Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide - Hardcover

Mark Petticrew; Helen Roberts

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1405121106 ISBN 13: 9781405121101

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005

Synopsis

Rare book

About this title

Review:

"The book is noteworthy in terms of its comprehensive coverage of issues and inclusive perspective with respect to study inclusion, study quality assessment and findings synthesis. The guide's ecumenical' perspective is certainly a strength inasmuch as different readers will find inspiration and interesting suggestions on how to conduct different types of SR." (Political Studies Review, May 2009)

From the Back Cover:

Such diverse thinkers as Lao-Tze, Confucius, and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have all pointed out that we need to be able to tell the difference between real and assumed knowledge. The systematic review is a scientific tool that can help with this difficult task. It can help, for example, with appraising, summarising, and communicating the results and implications of otherwise unmanageable quantities of data. This is important because quite often there are so many studies, and their results are often so conflicting, that no policymaker or practitioner could possibly carry out this task themselves.

Systematic review methods have been widely used in health care, and are becoming increasingly common in the social sciences (fostered, for example, by the work of the Campbell Collaboration). This book outlines the rationale and methods of systematic reviews, giving worked examples from social science and other fields. It requires no previous knowledge, but takes the reader through the process stage by stage. It draws on examples from such diverse fields as psychology, criminology, education, transport, social welfare, public health, and housing and urban policy, among others.

The book includes detailed sections on assessing the quality of both quantitative, and qualitative research; searching for evidence in the social sciences; meta-analytic and other methods of evidence synthesis; publication bias; heterogeneity; and approaches to dissemination.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1405121106
• ISBN 13: 9781405121101
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 354