphics in order to develop a strong searching skill base. This method can be utilized on other databases with a controlled vocabulary structure. It also differentiates and explains these differences with non-structured vocabularies. Most often used with novice searchers entering clinical years in medicine and other healthcare disciplines, it has also been used as a refresher for other students and faculty. This teaching strategy has been used successfully in one-on-one situations as well as in group presentations. Simultaneous search strategy instruction and sketching demonstrates searching concepts which allows students to very quickly understand and replicate appropriate search techniques. After approximately 20 minutes of instruction, students can plan, organize and modify their PubMed search strategies to be effective and efficient researchers. The visual take-away that is produced in the class enables students to quickly self-refresh PubMed searching methodologies and effectively search the literature

Searching lab on a chip literature: the need for a glossary of terms and concepts in a multidisciplinary environment

This paper investigates the problem of searching literature in a multidisciplinary environment. It is found that much relevant literature is not found because other disciplines use a different terminology, different units, or slightly different (but related) concepts. The paper suggests some approaches to enhance interdisciplinary understanding and improve exchange of ideas and literature

Automated extraction of potential migraine biomarkers using a semantic graph

Problem Biomedical literature and databases contain important clues for the identification of potential disease biomarkers. However, searching these enormous knowledge reservoirs and integrating findings across heterogeneous sources is costly and difficult. Here we demonstrate how semantically integrated knowledge, extracted from biomedical literature and structured databases, can be used to automatically identify potential migraine biomarkers. Method We used a knowledge graph containing more than 3.5 million biomedical concepts and 68.4 million relationships. Biochemical compound concepts were filtered and ranked by their potential as biomarkers based on their connections to a subgraph of migraine-related concepts. The ranked results were evaluated against the results of a systematic literature review that was performed manually by migraine researchers. Weight points were assigned to these reference compounds to indicate their relative importance. Results Ranked results automatically generated by the knowledge graph were highly consistent with results from the manual literature review. Out of 222 reference compounds, 163 (73%) ranked in the top 2000, with 547 out of the 644 (85%) weight points assigned to the reference compounds. For reference compounds that were not in the top of the list, an extensive error analysis has been performed. When evaluating the overall performance, we obtained a ROC-AUC of 0.974. Discussion Semantic knowledge graphs composed of information integrated from multiple and varying sources can assist researchers in identifying potential disease biomarkers

Measuring Experience Economy Concepts in Tourism: A Replication and Extension

Pine and Gilmore (1998) set out the vision for a new economic era: the ‘experience economy’ in which consumers are now searching for extraordinary and memorable experiences. Since then, a rich body of research on applications of the experience economy concepts have appeared in the consumer literature. However, it is only recently (Oh, Fiore and Jeoung, 2007) that academic investigation on the measurement of tourism experiences have emerged in the literature. The purpose of the research is to replicate and validate Oh, Fiore and Jeoung (Measuring Experience Economy Concepts: Tourism Applications, Journal of Travel Research, 46, November 2007, pp. 119-132) proposed measurement scale in the context of cruising. The study further extends Oh, Fiore and Jeoung (2007) conceptualisations and investigates the relationship between experience evaluations, satisfaction and intention to recommend. Overall, findings of this study enhance theoretical progress on the experiential concept in tourism

A Scoping Study of United States Extension Professional Competencies

This scoping study aimed to answer the question: What is known from existing research studies about the major competencies required of Extension professionals? Scoping studies are characterized by searching the literature to summarize major concepts on a research topic, and they are valuable as they show evidence for the major concepts. This study was limited to research studies of United States’ Extension professionals. The major conclusion from the scoping study is that existing research studies have yielded a rich literature base regarding Extension professional competencies. This scoping study identified 15 Extension professional competency domains: communication, diversity and cultural competence, flexibility, interpersonal relations, knowledge of Extension, leadership, professionalism, program planning and evaluation, resource management, subject matter competence, teaching methodology and delivery, technology, thinking and problem-solving, understanding community needs, and volunteer management. It is recommended that the results inform Extension professional job descriptions and professional learning programs