Conducting a Systematic Review of the Literature

This overview of the systematic review provides guidance regarding how and when to use this approach to a research question. High quality systematic reviews are essential to assist health care practitioners keep current with the large and rapidly growing body of scientific evidence. The systematic review is a transparent and reproducible synthesis of all the available evidence on a clearly defined research question or topic. Key stages in conducting a systematic review include clarification of aims and methods in a protocol, finding all of the relevant research, data collection, quality assessments, synthesizing evidence, and interpreting the findings. This short report provides examples for the various stages and steps of the systematic review research approach.

Narrative Reviews of the Literature: An overview

This short report guides the reader through the types of narrative reviews and describes the narrative review process from conception to completion. This report is an overview on the topic of literature reviews and serves to provide guidance regarding how and when to use a narrative review approach. Authors have many purposes for selecting the narrative review of the literature including introducing an original research manuscript, reviewing a critical topic for a scholarly journal, creating an introductory chapter for a thesis, or completing a classroom assignment. Each purpose may include a specific format and may require different components to be included in the research and writing process. This short report provides examples for each section of the narrative review research and writing process.

Facilitating Advanced Research Skills Beyond the Undergraduate Dental Hygiene Curricula

Purpose: Dental hygiene educators play a key role in assisting students to make connections between research and clinical practice. A core course in research was redesigned with the goal of motivating and encouraging dental hygiene students to advance research skills beyond the undergraduate dental hygiene curricula. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the redesigned course and the student outcomes as they relate to perceived barriers and motivation for future research in dental hygiene.Methods: A 25-item, electronic survey composed of 3 sets of Likert scaled questions was sent to a convenience sample of Bachelor of Science dental hygiene students (n=18) enrolled in the Introduction to Research Methods course at New York University. The survey explored students' perceptions of satisfaction with the learning strategies used as well as motivations and barriers toward future research. In addition to the survey, the final project, overall course grade and university end-of-course evaluations were examined to gain a comprehensive understanding of course effectiveness. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data.Results: Of the 18 students invited to participate, 12 completed the course evaluation survey(n=12) for a 67% response rate. Results indicated that all respondents learned about the research process and an Institutional Review Board (IRB) proposal. Most respondents indicated interest in taking additional research courses and in conducting future research. While students indicated lack of time as a barrier toward pursuing research (41.7%), they valued the need for research in clinical care. The IRB proposal project mean score was 88.3 % and the overall mean grade was 89.5%. On a Likert scale range of 1 (low) - 5 (high), the university end-of-course evaluation indicated a 4.9 overall course satisfaction.Conclusion: Results from this pilot study reflected positive students' attitudes towards the redesigned learning modalities and indicated future plans for conducting research upon course completion.