Criminology – Master Thesis

What is a systematic review?

• Aim to locate, appraise and synthesize evidence related to a research question.
• Reports secondary data with findings from already published articles.
• Searches in databases are thorough and reproducible.
• Aim to identify as many eligible studies as possible, but due to time and resource constraints it might be necessary to have a balance between comprehensiveness and maintaining a manageable search result.
• Checklists are used to critically appraise the included studies.
• Full description of the review process with all the key methodological decisions explained.
• The rigorous method when it comes to searching, appraising and reporting helps to minimize bias, and is a major difference distinguishing systematic reviews from traditional narrative reviews.

Ten steps in the systematic review process

1. Planning your review
2. Performing scoping searches, identify the research question and writing your protocol
3. Literature searching
4. Screening titles and abstracts
5. Obtaining papers
6. Selecting full-text papers
7. Data extraction
8. Quality assessment
9. Analysis and synthesis
10. Writing up, editing and disseminating

"There are no short cuts and the process is time-consuming."

From Cherry, G., Boland, A., & Dickson, R. (Eds.). (2017). Doing a Systematic Review: A Student′ s Guide.

Doing a systematic review: a student's guide

Note! The latest edition of the book (2023) has been ordered and will be soon available at the library!

Ethical considerations

Having to seek ethical approval to conduct a systematic review is rare, as it's assumed that each study included in the review already have been subject to ethical review. However there might be ethical considerations regarding the studies since the systematic review methodology doesn't explicitly prevent the inclusion of unethical studies. These can be picked up and excluded  by your eligibility criteria, or otherwise during the quality assessment of the included studies.

Recomended reading

You can read more about doing a systematic review for you master thesis in:

Cherry, G., Boland, A., & Dickson, R. (Eds.). (2023). Doing a Systematic Review: A Student′ s Guide.

Doing a systematic review: a student's guide

Note: The library book is an older edition, the latest edition will soon be available at the library.

Subject guide "Search strategies for systematic reviews"

For a detailed description of how to conduct a systematic review please read more in the subject guide "Search Strategies for systematic reviews".

Subject guide "Search strategies for systematic reviews" (English)

Subject guide "Sökstrategier vid systematiska översikter" (Swedish)