Evidence Synthesis 1: Study Designs in Systematic Reviewing

Full course description

There are a lot of scientific publications. It is estimated that 1.8 million articles are published each year. Even in any chosen specific field tens of thousands of articles are published each year. For example, during the COVID-19 outbreak 23,500 articles were published on the topic in just the first wave. Any researcher or research-based professional is expected to synthesize the results of scientific studies for evidence-based decision making, regulatory approval or to identify the gaps in literature that need further research. Research synthesis and systematic reviewing are rapidly evolving academic fields using dedicated study designs, software, and statistical tools with applications in all research domains. In this semester, containing two skill trainings (in periods 4 and 5) and a project (in period 6), we will discuss the full scope of principles, concepts and methods of systematic literature reviewing, including meta-analysis (statistical pooling of outcomes of included component studies). You will also gain hands-on coding experience with the statistical programmes JASP and R. Having some experience with statistics or coding will thus help but is not a prerequisite. To facilitate the transparency requested of the modern scientist, you will be working in the Open Science Framework. The popular semester will teach you how to read and write academic papers. It is, as such, a good preparation for your capstone project and possibly later in your educational and academic career.

This first part of this semester is a skills course. In a skill course you will do more independent work then in a regular course. SKI3010 teaches you the general steps, procures and pitfalls of conducting narrative, scoping and systematic reviews following international guidelines and industry standards. You will receive lectures, workshops, and tutorial group meetings. In most of the tutorial group meetings, you will make a start with your homework assignment - with a teacher available to get you started and to ask questions. Attention will be paid to issues like the various approaches to reviewing the literature; strengths and limitations of the systematic literature review; reviews dealing with various types of primary study; structure of a systematic review and steps in conducting a systematic review; strategies, tools and sources for searching the literature; qualitative and quantitative data extraction from retrieved publications; and principles of methodological quality assessment of component studies (e.g., risk of bias assessment); levels of evidence and interpretation of review results; guidelines for systematic review protocol writing; guidelines for reporting on systematic reviews and computer software for systematic reviews. You will also receive lectures with examples how systematic reviews are being used in the professional world. As a thread throughout this first skills course is the relationship between PFAS exposure and human health.