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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE: Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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Literature Reviews

• Getting started

What is a literature review?

Why conduct a literature review, stages of a literature review, lit reviews: an overview (video), check out these books.

• Types of reviews
• 1. Define your research question
• 2. Plan your search
• 3. Search the literature
• 4. Organize your results
• 5. Synthesize your findings
• 6. Write the review
• Artificial intelligence (AI) tools
• Thompson Writing Studio This link opens in a new window
• Need to write a systematic review? This link opens in a new window

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Definition: A literature review is a systematic examination and synthesis of existing scholarly research on a specific topic or subject.

Purpose: It serves to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge within a particular field.

Analysis: Involves critically evaluating and summarizing key findings, methodologies, and debates found in academic literature.

Identifying Gaps: Aims to pinpoint areas where there is a lack of research or unresolved questions, highlighting opportunities for further investigation.

Contextualization: Enables researchers to understand how their work fits into the broader academic conversation and contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

tl;dr  A literature review critically examines and synthesizes existing scholarly research and publications on a specific topic to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of knowledge in the field.

What is a literature review NOT?

❌ An annotated bibliography

❌ Original research

❌ A summary

❌ Something to be conducted at the end of your research

❌ An opinion piece

❌ A chronological compilation of studies

The reason for conducting a literature review is to:

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

While this 9-minute video from NCSU is geared toward graduate students, it is useful for anyone conducting a literature review.

Writing the literature review: A practical guide

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Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences

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Chapter 2: Getting Started in Research

Reviewing the Research Literature

Learning Objectives

• Define the research literature in psychology and give examples of sources that are part of the research literature and sources that are not.
• Describe and use several methods for finding previous research on a particular research idea or question.

Reviewing the research literature means finding, reading, and summarizing the published research relevant to your question. An empirical research report written in American Psychological Association (APA) style always includes a written literature review, but it is important to review the literature early in the research process for several reasons.

• It can help you turn a research idea into an interesting research question.
• It can tell you if a research question has already been answered.
• It can help you evaluate the interestingness of a research question.
• It can give you ideas for how to conduct your own study.
• It can tell you how your study fits into the research literature.

What Is the Research Literature?

The  research literature  in any field is all the published research in that field. The research literature in psychology is enormous—including millions of scholarly articles and books dating to the beginning of the field—and it continues to grow. Although its boundaries are somewhat fuzzy, the research literature definitely does not include self-help and other pop psychology books, dictionary and encyclopedia entries, websites, and similar sources that are intended mainly for the general public. These are considered unreliable because they are not reviewed by other researchers and are often based on little more than common sense or personal experience. Wikipedia contains much valuable information, but the fact that its authors are anonymous and may not have any formal training or expertise in that subject area, and its content continually changes makes it unsuitable as a basis of sound scientific research. For our purposes, it helps to define the research literature as consisting almost entirely of two types of sources: articles in professional journals, and scholarly books in psychology and related fields.

Professional Journals

Professional journals  are periodicals that publish original research articles. There are thousands of professional journals that publish research in psychology and related fields. They are usually published monthly or quarterly in individual issues, each of which contains several articles. The issues are organized into volumes, which usually consist of all the issues for a calendar year. Some journals are published in hard copy only, others in both hard copy and electronic form, and still others in electronic form only.

Most articles in professional journals are one of two basic types: empirical research reports and review articles.  Empirical research reports  describe one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors. They introduce a research question, explain why it is interesting, review previous research, describe their method and results, and draw their conclusions. Review articles  summarize previously published research on a topic and usually present new ways to organize or explain the results. When a review article is devoted primarily to presenting a new theory, it is often referred to as a theoretical article .

Most professional journals in psychology undergo a process of  double-blind peer review . Researchers who want to publish their work in the journal submit a manuscript to the editor—who is generally an established researcher too—who in turn sends it to two or three experts on the topic. Each reviewer reads the manuscript, writes a critical but constructive review, and sends the review back to the editor along with his or her recommendations. The editor then decides whether to accept the article for publication, ask the authors to make changes and resubmit it for further consideration, or reject it outright. In any case, the editor forwards the reviewers’ written comments to the researchers so that they can revise their manuscript accordingly. This entire process is double-blind, as the reviewers do not know the identity of the researcher(s), and vice versa. Double-blind peer review is helpful because it ensures that the work meets basic standards of the field before it can enter the research literature. However, in order to increase transparency and accountability some newer open access journals (e.g., Frontiers in Psychology) utilize an open peer review process wherein the identities of the reviewers (which remain concealed during the peer review process) are published alongside the journal article.

Scholarly Books

Scholarly books  are books written by researchers and practitioners mainly for use by other researchers and practitioners. A  monograph  is written by a single author or a small group of authors and usually gives a coherent presentation of a topic much like an extended review article.  Edited volumes have an editor or a small group of editors who recruit many authors to write separate chapters on different aspects of the same topic. Although edited volumes can also give a coherent presentation of the topic, it is not unusual for each chapter to take a different perspective or even for the authors of different chapters to openly disagree with each other. In general, scholarly books undergo a peer review process similar to that used by professional journals.

Literature Search Strategies

Using psycinfo and other databases.

The primary method used to search the research literature involves using one or more electronic databases. These include Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and ProQuest for all academic disciplines, ERIC for education, and PubMed for medicine and related fields. The most important for our purposes, however, is PsycINFO, which is produced by the APA. PsycINFO is so comprehensive—covering thousands of professional journals and scholarly books going back more than 100 years—that for most purposes its content is synonymous with the research literature in psychology. Like most such databases, PsycINFO is usually available through your university library.

PsycINFO consists of individual records for each article, book chapter, or book in the database. Each record includes basic publication information, an abstract or summary of the work (like the one presented at the start of this chapter), and a list of other works cited by that work. A computer interface allows entering one or more search terms and returns any records that contain those search terms. (These interfaces are provided by different vendors and therefore can look somewhat different depending on the library you use.) Each record also contains lists of keywords that describe the content of the work and also a list of index terms. The index terms are especially helpful because they are standardized. Research on differences between women and men, for example, is always indexed under “Human Sex Differences.” Research on notetaking is always indexed under the term “Learning Strategies.” If you do not know the appropriate index terms, PsycINFO includes a thesaurus that can help you find them.

Given that there are nearly four million records in PsycINFO, you may have to try a variety of search terms in different combinations and at different levels of specificity before you find what you are looking for. Imagine, for example, that you are interested in the question of whether women and men differ in terms of their ability to recall experiences from when they were very young. If you were to enter “memory for early experiences” as your search term, PsycINFO would return only six records, most of which are not particularly relevant to your question. However, if you were to enter the search term “memory,” it would return 149,777 records—far too many to look through individually. This is where the thesaurus helps. Entering “memory” into the thesaurus provides several more specific index terms—one of which is “early memories.” While searching for “early memories” among the index terms returns 1,446 records—still too many too look through individually—combining it with “human sex differences” as a second search term returns 37 articles, many of which are highly relevant to the topic.

Depending on the vendor that provides the interface to PsycINFO, you may be able to save, print, or e-mail the relevant PsycINFO records. The records might even contain links to full-text copies of the works themselves. (PsycARTICLES is a database that provides full-text access to articles in all journals published by the APA.) If not, and you want a copy of the work, you will have to find out if your library carries the journal or has the book and the hard copy on the library shelves. Be sure to ask a librarian if you need help.

Using Other Search Techniques

In addition to entering search terms into PsycINFO and other databases, there are several other techniques you can use to search the research literature. First, if you have one good article or book chapter on your topic—a recent review article is best—you can look through the reference list of that article for other relevant articles, books, and book chapters. In fact, you should do this with any relevant article or book chapter you find. You can also start with a classic article or book chapter on your topic, find its record in PsycINFO (by entering the author’s name or article’s title as a search term), and link from there to a list of other works in PsycINFO that cite that classic article. This works because other researchers working on your topic are likely to be aware of the classic article and cite it in their own work. You can also do a general Internet search using search terms related to your topic or the name of a researcher who conducts research on your topic. This might lead you directly to works that are part of the research literature (e.g., articles in open-access journals or posted on researchers’ own websites). The search engine Google Scholar is especially useful for this purpose. A general Internet search might also lead you to websites that are not part of the research literature but might provide references to works that are. Finally, you can talk to people (e.g., your instructor or other faculty members in psychology) who know something about your topic and can suggest relevant articles and book chapters.

What to Search For

When you do a literature review, you need to be selective. Not every article, book chapter, and book that relates to your research idea or question will be worth obtaining, reading, and integrating into your review. Instead, you want to focus on sources that help you do four basic things: (a) refine your research question, (b) identify appropriate research methods, (c) place your research in the context of previous research, and (d) write an effective research report. Several basic principles can help you find the most useful sources.

First, it is best to focus on recent research, keeping in mind that what counts as recent depends on the topic. For newer topics that are actively being studied, “recent” might mean published in the past year or two. For older topics that are receiving less attention right now, “recent” might mean within the past 10 years. You will get a feel for what counts as recent for your topic when you start your literature search. A good general rule, however, is to start with sources published in the past five years. The main exception to this rule would be classic articles that turn up in the reference list of nearly every other source. If other researchers think that this work is important, even though it is old, then by all means you should include it in your review.

Second, you should look for review articles on your topic because they will provide a useful overview of it—often discussing important definitions, results, theories, trends, and controversies—giving you a good sense of where your own research fits into the literature. You should also look for empirical research reports addressing your question or similar questions, which can give you ideas about how to operationally define your variables and collect your data. As a general rule, it is good to use methods that others have already used successfully unless you have good reasons not to. Finally, you should look for sources that provide information that can help you argue for the interestingness of your research question. For a study on the effects of cell phone use on driving ability, for example, you might look for information about how widespread cell phone use is, how frequent and costly motor vehicle crashes are, and so on.

How many sources are enough for your literature review? This is a difficult question because it depends on how extensively your topic has been studied and also on your own goals. One study found that across a variety of professional journals in psychology, the average number of sources cited per article was about 50 (Adair & Vohra, 2003) [1] . This gives a rough idea of what professional researchers consider to be adequate. As a student, you might be assigned a much lower minimum number of references to use, but the principles for selecting the most useful ones remain the same.

Key Takeaways

• The research literature in psychology is all the published research in psychology, consisting primarily of articles in professional journals and scholarly books.
• Early in the research process, it is important to conduct a review of the research literature on your topic to refine your research question, identify appropriate research methods, place your question in the context of other research, and prepare to write an effective research report.
• There are several strategies for finding previous research on your topic. Among the best is using PsycINFO, a computer database that catalogs millions of articles, books, and book chapters in psychology and related fields.
• Practice: Use the techniques discussed in this section to find 10 journal articles and book chapters on one of the following research ideas: memory for smells, aggressive driving, the causes of narcissistic personality disorder, the functions of the intraparietal sulcus, or prejudice against the physically handicapped.
• Watch the following video clip produced by UBCiSchool about how to read an academic paper (without losing your mind):

Video Attributions

• “ Sample PsycINFO Search on EBSCOhost ” by APA Publishing Training . Standard YouTube Licence.
• “ Using Google Scholar (CLIP) ” by clipinfolit . CC BY (Attribution)
• “ How to Read an Academic Paper ” by UBCiSchool . CC BY (Attribution)
• Adair, J. G., & Vohra, N. (2003). The explosion of knowledge, references, and citations: Psychology’s unique response to a crisis. American Psychologist, 58 , 15–23. ↵

All the published research in a particular field.

Periodicals that publish original research articles.

A type of research article which describes one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors.

A type of research article that summarizes previously published research on a topic and usually presents new ways to organize or explain the results.

A type of review article primarily devoted to presenting a new theory.

Books written by researchers and practitioners mainly for sue by other researchers and practitioners.

Type of scholarly book written by a single author or small group of authors, coherently presents a topic much like an extended review article.

A type of scholarly book in which an editor or small group of editors recruit many authors to write separate chapters on different aspects of the same topic.

An electronic database covering thousands of professional journals and scholarly books produced by the APA.

Research Methods in Psychology - 2nd Canadian Edition Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Literature Reviews

Steps in the literature review process.

• What is a literature review?
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
• Librarian Support
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools
• You may need to some exploratory searching of the literature to get a sense of scope, to determine whether you need to narrow or broaden your focus
• Identify databases that provide the most relevant sources, and identify relevant terms (controlled vocabularies) to add to your search strategy
• Finalize your research question
• Think about relevant dates, geographies (and languages), methods, and conflicting points of view
• Conduct searches in the published literature via the identified databases
• Check to see if this topic has been covered in other discipline's databases
• Examine the citations of on-point articles for keywords, authors, and previous research (via references) and cited reference searching.
• Save your search results in a citation management tool (such as Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote)
• De-duplicate your search results
• Make sure that you've found the seminal pieces -- they have been cited many times, and their work is considered foundational 
• Check with your professor or a librarian to make sure your search has been comprehensive
• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of individual sources and evaluate for bias, methodologies, and thoroughness
• Group your results in to an organizational structure that will support why your research needs to be done, or that provides the answer to your research question  
• Develop your conclusions
• Are there gaps in the literature?
• Where has significant research taken place, and who has done it?
• Is there consensus or debate on this topic?
• Which methodological approaches work best?
• For example: Background, Current Practices, Critics and Proponents, Where/How this study will fit in 
• Organize your citations and focus on your research question and pertinent studies
• Compile your bibliography

Note: The first four steps are the best points at which to contact a librarian. Your librarian can help you determine the best databases to use for your topic, assess scope, and formulate a search strategy.

Videos Tutorials about Literature Reviews

This 4.5 minute video from Academic Education Materials has a Creative Commons License and a British narrator.

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• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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How to Conduct a Literature Review (Health Sciences and Beyond)

• What is a Literature Review?
• Developing a Research Question
• Selection Criteria
• Database Search
• Documenting Your Search

Review Matrix

• Reference Management

Using a spreadsheet or table to organize the key elements (e.g. subjects, methodologies, results) of articles/books you plan to use in your literature review can be helpful. This is called a review matrix.

When you create a review matrix, the first few columns should include (1) the authors, title, journal, (2) publication year, and (3) purpose of the paper. The remaining columns should identify important aspects of each study such as methodology and findings.

Click on the image below to view a sample review matrix.

You can also download this template as a Microsoft Excel file .

The information on this page is from the book below. The 5th edition is available online through VCU Libraries.

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Conducting a literature review: how to find "the literature".

• Why Do A Literature Review?
• How To Find "The Literature"
• Found it -- Now What?

Finding The Literature

Research literature is vast. In the English language alone, over 2.5 million articles are published in peer reviewed journals each year . Sifting through the books and journals to find the most relevant research is challenging, but some of the resources on this page can help you.

To start, write down your research question and think about all the ways it could be described. (A thesaurus - online or in a database , can be helpful!) Think about the approach you are taking -- are you looking at it through the lens of Social Work? Is it also related to other fields, for example, Public Health, Education, Ethnic Studies? What research methods will you use -- how will you research the problem, or evaluate the intervention or policy to address it?

Subject Databases Can Help Find Articles

Powerful features vary by database, but many include the ability to:

• Combine search terms using AND and OR
• Search for exact phrases by using quotation marks " "
• Use controlled vocabulary (Thesaurus)
• Find material organized within a discipline -- law or policy, for example.
• Search by "fields" such as author, journal name, title
• Restrict by the age of  the subject (infants vs. very old)
• Limit by research method (including literature reviews!)

Snowballing aka Citation Slogging

If an article is relevant to your topic, you want to look at the research it cited ( backward citation ). But it can also be very helpful to see who has cited it ( forward citation ). There are several different ways to do this, and the results will overlap --  no single method is comprehensive.

Google Scholar  provides forward citations for some articles. It has a broader range of documents included (not just peer reviewed journals, but reports, pre-prints, etc.) and doesn't eliminate self citation or de-duplicate the results.

ISI Web of Science  contains the  Social Science Citation Index  which allows you to do a "Cited Reference" search. This shows other articles (from a prestigious list of peer reviewed journals) which have cited the target article, and it also shows the references for the the original article... both forward and backward citation.

Screenshot below on how to get to the Cited Reference Search from the  Social Science Citation Index .

Cited References From Within a Database

Using the Cited Reference Search

Oxford Bibliographies -- Great Starting Point for Social Welfare!

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Social Work  --  leading social work scholars identify the most important and significant sources in their areas, and UC-elinks gets you to the cited articles and books. 

Snowballing

http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Snowballing

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Home » Research Findings – Types Examples and Writing Guide

Research Findings – Types Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Findings

Definition:

Research findings refer to the results obtained from a study or investigation conducted through a systematic and scientific approach. These findings are the outcomes of the data analysis, interpretation, and evaluation carried out during the research process.

Types of Research Findings

There are two main types of research findings:

Qualitative Findings

Qualitative research is an exploratory research method used to understand the complexities of human behavior and experiences. Qualitative findings are non-numerical and descriptive data that describe the meaning and interpretation of the data collected. Examples of qualitative findings include quotes from participants, themes that emerge from the data, and descriptions of experiences and phenomena.

Quantitative Findings

Quantitative research is a research method that uses numerical data and statistical analysis to measure and quantify a phenomenon or behavior. Quantitative findings include numerical data such as mean, median, and mode, as well as statistical analyses such as t-tests, ANOVA, and regression analysis. These findings are often presented in tables, graphs, or charts.

Both qualitative and quantitative findings are important in research and can provide different insights into a research question or problem. Combining both types of findings can provide a more comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon and improve the validity and reliability of research results.

Parts of Research Findings

Research findings typically consist of several parts, including:

• Introduction: This section provides an overview of the research topic and the purpose of the study.
• Literature Review: This section summarizes previous research studies and findings that are relevant to the current study.
• Methodology : This section describes the research design, methods, and procedures used in the study, including details on the sample, data collection, and data analysis.
• Results : This section presents the findings of the study, including statistical analyses and data visualizations.
• Discussion : This section interprets the results and explains what they mean in relation to the research question(s) and hypotheses. It may also compare and contrast the current findings with previous research studies and explore any implications or limitations of the study.
• Conclusion : This section provides a summary of the key findings and the main conclusions of the study.
• Recommendations: This section suggests areas for further research and potential applications or implications of the study’s findings.

How to Write Research Findings

Writing research findings requires careful planning and attention to detail. Here are some general steps to follow when writing research findings:

• Organize your findings: Before you begin writing, it’s essential to organize your findings logically. Consider creating an outline or a flowchart that outlines the main points you want to make and how they relate to one another.
• Use clear and concise language : When presenting your findings, be sure to use clear and concise language that is easy to understand. Avoid using jargon or technical terms unless they are necessary to convey your meaning.
• Use visual aids : Visual aids such as tables, charts, and graphs can be helpful in presenting your findings. Be sure to label and title your visual aids clearly, and make sure they are easy to read.
• Use headings and subheadings: Using headings and subheadings can help organize your findings and make them easier to read. Make sure your headings and subheadings are clear and descriptive.
• Interpret your findings : When presenting your findings, it’s important to provide some interpretation of what the results mean. This can include discussing how your findings relate to the existing literature, identifying any limitations of your study, and suggesting areas for future research.
• Be precise and accurate : When presenting your findings, be sure to use precise and accurate language. Avoid making generalizations or overstatements and be careful not to misrepresent your data.
• Edit and revise: Once you have written your research findings, be sure to edit and revise them carefully. Check for grammar and spelling errors, make sure your formatting is consistent, and ensure that your writing is clear and concise.

Research Findings Example

Following is a Research Findings Example sample for students:

Title: The Effects of Exercise on Mental Health

Sample : 500 participants, both men and women, between the ages of 18-45.

Methodology : Participants were divided into two groups. The first group engaged in 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise five times a week for eight weeks. The second group did not exercise during the study period. Participants in both groups completed a questionnaire that assessed their mental health before and after the study period.

Findings : The group that engaged in regular exercise reported a significant improvement in mental health compared to the control group. Specifically, they reported lower levels of anxiety and depression, improved mood, and increased self-esteem.

Conclusion : Regular exercise can have a positive impact on mental health and may be an effective intervention for individuals experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Applications of Research Findings

Research findings can be applied in various fields to improve processes, products, services, and outcomes. Here are some examples:

• Healthcare : Research findings in medicine and healthcare can be applied to improve patient outcomes, reduce morbidity and mortality rates, and develop new treatments for various diseases.
• Education : Research findings in education can be used to develop effective teaching methods, improve learning outcomes, and design new educational programs.
• Technology : Research findings in technology can be applied to develop new products, improve existing products, and enhance user experiences.
• Business : Research findings in business can be applied to develop new strategies, improve operations, and increase profitability.
• Public Policy: Research findings can be used to inform public policy decisions on issues such as environmental protection, social welfare, and economic development.
• Social Sciences: Research findings in social sciences can be used to improve understanding of human behavior and social phenomena, inform public policy decisions, and develop interventions to address social issues.
• Agriculture: Research findings in agriculture can be applied to improve crop yields, develop new farming techniques, and enhance food security.
• Sports : Research findings in sports can be applied to improve athlete performance, reduce injuries, and develop new training programs.

When to use Research Findings

Research findings can be used in a variety of situations, depending on the context and the purpose. Here are some examples of when research findings may be useful:

• Decision-making : Research findings can be used to inform decisions in various fields, such as business, education, healthcare, and public policy. For example, a business may use market research findings to make decisions about new product development or marketing strategies.
• Problem-solving : Research findings can be used to solve problems or challenges in various fields, such as healthcare, engineering, and social sciences. For example, medical researchers may use findings from clinical trials to develop new treatments for diseases.
• Policy development : Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies in various fields, such as environmental protection, social welfare, and economic development. For example, policymakers may use research findings to develop policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Program evaluation: Research findings can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs or interventions in various fields, such as education, healthcare, and social services. For example, educational researchers may use findings from evaluations of educational programs to improve teaching and learning outcomes.
• Innovation: Research findings can be used to inspire or guide innovation in various fields, such as technology and engineering. For example, engineers may use research findings on materials science to develop new and innovative products.

Purpose of Research Findings

The purpose of research findings is to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of a particular topic or issue. Research findings are the result of a systematic and rigorous investigation of a research question or hypothesis, using appropriate research methods and techniques.

The main purposes of research findings are:

• To generate new knowledge : Research findings contribute to the body of knowledge on a particular topic, by adding new information, insights, and understanding to the existing knowledge base.
• To test hypotheses or theories : Research findings can be used to test hypotheses or theories that have been proposed in a particular field or discipline. This helps to determine the validity and reliability of the hypotheses or theories, and to refine or develop new ones.
• To inform practice: Research findings can be used to inform practice in various fields, such as healthcare, education, and business. By identifying best practices and evidence-based interventions, research findings can help practitioners to make informed decisions and improve outcomes.
• To identify gaps in knowledge: Research findings can help to identify gaps in knowledge and understanding of a particular topic, which can then be addressed by further research.
• To contribute to policy development: Research findings can be used to inform policy development in various fields, such as environmental protection, social welfare, and economic development. By providing evidence-based recommendations, research findings can help policymakers to develop effective policies that address societal challenges.

Characteristics of Research Findings

Research findings have several key characteristics that distinguish them from other types of information or knowledge. Here are some of the main characteristics of research findings:

• Objective : Research findings are based on a systematic and rigorous investigation of a research question or hypothesis, using appropriate research methods and techniques. As such, they are generally considered to be more objective and reliable than other types of information.
• Empirical : Research findings are based on empirical evidence, which means that they are derived from observations or measurements of the real world. This gives them a high degree of credibility and validity.
• Generalizable : Research findings are often intended to be generalizable to a larger population or context beyond the specific study. This means that the findings can be applied to other situations or populations with similar characteristics.
• Transparent : Research findings are typically reported in a transparent manner, with a clear description of the research methods and data analysis techniques used. This allows others to assess the credibility and reliability of the findings.
• Peer-reviewed: Research findings are often subject to a rigorous peer-review process, in which experts in the field review the research methods, data analysis, and conclusions of the study. This helps to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings.
• Reproducible : Research findings are often designed to be reproducible, meaning that other researchers can replicate the study using the same methods and obtain similar results. This helps to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings.

Advantages of Research Findings

Research findings have many advantages, which make them valuable sources of knowledge and information. Here are some of the main advantages of research findings:

• Evidence-based: Research findings are based on empirical evidence, which means that they are grounded in data and observations from the real world. This makes them a reliable and credible source of information.
• Inform decision-making: Research findings can be used to inform decision-making in various fields, such as healthcare, education, and business. By identifying best practices and evidence-based interventions, research findings can help practitioners and policymakers to make informed decisions and improve outcomes.
• Identify gaps in knowledge: Research findings can help to identify gaps in knowledge and understanding of a particular topic, which can then be addressed by further research. This contributes to the ongoing development of knowledge in various fields.
• Improve outcomes : Research findings can be used to develop and implement evidence-based practices and interventions, which have been shown to improve outcomes in various fields, such as healthcare, education, and social services.
• Foster innovation: Research findings can inspire or guide innovation in various fields, such as technology and engineering. By providing new information and understanding of a particular topic, research findings can stimulate new ideas and approaches to problem-solving.
• Enhance credibility: Research findings are generally considered to be more credible and reliable than other types of information, as they are based on rigorous research methods and are subject to peer-review processes.

Limitations of Research Findings

While research findings have many advantages, they also have some limitations. Here are some of the main limitations of research findings:

• Limited scope: Research findings are typically based on a particular study or set of studies, which may have a limited scope or focus. This means that they may not be applicable to other contexts or populations.
• Potential for bias : Research findings can be influenced by various sources of bias, such as researcher bias, selection bias, or measurement bias. This can affect the validity and reliability of the findings.
• Ethical considerations: Research findings can raise ethical considerations, particularly in studies involving human subjects. Researchers must ensure that their studies are conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, with appropriate measures to protect the welfare and privacy of participants.
• Time and resource constraints : Research studies can be time-consuming and require significant resources, which can limit the number and scope of studies that are conducted. This can lead to gaps in knowledge or a lack of research on certain topics.
• Complexity: Some research findings can be complex and difficult to interpret, particularly in fields such as science or medicine. This can make it challenging for practitioners and policymakers to apply the findings to their work.
• Lack of generalizability : While research findings are intended to be generalizable to larger populations or contexts, there may be factors that limit their generalizability. For example, cultural or environmental factors may influence how a particular intervention or treatment works in different populations or contexts.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Strategies to Find Sources

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Strategies to Find Sources

• Getting Started
• Introduction
• How to Pick a Topic
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

The Research Process

Planning : Before searching for articles or books, brainstorm to develop keywords that better describe your research question.

Searching : While searching, take note of what other keywords are used to describe your topic, and use them to conduct additional searches

     ♠ Most articles include a keyword section

     ♠ Key concepts may change names throughout time so make sure to check for variations

Organizing : Start organizing your results by categories/key concepts or any organizing principle that make sense for you . This will help you later when you are ready to analyze your findings

Analyzing : While reading, start making notes of key concepts and commonalities and disagreement among the research articles you find.

♠ Create a spreadsheet  to record what articles you are finding useful and why.

♠ Create fields to write summaries of articles or quotes for future citing and paraphrasing .

Writing : Synthesize your findings. Use your own voice to explain to your readers what you learned about the literature on your topic. What are its weaknesses and strengths? What is missing or ignored?

Repeat : At any given time of the process, you can go back to a previous step as necessary.

Advanced Searching

All databases have Help pages that explain the best way to search their product. When doing literature reviews, you will want to take advantage of these features since they can facilitate not only finding the articles that you really need but also controlling the number of results and how relevant they are for your search. The most common features available in the advanced search option of databases and library online catalogs are:

• Boolean Searching (AND, OR, NOT): Allows you to connect search terms in a way that can either limit or expand your search results 
• Proximity Searching (N/# or W/#): Allows you to search for two or more words that occur within a specified number of words (or fewer) of each other in the database
• Limiters/Filters : These are options that let you control what type of document you want to search: article type, date, language, publication, etc.
• Question mark (?) or a pound sign (#) for wildcard: Used for retrieving alternate spellings of a word: colo?r will retrieve both the American spelling "color" as well as the British spelling "colour." 
• Asterisk (*) for truncation: Used for retrieving multiple forms of a word: comput* retrieves computer, computers, computing, etc.

Want to keep track of updates to your searches? Create an account in the database to receive an alert when a new article is published that meets your search parameters!

• EBSCOhost Advanced Search Tutorial Tips for searching a platform that hosts many library databases
• Library's General Search Tips Check the Search tips to better used our library catalog and articles search system
• ProQuest Database Search Tips Tips for searching another platform that hosts library databases

There is no magic number regarding how many sources you are going to need for your literature review; it all depends on the topic and what type of the literature review you are doing:

► Are you working on an emerging topic? You are not likely to find many sources, which is good because you are trying to prove that this is a topic that needs more research. But, it is not enough to say that you found few or no articles on your topic in your field. You need to look broadly to other disciplines (also known as triangulation ) to see if your research topic has been studied from other perspectives as a way to validate the uniqueness of your research question.

► Are you working on something that has been studied extensively? Then you are going to find many sources and you will want to limit how far back you want to look. Use limiters to eliminate research that may be dated and opt to search for resources published within the last 5-10 years.

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• URL: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview

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• Review Article
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• Published: 22 August 2024

Geopolitics and energy security: a comprehensive exploration of evolution, collaborations, and future directions

• Qiang Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8751-8093 1 , 2 ,
• Fen Ren 2 &
• Rongrong Li 1 , 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  1071 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

• Development studies
• Environmental studies
• Politics and international relations

The intersection of geopolitics and energy security is a critical area of study that has garnered increasing interest from scholars around the globe. This paper employs bibliometric theory and methodologies to explore the research trajectory concerning the influence of geopolitical dynamics on energy security. Our findings, derived from both quantitative and qualitative analysis of relevant literature, reveal several key insights. Firstly, there is a notable upward trend in publications on this topic, reflecting a widespread recognition of the intricate link between geopolitics and energy security. This growing body of research aligns with the exponential growth law observed in scientific literature, showcasing a novel pattern of geographical distribution centered around energy issues. Secondly, an examination of collaboration networks at the national, institutional, and individual levels identifies China as the leading country in terms of research partnerships, positioning Chinese institutions and scholars at the forefront of this field. Lastly, our analysis delineates the research evolution within this domain through three distinct phases—pre-, mid-, and post-development stages. It highlights the shifting focus of global researchers towards the energy transition process, energy policy formulation, the stability of energy markets, and the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption. This study not only maps the current landscape of research on geopolitics and energy security but also signals the critical areas of interest and collaboration that shape this vital field of inquiry.

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Introduction.

Energy, as a productive resource, is essential to ensuring the productive lives of the country’s citizens, it is also a strategic and politically attributed resource and plays an important role in ensuring national security and socio-economic stability (Yang et al., 2022 ). As the world’s industrialization process accelerates, technological advances and industrial expansion continue to drive social development, the extensive demand for energy resources has triggered global concerns about energy security. The concept of energy security is initially concerned with ensuring an uninterrupted and reliable supply of energy to meet a country’s or region’s production needs. However, despite the importance of this issue, there is still no consensus among academics on a definition of energy security. This is because the concept depends on the contextual background and the different national settings (Kruyt et al., 2009 ). The scope of energy security is not limited to energy supply but also encompasses the stability of energy markets, the connectivity of global energy supply chains, and the sustainability of energy resources. Energy security is of paramount importance to the economic stability and growth of countries and regions. A stable energy supply is the foundation for sustaining industrial production, transportation, and daily life. Any disruption in energy supply or sharp price fluctuations will result in higher production costs and increased inflation, thereby affecting economic growth and social stability. In addition, energy security is an important component of national security. Disruptions or shortfalls in energy supplies can lead to social unrest and affect national security (Sivaram and Saha, 2018 ). Therefore, energy security is the key to sustaining economic growth, ensuring political stability, and promoting social well-being (Lee et al., 2022 ). The factors affecting energy security are multifaceted, among which the impact of geopolitical risks on energy security cannot be ignored. Geopolitics is defined as the risks associated with war, terrorism, and inter-State tensions that affects the normalization of international relations and the peace process (Lee and Wang, 2021 ). First of all, the political stability of energy-supplying countries has a direct impact on the reliability of their energy exports. Factors such as political instability, civil unrest, and war can lead to disruptions in energy production and transportation, thus threatening the stability of the global energy supply chain. For instance, instances of political unrest and conflict in the Middle East frequently resulted in disruptions to the oil supply, which in turn gave rise to pronounced fluctuations in the price of oil on the international market (Ben Cheikh and Ben Zaied, 2023 ). The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has also resulted in significant fluctuations in the prices of oil and gas (Zhao et al., 2023 ). Secondly, the establishment and maintenance of diplomatic relations between countries also have a significant impact on energy security. International sanctions, trade disputes, and diplomatic conflicts may restrict energy imports or exports, thereby exposing countries that are dependent on imported energy to the risk of supply shortages and price increases (Zhang et al., 2024 ). The relationship between Russia and the West served as an illustrative example of the manner in which geopolitical tensions can give rise to increased uncertainty regarding the supply of gas, which in turn affected Europe’s energy security (Slakaityte et al., 2023 ). In addition, geopolitical risks include the security of energy transportation corridors, such as security threats to maritime transportation routes (Desogus et al., 2023 ). A significant disruption to the global energy market would result from the threat or actual blocking of important transportation corridors, such as the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Malacca (Meza et al., 2022 ). Furthermore, in the global transition to renewable energy, the deployment of renewable energy is also influenced by geopolitical risks. Countries experiencing geopolitical turmoil exhibited lower levels of domestic consumption and reduced government investment in renewable energy-related infrastructure and technology (Alsagr and van Hemmen, 2021 ). Despite research suggesting that geopolitics contributes to the deployment of renewable energy competition for fossil energy sources, such as oil, leads countries to seek out alternative energy sources (Ben Cheikh and Ben Zaied, 2023 ). The intrinsic link between geopolitics and energy security needs to be urgently addressed as countries grapple with the complexities of conserving energy resources in an environment of uncertainty.

Researches on geopolitical risk and energy security in global studies are multifaceted, and most studies used different empirical methods to shed light on the complex relationship between them. Using panel GMM and VAR models, Bin Zhang et al. empirically analyzed the impact of geopolitical risk on China’s energy security from 1994 to 2021. Their findings explained the dynamic relationship between geopolitical risk and energy security, geopolitical risk didn’t necessarily harm energy security and confirmed the existence of a bidirectional causal relationship between the two. In this context, the establishment of stable and fluid international relations was essential for the maintenance of national energy security (Zhang et al., 2023a ). Similarly, in a recent study, Chien-Chiang Lee et al. also identified a two-way impact of geopolitical risk on energy security (Lee et al., 2024 ). Khalid Khan et al. investigated the causal relationship between geopolitical risk and energy security using a full-sample analysis of time series. They assessed the interaction between the two in the time dimension in conjunction with graphs of changes in geopolitical risk indicators, demonstrating that geopolitical risk was inextricably linked to energy security (Khan et al., 2023 ). Geotao Hu et al. used the natural discontinuity grading method to classify 102 countries around the world into energy security levels and studied the game relationship between energy security and geopolitical risk, and their study revealed the focus of the game between them (Hu et al., 2022 ). Indra Overland et al. addressed the geopolitical impacts that countries around the globe were likely to experience as a result of their energy transitions, proposing indicators to measure the geopolitical gains or losses of countries after the transition, and predicting the geopolitical impacts of countries after they have realized their energy transitions (Overland et al., 2019 ). Since the emergence of the topic of energy security and geopolitics, a considerable number of research studies have been conducted, and the number of literature reviews synthesizing the research findings has gradually increased. Early in the publication, Benjamin K. Sovacool et al. discussed definitions and metrics for energy security (Sovacool and Mukherjee, 2011 ). And definitions, dimensions, and metrics of energy security were examined by B.W. Ang et al. Their study identified 83 definitions of energy security that have emerged from previous literature as well as seven major themes in the field of energy security, which need to be further constructed to provide an in-depth measure of energy security (Ang et al., 2015 ), similarly, Abdelrahman Azzuni and colleagues conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on the definition and dimensions of energy security. Their analysis identified and categorized 15 distinct dimensions and related parameters of energy security (Azzuni and Breyer, 2018 ). C.J. Axon and colleagues approached the subject from the standpoint of sustainability versus risk in their examination of the role of risk in energy security assessments (Axon and Darton, 2021 ), Mathieu Blondeel et al. attempted to consider the energy system transition through a “whole-system” perspective, encompassing both the “high-carbon energy transition” and the “low-carbon energy transition”. They also addressed geopolitical considerations pertinent to the energy system transition (Blondeel et al., 2021 ). The findings of research on the two subjects failed to yield consistent results. The current research lacks a structural understanding of the overall research topic. The research sub-directions are diverse and dynamic, and it is not possible to grasp the future direction of research and the emerging trends. Therefore, it is crucial to grasp the main lines of this research direction among the many studies and to reveal the focus between the different studies, this requires a systematic review of published scholarly work using a comprehensive study. The bibliometric approach is based precisely on the cross-citation relationships between literature, through emergence detection, spectral clustering, and other techniques, the conceptual trends, thematic evolution, and future development trends of the research field can be further analyzed and the pioneering achievements and key research groups in the research field can be objectively identified. Academic papers are scarce in the subject area that use bibliometric methods to explore hotspot preambles, Wei Zhou et al. conducted a bibliometric analysis of publications on energy security from 2000 to 2017, and their findings revealed the composition of research at the time, identified early features of research in the field, and suggested future research directions (Zhou et al., 2018 ). In a recent study, Yuyan Jiang and colleagues employed data from 2005 to 2023 to ascertain the present state and projected trajectory of recent research in the field of energy security (Jiang and Liu, 2023 ). Their study critically examined the content structure of scholarly publications on energy security over the timeframe of their research, and although energy security often appeared alongside geopolitical risk, their study didn’t explicitly include geopolitical risk in the framework of their research, but evaluating scholarly movements following the linkage between the two. Therefore, our research employed a systematic methodological paradigm aimed at comprehensively integrating and analyzing scientific publications related to energy security and geopolitics. It was not limited to traditional bibliometric analysis, but the systematic integration and analysis of a large amount of literature through data retrieval and deep text mining techniques. Specifically, the innovations and contributions of this study are as follows. Firstly, we collected and organized scientific publications on energy security and geopolitics globally, establishing a sample literature database closely related to the research topic. Based on this sample database, we conducted a compositional analysis of the research content in this field, deeply exploring the level of scientific contributions of different research subjects (such as academic institutions, countries, research teams, etc.). This analysis revealed the research focus and academic influence of each subject in this field. Secondly, we conducted a detailed analysis of topic flows and citation networks in the literature through the use of advanced text mining and topic modeling techniques. This analysis revealed important knowledge sources and core literature within the field of energy security and geopolitics, as well as demonstrating the process of knowledge iteration. By analyzing current research trends and the dynamic changes in the citation network, it is possible to scientifically foresee the new research directions and hot issues that may emerge in the field, which provides a reference for academics and policymakers and helps to guide future research and policy development.

The remaining parts of this study are organized as follows. Section “Research method” and section “Research design” provide the research methodology and research framework of the study, which focuse on the theories used in the study along with the important steps of the study. Section “Results” analyzes the results of the study, and Section “Conclusions, implications, and limitations” summarizes the full text, pointing out the shortcomings of the study and making suggestions for future research.

Research method

Bibliometrics.

Bibliometrics is a comprehensive analytical technique that combines various disciplines such as statistics, informatics, and mathematics (Andrade-Valbuena et al., 2019 ), and it has been widely used to assess the social and intellectual roots of disciplines (Wang et al., 2021 ). It has been argued that, if used properly, bibliometrics can determine research funding allocations, set research priorities, map scientific developments, and reward performance. Lotka’s Law, Bradford’s Law, Zipf’s Law, Price’s Law, the law of literature aging, and the law of literature citation laid the theoretical foundations for the bibliometric development (Venable et al., 2014 ). This study mainly applied the six basic laws of Price’s Law, Lotka’s Law, and Bradford’s Law to explore trends in literature growth, core author productivity, and core journals in the field.

Performance analysis

Performance analysis in bibliometric research examines the important contribution of research components to the field of study (Donthu et al., 2021 ). Performance evaluation of individuals, institutions, and countries by counting the number of publications owned by different subjects. The number of publications measures scientific productivity, and a high number of publications maps to high scientific productivity (Caputo et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, to assess the quality of publications, the total number of citations received by a publication is employed as a measurement indicator. Publications with a high number of citations are deemed to be widely recognized within the industry and to exert a considerable influence. This study first summarized the publication production patterns of geopolitical studies on energy security by calculating the annual distribution of publication levels and predicting the growth trajectory of future publications, then followed by computational analysis of trends in the geographical distribution of national publications, institutional publications and authors’ publications, evaluating the research contributions to the field from macro, meso, and micro perspectives.

Collaborative network analysis

Collaborative research is an important form of scientific research, a behavioral activity undertaken by researchers to achieve the goal of producing new scientific knowledge, it facilitates cross-fertilization of different disciplines and promotes the generation and development of new knowledge (Lee and Bozeman, 2016 ). Collaborative research is usually presented in the form of co-authored papers, where researchers affiliates with different countries and institutions work together to produce knowledge (He et al., 2021 ). Scientific collaboration enhances the quality of research outputs, as evidenced by studies indicating that collaborative publications are cited more often than those created alone, especially for highly internationalized research papers (Adams et al., 2018 ; Gorraiz et al., 2012 ). In other words, a research paper will be more widely recognized in the field if it is co-authored by multiple countries and multiple authors. This study examined the structure of research based on the static attributes of the research scholars, which reflected the identity attributes of the researchers within the academic field, including the researchers’ institutions and countries (Liu et al., 2024 ). Consequently, both national and institutional collaboration are founded upon the basis of author collaboration, which represents the most fundamental unit of collaboration. The visualization of collaboration between research scholars, research institutions, or countries is presented through the collaboration network. Collaborative network is an undirected network used to describe inter-subjective collaborative relationships and patterns based on collaboration conducted by different researchers, nodes in a network represent research individuals, such as nodes in a country collaboration network represent country attributes. Node size represents the number of publications, and the connecting lines of the nodes usually indicate the collaboration between different subjects, and the thickness of the connecting lines correspondingly indicates the intensity of collaboration, if the collaboration between two subjects is more frequent, then it is represented as a thicker connecting line (Jin et al., 2020 ). The process by which scientific research collaboration is formed is illustrated in Fig. 1 .

This figure shows the process of collaboration formation: on the far left is the number of authors in the article, followed by the authors’ affiliations, then followed by a collaboration matrix based on the authors’ collaborations in the article, and on the far right is the collaboration network based on the matrix.

This study mapped country collaborative networks, institutional collaborative networks, and author collaborative networks to explore whether differences in geographic location played a role in international collaborative behavior, as well as to reveal the number and characteristics of institutional and author collaborative groups in the area.

Keywords analysis

In bibliometric studies, article keywords are often used to identify the main research and hot topics, for keywords are important textual elements that summarize the main research content of a scholarly publication (Li et al., 2016 ), the frequency of occurrence of a keyword reflects the importance of the word in the text, high-frequency keywords often represent important topics. The distance between keywords reflects the relevance of different keywords, with higher-relevance keywords clustered closer to each other and forming keyword clusters (Huang et al., 2019 ). Different clusters of keywords map different topics in the research field. Therefore, to identify the distribution of core themes in the study of geopolitical impacts on energy security and their evolutionary paths, we used the keyword co-occurrence method to analyze the co-occurrence of keywords from all the collected literature and explored the resulting keyword clusters in depth to identify future research directions and research focus in the field.

Science mapping analysis

Data visualization can intuitively express important node information such as group structure in a network, and is an important characterization method for processing large amounts of data. VOSviewer provides visualization of the similarity of node distances, allows users to create networks of countries, institutions, and author collaborations, and provides three network graph representations: clustering view, time view, and density view (van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ), and it can handle large amounts of literature data (Van Eck and Waltman, 2007 ). In this study, we used VOSviewer to map collaborative network, literature citation network, and keyword co-occurrence network, during the threshold setting process, we chose the full-count method, in which a paper co-authored by two subjects is attributed to each author in the paper, and the smallest unit in the network was also set to be 1, which can fully demonstrate the structure of knowledge collaboration and actors in the research field of this topic, and then clustering view and temporal view of collaborative network were formed. Gephi was used to map the performance networks of institutions and journals, it offers several layout methods to display network graphs according to their weights (Bastian et al., 2009 ). In addition, we used a bibliometric package in the Rstudio programming (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017 ) to obtain accurate information on the distribution of literature. Also, the statistical analysis of this study was calculated by Microsoft Excel.

Research design

Data sources and processing.

In this study, the basic bibliographic information was obtained from the core collection of the Web of Science (WOS), Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI-S), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) are included in the core collection, which is widely used in bibliometric studies. The definition of energy security is of great importance in identifying search terms, as it delineates the crucial aspects of energy security and its scope. However, the definition of energy security is context-dependent and subject-dependent and has not yet resulted in a concept that is uniformly used in the industry (Kruyt et al., 2009 ). The historical definitions of energy security have initially focused on the stability of access to fossil fuels, particularly oil (Strojny et al., 2023 ). The increased use of natural gas and other fuels, such as coal, has also expanded the scope of energy security. The distribution of fossil fuels has led to the gradual inclusion of economic attributes in the attributes of energy security, as oil has become a globally traded commodity (Jenny, 2007 ; Wang et al., 2022 ). Energy prices, energy trade, and the stability of energy markets all play a crucial role in energy security. Secondly, the energy trading process is susceptible to the risk of supply chain disruptions due to the inherent vulnerability of energy supply chains to transportation risks, particularly given the considerable distances over which energy is transported (Scheepers et al., 2006 ; Spanjer, 2007 ). Security of energy supply has also become an important part of energy security concerns. Finally, in the process of energy transition, the transition from fossil energy to clean energy requires ensuring the stability and continuity of clean energy supply. At the same time, based on geopolitical considerations of energy security, energy cooperation may be effective in minimizing geopolitical conflicts due to the competition for energy resources and in ensuring the security of energy supply. Accordingly, the selection of keywords in this section was comprehensive and aligned with the fundamental elements of the conceptual framework of energy security, including “energy security”, “energy risks”, “energy supply risks”, “energy cooperation”, “energy transition”, “energy transportation”, “energy markets”, “energy price”, “energy trade” as search keywords. Subsequently, we broke down the term “energy” in “energy security” according to the nature of the energy source, subdividing it into “coal”, “oil”, “natural gas”, “electricity”, “wind”, “nuclear”, “water energy”, while adding “renewable energy” and “clean energy” on this basis. The combination of these two subsections of keywords constituted a searchable formula for the retrieval of academic results that were closely related to the topic of “energy security”. The second section concerned subject words related to geopolitical risk, as investigated by Jiangli Yu and Ahmet Faruk Aysan et al. (Aysan et al., 2023 ; Yu et al., 2023 ), the keywords of geopolitical risk were set as “geopolitical risk”, “geopolitics”, “international conflict”, “international geopolitics”, and “geopolitics”. To retrieve data, the search field designated as “Topic” was utilized, which means a topic search is conducted within the article’s title, abstract, keywords, and keywords plus. Data was accessed on January 7, 2024, and the period was set to all years. To obtain a high-quality data source, we first restricted the publication types, conference papers, editorial materials, letters, notes, book chapters, and book review types of articles were excluded, and only articles and review articles were included in the study, followed by restricting the language to English. Then we analyzed the titles and abstracts of the retrieved papers, and in some cases, even the entire contents of some papers, to determine whether each paper focused on the topic. It’s worth mentioning that even though we tried to find the most relevant papers through the search strategy described above, there were still some irrelevant papers because different authors have their own styles to highlight their articles. Ultimately, we obtained 429 papers for the bibliometric analysis.

Research framework

The occurrence of geopolitical events has had a significant impact on global energy activities, economic trade, and cooperative exchanges. This study utilized data from literature titles included in the Web of Science core collection to examine the impact of geopolitical risk on energy security. Breaking away from the traditional method of organizing a literature review, this study provided an in-depth analysis of the impact of the presence of geopolitical risks on the research field of energy security in terms of the historical development of publications, the geographical distribution, the scientific collaboration, the evolution of the knowledge base and research hotspots in this research field.

The traditional literature review is a method of summarizing and evaluating the existing literature in a particular field of study. This is typically conducted by a researcher who selects, reads, and summarizes relevant literature based on their research experience and expertise (Cronin, 2011 ). Its purpose is to provide background information on a research topic, demonstrate the progress of research in the field, and identify major research findings, theoretical perspectives, and problems, thereby providing references and insights for further study (Li and Wang, 2018 ; Rozas and Klein, 2010 ). The absence of strict procedural constraints in a systematic and standardized process may result in the researcher’s subjective bias influencing the selection and evaluation of literature, thereby reducing the reliability and comprehensiveness of the results of the review. In contrast, the bibliometric method is founded upon the external characteristics and internal connections of the literature. It is based on a series of rigorous procedures for the inclusion and exclusion of literature, as well as general research steps, which are employed to study the temporal distribution, quantitative characteristics, and patterns of change of a given topic. It incorporates a greater quantity of literature, employing mathematical and statistical methods to analyze the research profile of a given topic at a macro level (Kirby, 2023 ). Furthermore, bibliometric offers a significant advantage in the analysis of citation relationships among literature, which is not feasible within a limited timeframe with a traditional literature review. The bibliometric builds citation-coupling networks, co-citation networks, collaborative networks, and co-occurrence networks in the literature, which can predict future research directions in the forward direction, analyze the knowledge base underlying the subject area in the backward direction, and dynamically present the thematic evolution of the research field, as well as identify outstanding contributors and important literature in a particular field (McBurney and Novak, 2002 ; Ninkov et al., 2022 ). In conclusion, the traditional literature review is concerned with the analysis of the research content and findings presented in the literature, to summarize and analyze previous research and identify future research directions. Instead, bibliometric is more concerned with the analysis of the distribution and change of research results in a given field. The research results in a certain field can be assessed regarding the number of research and citation relationships. This allows for the impact of academic research to be evaluated, the academic frontiers and hotspots to be discovered, and research management and decision-making to be facilitated. Therefore, this paper referred to the methodology of F. De Felice et al. using hierarchical analysis for the analysis and discussion of the bibliometric study (De Felice et al., 2018 ), specifically, structured modeling was carried out according to the following four steps:

First, identify the research objectives and the research questions to be addressed. During this stage, the research perspective was further focused on the field of energy security through extensive reading on the impact of geopolitical risks on global economic trade, energy activities, education, and scientific research cooperation.

Second, select the research methodology. By breaking down the research questions and research objectives, the appropriate research methodology was selected, along with the time and scope of the study.

Third, identify keywords and construct a search formula. In this stage, by discussing with experts and scholars and reading the basic research about the field, we extracted the representative key phrases of the research field, constructed the search formula, searched in the database, and de-weighted and cleaned the data.

Fourth, data visualization and analysis. After data collection and data cleaning, the data were calculated, and through various data visualization tools, the collected literature data were visually characterized and analyzed to visualize and understand the development trend, distribution range, and research status of the research field. The roadmap of the research conducted in this study is shown in Fig. 2 .

This figure depicts the research roadmap of this paper. The right side of the figure illustrates the research content of this paper while the left side depicts the research process corresponding to the research content of this paper.

Descriptive statistics of literature information

The basic information about the literature data used in this study is given in Table 1 . The study period runs from 2003 to 2023 and involves a total of 429 publications from 135 journals, with an average half-life of publications of 4.04 years, 19,847 references are cited in these publications. In addition, the author’s keywords and keywords plus used to conduct topic exploration are identified 1136 and 732 respectively, through which the article analyzed the main research trends in this research area. In publications studying the impact of geopolitics on energy security, 1001 authors are involved in the process of knowledge creation, of which 73 authors conducte their research independently.

Publication trend

Thomas Kuhn in The nature of scientific revolutions proposed that the process of scientific development is a “primitive science” to “conventional science” transformation, as well as the transition from one “conventional science” to another “conventional science” process. It was divided into several stages: the scientific development of the pre-scientific, conventional science, scientific crises, scientific revolutions and the new conventional science. The formation of a discipline has undergone a theoretical accumulation of the formation of the paradigm to the paradigm of paradigm change, and then produce a new paradigm of the process of the entire process of scientific development under the impetus of scientific revolutions, the entire scientific development process of the continuous cycle of development (Kuhn, 1970 ). Price’s proposed literature growth curve is consistent with Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific development, he believed that the growth of the literature shows a logical growth trend of the “S” curve, but the growth of the literature is not endless and will eventually stop at a certain K (Price, 1963 ). The mathematical expression for the theoretical model of the literature growth by the logistic curve is shown below:

where \(F\left(t\right)\) is the literature accumulation for the year, \(t\) is the time, \(k\) is the literature accumulation when the time tends to infinity, and is the maximum value of the literature accumulation, and \(a,{b}\) are the conditional parameters.

To examine trends and forecast future developments in the growth of publications related to geopolitics and energy security, and to test whether the growth of the literature in this area conforms to a logistic growth curve, we fit a logistic to the annual cumulative publications. The trend in annual cumulative publication growth was first fitted using Excel, and it was found that the cumulative literature was optimally fitted according to the exponential, which got \({R}^{2}=0.9873\) . Subsequently, according to the curve trend to take k  = 90,000, to determine \(a=1.9\) when the most consistent with the cumulative curve, at this time to get \(b=0.2576\) , and ultimately got the logistic growth curve as shown in Fig. 3 , the cumulative annual growth in the number of publications in the field of research in line with \(y=1.9{{\rm {e}}}^{0.2576t}\) . Comparison with the logistic growth curve reveals that the growth of literature in the field is currently in the pre-growth phase of the logistic curve and may reach the horizontal phase of the logistic curve after the next few decades. In the pre-growth phase, the annual number of publications increases significantly in 2022–2023, from 65 to 135, probably due to the impact of the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2022, which has redirected people’s attention to the study of geopolitics and energy security.

This figure illustrates the growth trend of literature in the study area, with the horizontal axis representing time and the vertical axis indicating the cumulative number of publications. The smaller part of the graph depicts the detailed trend of annual and cumulative numbers of articles published.

Geographical spatial distribution

Spatial analysis of geographic distribution can reveal collaborative networks related to the geographic distribution of publications. Therefore, Scimago and VOSviewer were combined to map the geographic collaborative network of national issuance volumes. A geo-visualization network of the distribution of publications and the collaboration between countries is shown in Fig. 4a and b . The area of the circles in the graph indicates how many publications there are, with larger circles representing more publications, and the connecting lines between the nodes of the different circles indicating the collaboration between countries. In terms of the geographical distribution of publications, countries in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas make the greatest contribution to this field. Among Asian countries, China coveres 168 publications and have the highest number of publications in this field, followed by the United Kingdom (60), the United States of America (43), Germany (26), and Turkey (24). Most of the countries in Europe are involved in research outputs in this area, in addition to countries in the Middle East, which may be attributed to the increased interest in research related to oil security in the region due to resource abundance.

a Global geographic distribution of publications and collaboration networks. b Localized zoomed-in view of the collaboration network. c Chord map of the intensity of country collaboration. This figure illustrates a geographic network of collaboration in the field of geopolitics and energy security. Nodes indicate countries, with size indicating the number of country postings. Connecting lines indicate collaborations between countries. a indicates the global collaboration network of countries, b indicates the detailed collaboration networks in Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, and c indicates the country collaboration chord map.

Nevertheless, an exclusive emphasis on the number of national publications to assess a country’s scientific output is inadequate. The quantity of publications in a country merely reflects its quantitative capacity, without incorporating the quality of these publications into the evaluation. Therefore, considering the availability of data, we counted the total number of citations of the countries through VOSviewer, ranked the two indicators, the number of publications of the countries and the total number of citations by entropy-weighted TOPSIS, and evaluated them using SPSSAU (project. T S, 2024 ), which evaluates the 67 countries that participated in the publications. The entropy-weighted TOPSIS initially identifies the positive and negative ideal solution values (A+ and A−) for the evaluation indexes. Thereafter, the distance values D+ and D− are calculated for each evaluation object concerning the positive and negative ideal solutions, respectively. Finally, the proximity of each evaluation object to the optimal solution ( C ) is determined, and the C is ranked. The final ranking of the top 10 countries is presented in Table 2 .

As illustrated in the accompanying table, the composition of the top ten countries differes when considering both the quantity and quality of publications. China retains its position at the top of the list, with 168 publications garnering 3608 citations from scientists across the globe. The reasons may be explained in the following ways. Firstly, as the world’s largest energy consumer, China’s rapid economic growth has led to an ever-increasing demand for energy, which has driven a significant number of studies and publications on energy security and geopolitics. Secondly, the Chinese government attached great importance to energy security and geopolitics and has formulated a series of policies and strategies, as well as provided strong support and funding to promote research and development in related fields. Furthermore, China is a highly active participant in international collaboration and academic exchanges. With the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s influence in the global energy market is increasing, which has led to a significant increase in the international attention and citation value of its research results. The second-ranked country is the United Kingdom, which has a total of 60 publications with a total of 2139 citations, and the third-ranked country is Pakistan, which has 22 publications with a total of 1407 citations.

In the national collaboration on publications, the study of geopolitics on energy security involves a total of 67 countries around the world, of which 59 countries have collaborative relationships. From the chord diagram of international research collaboration, the depth of the color of the connecting lines between countries indicates the intensity of their collaboration. In Fig. 4c , the color of the connecting line between China and the United Kingdom, the United States, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Spain, and Vietnam is red, which indicates that the intensity of collaboration between China and these countries is higher than that between other countries and that China has more partners and higher collaboration credits in this field of research. In addition, it is found that the geographic distribution of articles in studies of geopolitics and energy security shows a clear energy-oriented country or geopolitical risk-oriented country, unlike previous academic research, the main geographic distribution of publications in this subject area is concentrated in energy-rich or geopolitically risk-intensive areas, gradually moving away from the geographic distribution trend where the level of economic development leads to the distribution of scientific research.

Contribution of institution

In terms of meso-institutional collaboration, a total of 686 institutions around the world are involved in the research, forming a large network of institutional collaboration. The number of publications and the collaboration between them is shown in Fig. 5 . As can be seen from Fig. 5 , Qingdao University (China) has an outstanding research performance in this field, with 23 publications and a total of 782 citations. Meanwhile, Qingdao University has formed collaborative relationships with 33 domestic and foreign organizations, and the intensity of collaboration is 53. These institutions include the Lebanese American University, the Central University of Punjab, and the University of Southampton. The organizations within China are Qilu University of Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, and Anhui University of Finance and Economics. The study of geopolitical impacts on energy security has resulted in 27 collaborative groups, which have worked together on a wide range of research topics.

This figure depicts a collaborative network of institutions. Nodes represent institutions, and lines between nodes indicate collaborative relationships between institutions. Nodes of the same color indicate similar research content.

Contribution of author

Core author distribution.

Lotka’s Law describes the distribution of the frequency of scientific productivity: in a given field of study, the number of authors writing \(n\) papers are approximately \(\frac{1}{{n}^{2}}\) of the number of authors writing 1 paper. The proportion of all authors writing 1 paper to the total number of authors is approximately 60% (Lotka, 1926 ; Tsai, 2015 ). To test whether Lotka’s Law applies to this field of study, we analyzed it using Lotka’s Law and verified the reliability of the law using nonparametric hypothesis testing. The K–S test is a useful nonparametric hypothesis testing method that is primarily used to test whether a set of samples comes from a certain probability distribution. We followed the following steps to test.

Firstly, the data used for the calculations were prepared according to Table 3 , which shows the number of authors with \(x\) publications, the total number of publications, the cumulative number of publications and the cumulative number of authors, as well as the cumulative percentage.

Secondly, the data in Table 4 were used to calculate the exponent of Lotka’s Law, which was calculated from the least squares formula:

Thus, the absolute value of the exponent \(n\) is between 1.2 and 3.8, in accordance with Lotka’s Law.

Subsequently, \(c\) and critical value were calculated by the following equation:

Calculated to get c  = 0.7907, \({{\rm {critical}}\; {\rm {value}}}=0.3781\) .

Finally, a nonparametric hypothesis test K–S test in Table 5 was conducted to test the reliability of Lotka’s Law.

Therefore, the absolute value \({D}_{\max }=0.0839\, < \,0.3781\) was calculated by the above steps, and hence it can be concluded that Lotka’s Law is valid in this subject area.

Co-author network

From the above analysis, it is clear that the author-output pattern of geopolitical impact on energy security is consistent with Lotka’s Law, to further explore patterns of author collaboration in this area, we used VOSviewer to map the network of author collaborations.

As shown in Fig. 6 , there are 13 author collaborations in academic publications that examine the impact of geopolitics on energy security. One of the outstanding contributing authors in the field is Su Chi-Wei, who has contributed 14 scholarly publications and forms a collaborative cluster with 40 other authors. This is followed by Khan, Khalid (11 publications) with collaborative links with 32 authors, Umair, Muhammad (10 publications) with academic collaborations with 28 authors, and Qin, Meng, and Ma, Feng who have the same number of publications, both contributing 7 articles to the academic community. But Ma, Feng has more collaborations with other researchers, collaborating with 23 researchers, while Qin, Meng has collaborations with 21 authors. As shown in (a) of Fig. 6 , among the top 5 authors in terms of number of publications, three authors are from China. In addition, from the time plot of the authors’ publication volume and collaborative networks, the node colors are dark to light indicating that the authors published their research papers from far to near. The collaborative cluster of authors led by Ma, Feng has a long-standing interest in this research area, with their research focusing on the market impact of uncertainty in geopolitical risk and volatility in crude oil prices. Su chi-wei, Khan, Khalid, Umair, Muhammad, and Qin, Meng are late researching this area. Their team published papers between 2021 and 2023 that examined the interactions between renewable energy, the energy transition, oil prices, and geopolitical risks. These contributions have helped to advance the field. It can also be seen in Fig. 6 that in the fringe group of the author collaboration network, the fringe authors tend to be publishers of recent publications and have not yet formed larger collaborative clusters and these fringe authors may be transformed into center authors in future studies.

a Collaboration network of the top 5 authors in terms of number of publications. b Author collaborative evolutionary networks. This figure depicts the authors’ collaborative network and its temporal evolution. Nodes represent authors, and connecting lines between nodes indicate collaborative relationships between them. Nodes of the same color indicate similar research content.

Contribution of journals

The geopolitical impact on energy security cuts across multiple disciplinary areas and has been analyzed from multiple publications, with the contribution of journals to the field assessed through the number of articles published in them. Information on the types of journals that ranks among the top 10 by the number of articles published in the field is shown in Table 6 . Resources Policy has the highest focus on the topic of geopolitical influences on energy security, publishing 66 articles, and as can be seen from Fig. 7 , Resource Policy shows a sharp increase in the number of articles published after 2022, possibly due to the increased global energy risks resulting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has become a popular topic of choice for the journal. This is followed by Energy Policy (33 articles), Energy Economics (27 articles), Energy Research & Social Science (17 articles), and Energy (16 articles). Among the top 5 journals, journals in the field of energy and resources receive more attention than other fields. In addition, the co-citation network of journals (Fig. 8 ) shows the common citation relationships between publications published in different journals, with the thickness of the connecting line indicating the strength of the citation. Resources Policy and Energy Economics are the journals with the highest strength of connectivity, and articles in these two journals have the highest number of citations, suggesting that the content of articles published in Resources Policy and Energy Economics are highly similar in terms of research direction.

This figure illustrates the annual publication trend for the top 10 journals in terms of the number of articles published. The horizontal axis represents the year while the vertical axis depicts the number of articles published by the journal.

This figure depicts the journal citation network, where nodes represent journals, and connecting lines indicate citation relationships between papers published in the journals.

To further clarify the distribution of core journals in this subject area of geopolitical impact on energy security, the Bradford distribution of core journals was mapped using the Rstudio. Bradford’s Law describes the uneven distribution of scientific articles across journals due to differences in closeness between specialized disciplines (Bradford, 1934 ). Journals can be classified into three categories based on the number of articles published. The ratio of the number of journals in each group is \(1:a:{a}^{2}\) (Yang et al., 2016 ), which indicates that a large number of specialized papers are first concentrated in a few core journals, with some papers appearing in other journals related to the specialty. Bradford’s Law has been widely used to study different subject trends. Based on the information provided in the data in Table 7 , the journals are categorized into three regions, each of which carries approximately the same number of articles. As can be seen in Fig. 9 , the core journals in this subject area are mainly Resources Policy , Energy Policy , Energy Economics , Energy Research & Social Science . Journals in the core zone account for 2.96% of all journals and publish 33.33% of the articles in the field. Journals in the relevant journals account for 14.07% of the total number of journals and publish 33.8% of the articles in the field, while journals in the discrete journals account for 82.96% of the total number of journals and publish 32.87% of the articles in the field as shown in Table 8 . The four journals, Resources Policy , Energy Policy , Energy Economics , and Energy Research & Social Science , are more concerned with geopolitics and energy security. Researchers engaged in this field may therefore consider these journals as a source of knowledge.

This figure illustrates the distribution of core journals within the field of study. The horizontal axis represents the journal category, the vertical axis represents the number of journal publications, and the shaded area represents the range of core journals.

Contribution of core literature

We used VOSviewer to map the literature coupling network of geopolitical impact studies on energy security to explore the most influential academic literature in the field, as shown in Fig. 10 , where the node size indicates the total number of citations to the article and the connecting lines indicate the coupling relationships. Concurrently, the academic literature that has been cited the most is highlighted, and the detailed information of the top 10 most cited articles is listed in Table 9 , including the title of the article, the first author, the country of affiliation, publication year, the total number of citations, the journal of publication, and the DOI of the literature. As illustrated in it, the literature with the greatest number of citations is Lynne Chester’s article Conceptualizing Energy Security and Making Explicit Its Polysemic Nature , published in Energy Policy in 2010. This article has been cited a total of 310 times since its initial publication, and it is widely recognized within the industry as a highly cited document in this subject area. This article presented an early research explanation of the conceptualization of energy security. It addressed the multifaceted connotations of energy security, the market paradigm, and its multidimensional nature from a theoretical perspective that informed subsequent studies (Chester, 2010 ). The second most frequently cited article is Renewable Energy and Geopolitics: A Review by Roman Vakulchuk, published in 2020. This review article presented a comprehensive analysis of the geopolitical literature related to renewable energy. The study revealed that many publications on renewable energy and geopolitics employed limited research methodologies, failed to delineate geopolitical periods, and lacked in-depth discussions. Furthermore, the analysis indicated that most relevant articles focused on oil-producing countries, while ignoring coal-dependent countries (Vakulchuk et al., 2020 ). Moreover, it is notable that almost half of the top 10 cited literature originates from China, which serves to corroborate China’s research production level in this area.

This figure represents the literature coupling network, the nodes represent the literature, the node size represents the number of citations, the node connecting lines represent the coupling relationship of the literature, and the node color represents the time distribution.

Thematic distribution

Thematic keywords.

Keywords can provide information about the core content of the article (Wang et al., 2024b ). The frequency of keyword occurrences over time can reflect research trends in the field of study. We used Rstudio programming techniques to draw keyword heat maps and cumulative keyword heat maps in the research area of geopolitical impact on energy security. As shown in Fig. 11 , which demonstrates the top 20 high-frequency keywords in the study of geopolitical impact on energy security. From the keyword heat map and the cumulative keyword heat map, it can be seen that “Natural gas” and “Oil” are the first to appear in the heat map, and both of them have a significant heat in 2006, and the heat lastes for a long time. It shows that the geopolitical impact on energy security is first and foremost reflected in the impact on natural gas and oil and that geopolitics has a significant long-term impact on hydrocarbons. In addition to “natural gas” and “oil” having significant heat in the keyword heat map, other keywords that appear earlier and have significant heat include “Russia” and “China”. In addition, in terms of sudden heat, “Climate change” receives huge attention in 2016. “Energy policy”, “Energy”, “Uncertainty”, “Natural gas” and “Oil” have a sudden increase in heat in 2021. The following is an in-depth analysis of the featured keywords.

This figure depicts the distribution of keyword frequency and cumulative keyword frequency. The horizontal axis represents the year, the vertical axis represents the keyword category, and the color represents the heat value of the keyword.

Natural gas and oil

The co-occurrence mapping of natural gas and oil linked to other keywords is shown in Fig. 12 . “Natural gas” co-occurs with several keywords such as “energy security”, “consumption”, “market”, “crude oil”, “oil”, “policy”, “risk”, “China”, “Russia”, “EU”, and so on. “Oil” co-occurs with several keywords such as “energy policy”, “renewable energy”, “market”, “natural gas”, “vulnerability”, “return”, “price”, “cooperation”, “consumption”, “China” and “Russia”. Natural gas and oil are important energy components and occupy a prominent place in the global energy landscape. Natural gas is a vital source of electricity generation, and natural gas-fired power plants can provide backup and grid stability for intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power (Baldick, 2014 ; Mac Kinnon et al., 2018 ), their ability to increase or decrease rapidly complements the variability of renewable energy production. Natural gas is highly efficient, flexible, and low-emission compared to other fossil fuels, and natural gas produces fewer carbon emissions and less pollution when burned (Safari et al., 2019 ). At the same time, natural gas is an important source of energy to support industrial production and social life. Oil is a key feedstock for the petrochemical industry (Keim, 2010 ). It provides raw materials for the production of a wide range of products, including plastics, synthetic rubber, solvents, fertilizers, and chemicals, and is an important driver of global trade and economic activity. The geopolitical impact on energy security is the first thing that prompts global scientists to discuss natural gas and oil, given their wide-ranging and important international status, for geopolitical factors play a crucial role in determining the global distribution of natural gas reserves and oil. Countries with rich hydrocarbon reserves often have important strategic advantages that influence regional political alliances, trade relations (Gu and Wang, 2015 ). And geopolitical tensions could disrupt oil and gas supplies and affect global oil and gas markets. Armed conflict and political instability in natural gas regions increase the risk of gas supply disruptions and hinder the construction of projects such as gas pipelines.

This figure shows the co-occurrence network for the keywords “natural gas” and “oil”, where different nodes represent different keywords and the lines between the keywords represent co-occurrence relationships.

Russia and China

The connection between Russia and China in the keyword co-occurrence diagram is shown in Fig. 13 . Russia has co-occurring relationships with the keywords “energy security”, “gas”, “oil”, “cooperation”, “Ukraine”, “Europe”, “renewable energy”, “China”, “policy”. In the co-occurrence mapping of the keyword China, there are co-occurrence relationships for several keywords such as “economic growth”, “energy security”, “energy transition”, “oil price”, “cooperation”, “return”, “demand”, and “consumption”. Russia has the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is one of the largest producers of crude oil, as well as being the world’s largest producer and exporter of natural gas (Karacan et al., 2021 ). In view of the geographical advantages, a number of European countries have formed close energy cooperation with Russia, and the rich energy reserves have become an important tool for Russia’s strategic negotiations and energy diplomacy (Bilgin, 2009 ). Russia is located in a geopolitical risk zone, with armed conflict with Ukraine in 2022 having a huge impact on Russian and global energy markets (Rokicki et al., 2023 ). Several European countries have restricted Russian energy imports, leading to an energy supply crisis in Europe (Kuzemko et al., 2022 ). China is the world’s largest energy consumer, and the diversification of China’s energy mix has made it more concerned about global energy security conditions (Boute, 2019 ). This is because China’s energy demand is fueled by rapid economic growth and accelerated industrialization. Whereas China is heavily dependent on energy imports, the impact of regional conflicts and political tensions on global energy supplies could also affect China’s energy import trade. China actively engages in energy cooperation with countries in Central Asia (Zhou et al., 2020 ) and Africa (Bradshaw, 2009 ), putting forward the “Belt and Road” initiative, and significant investment in global energy infrastructure was done to increase China’s influence in major energy-producing regions, ensure access to key resources and enhance the country’s energy security (Duan and Duan, 2023 ).

This figure shows the co-occurrence network for the keywords “Russia” and “China”, where different nodes represent different keywords and the lines between the keywords represent co-occurrence relationships.

Climate change

As shown in Fig. 14 , climate change is closely related to the keywords “environment”, “energy security”, “energy transition”, “carbon emissions”, “renewable energy”, and “cooperation”. Climate change has been an important global issue, and its involvement in the discussion of geopolitical influences on energy security is notable. On the one hand, geopolitical factors have led to changes in global energy consumption patterns, and the deterioration of inter-State relations could re-exacerbate dependence on fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas. The “Escalation effects” of geopolitical risks reduce renewable energy consumption and lead to higher carbon emissions (Anser et al., 2021 ). Geopolitical decisions related to the development of energy infrastructure may affect the integration of renewable energy into national or regional energy systems, slowing down clean energy deployment plans and increasing global greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, favorable geopolitical policies and international cooperation can drive investment in clean energy technologies and increase opportunities for international R&D cooperation. In conclusion, the implications for climate change under the geopolitical discussion of energy security are complex.

This figure shows the co-occurrence network for the keywords “Climate change”, where different nodes represent different keywords and the lines between the keywords represent co-occurrence relationships.

Energy policy and uncertainty

As shown in Fig. 15 , energy policy is closely related to the keywords “renewable energy”, “price”, “oil”, “climate change”, and “country”. In the keyword co-occurrence mapping of “uncertainty”, the terms “market,” “price,” “return,” and “economic growth” appear more frequently. Energy policy and uncertainty are key themes influencing the discussion of geopolitical implications for energy security. Government intervention is an important response to energy security issues, and governments around the world develop energy policies as a strategic framework to address the complex interplay of domestic and international factors that seek to enhance energy security and reduce uncertainty in the energy sector (Youngs, 2009 ). The formulation of energy policy is influenced by factors such as national energy structure and energy consumption (Li et al. 2024 ). Uncertainty about geopolitical risks also affects national energy policies, and it is important for national policymakers to combine measures to address geopolitical risks with the maintenance of national energy security and to reduce the vulnerability of global energy prices, energy trade, and energy supply to geopolitical risks. Uncertainty in the geopolitical landscape poses a challenge to energy policymakers. Sudden geopolitical events, changes in international relations, or changes in the dynamics of energy markets can threaten energy security, and the development of effective energy policies has become an important tool for addressing geopolitical threats to energy security.

This figure shows the co-occurrence network for the keywords “Energy policy” and “Uncertainty”, where different nodes represent different keywords and the lines between the keywords represent co-occurrence relationships.

Thematic evolution path

This section mapped the timeline of keyword co-occurrence from the perspective of the temporal evolution of keyword co-occurrence. As shown in Fig. 16 , the transition from cold to warm indicates the time from far to near, and the average occurrence time of keywords can be identified by the time color band in the graph. The research phases can be categorized into three distinct phases according to the average year in which the keywords appeared. The average year of emergence of the first stage is 2018–2020, with a focus on the energy sector, which means objects that geopolitics may threaten. The main objects of energy security risks that can be extracted from typical words are “natural gas”, “oil”, “power”, “hydropower”, “nuclear power”, “fossil fuels”, “energy trade”, and they form the core of the global energy infrastructure. The identified energy security risks are multifaceted, encompassing not only traditional concerns related to fossil fuels but also reaching into the complex dynamics of the “energy trade”. The interconnected nature of energy resources and their global distribution necessitate a thorough review of trade relationships to assess potential vulnerabilities in energy supply chains. In the geopolitical area, certain countries play a pivotal role, directly affecting or being affected by developments in the energy sector, “China”, “Russia”, “EU”, “United States”, “India”, “Germany”, “Japan”, “Turkey”, “Central Asia”, “Middle East”, “Ukraine”, “Pakistan”, “Poland” are in the spotlight at this stage. Each of these countries faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities in terms of energy security. As mentioned previously, China is a rapidly growing consumer and producer of energy, influencing the global energy market (Odgaard and Delman, 2014 ). Russia is rich in energy reserves and plays an important role in regional and global energy dynamics. The EU, as a collective entity, plays a central role in the development of energy policies and in promoting cooperation among its member States. India’s economy is booming and it seeks to ensure a stable and continuous supply of energy to support its growth trajectory (Kumar and Majid, 2020 ). Germany, Japan, and Turkey represent industrialized countries with special energy needs and dependencies (Cherp et al., 2017 ; Kilickaplan et al., 2017 ). A comprehensive look at countries and regions provides a comprehensive understanding of the interconnected network of energy security issues, including supplier and consumer countries in the global energy landscape. As the research continues, it aims to unravel the intricate relationships, dependencies, and potential hotspots that will shape the future of global energy security.

This figure depicts the temporal evolution of keyword co-occurrences, with colors ranging from cool to warm to indicate time from far to near.

The average year of occurrence of the second stage is 2020–2022, which is a light warm color on the clustered time plot. During this period, the keywords “geopolitical risk”, “renewable energy”, “energy transition”, “crude oil”, “price”, “crude oil price”, “uncertainty”, “return”, “demand”, “policy uncertainty”, “growth”, “oil price shocks”, “volatility”, “price volatility”, “markets”, “gold price”, “stock market” are found to be more frequent. Popular keywords provide a comprehensive overview of key themes and concerns in the energy industry and related markets. The emergence of the term “geopolitical risk” as a focal point indicates an acute awareness of the impact of geopolitical events on energy markets and the wider global economy, as well as a heightened sensitivity to geopolitical tensions, conflicts, and geopolitical strategies that could disrupt energy supplies and markets. “Renewable energy” and “energy transition” continue to feature prominently, highlighting the growing emphasis on sustainable and clean energy. This period has been characterized by growing interest and discussion around the global shift to renewable energy, reflecting a concerted effort to address environmental concerns and reduce dependence on traditional fossil fuels. The constant references to “crude oil”, “price” and “crude oil price”, together with terms such as “oil price shocks”, “volatility”, “price fluctuations”, “market”, “gold price” and “stock market”, highlight the energy industry’s continued interest in and scrutiny of the intricate relationship between geopolitical risks and global energy markets. Conflicts, political tensions, or disruptions in the oil supply chain in the world’s major oil-producing regions could lead to unpredictable and dramatic fluctuations in oil prices. Such sharp fluctuations create uncertainty for both producers and consumers, affecting investment decisions and market dynamics (Mei et al., 2020 ). In conclusion, this stage of research focuses on the fluctuations of geopolitics in the energy economy market and the financial market, and it is gradually recognized that geopolitics produces dramatic fluctuations in the energy economy market, while the sensitivity of the crude oil price, oil price to geopolitical risks promotes the exploration of measures to resist the geopolitical risks.

The average year of occurrence of the third stage is 2022–2023, which appears in red on the clustered time plot. “GDP”, “financial development”, “natural resources”, “green finance”, “determinants”, “empirical analysis”, “utility testing”, “regression analysis”, “impulse response analysis”, “time series”, “wavelet correlation”, and other keywords frequently appear. It is worth noting that the interconnection between the financial system and the energy market has received extensive attention from researchers and scholars in the context of the geopolitical impact on energy security, as indicated by keywords such as “GDP”, “financial development” and “green finance”. The keywords “determinants,” “empirical analysis,” “utility testing,” “regression analysis,” “impulse response analysis,” “time series,” and “wavelet correlation” collectively indicate a methodological shift toward rigorous quantitative analysis at this stage. Researchers seem to have employed advanced statistical tools and econometric techniques to explore the determinants and effects of various factors on energy-related phenomena. The methodological shift suggests that the field is moving toward evidence-based policymaking and a desire to build a solid empirical foundation. The diversity of keywords in this phase implies a multidimensional exploration, integrating economic, financial, and environmental factors, in addition to multiple keywords on research methodology suggesting that research is moving towards more advanced analytical tools and empirical frameworks.

Thematic clustering

Keyword clustering analysis is able to explain the main hotspots in the research field, which was mapped by VOSviewer and Scimago. As shown in Fig. 17 , hotspot clusters are distributed in a two-dimensional rectangular coordinate system, and different colors indicate different clusters. The distribution of colors and the legend in Fig. 17 show that the main hotspots in this research area are distributed in six clusters. We obtained cluster labels from the keywords contained in the clusters and discussed with experts to determine the keyword labels that best summarize the nature of the clusters and labeled them in Fig. 17 . The size of a clustering cluster is determined by the number of keywords contained in the cluster. The cluster with the largest number of keywords is the green cluster, which focuses on keywords such as “fossil energy”, “clean energy”, “renewable energy” and “energy transition”, it is therefore reasonable to name the green cluster “energy transition”. And then the purple cluster, which is identified through keyword analysis as being closely related to the natural environment, and is therefore identified as being labeled “natural environment”. Similarly, based on the keyword categories, the blue cluster is labeled “energy policy”, and the red and pink clusters, which cover a sparse number of keywords and tend to be similar in nature to the orange clusters, are combined and labeled “energy market”. It is worth noting that the horizontal and vertical axes in the 2D cartesian coordinate system have no obvious data meaning, but merely indicate the relative positions of the keywords and their clusters in the 2D space. Subsequently, our study further explored for the identified keyword clusters.

This figure illustrates keyword clustering, wherein nodes represent keywords and different nodes are colored to indicate distinct clusters. The horizontal and vertical axes represent the relative positions of the nodes.

Green cluster: energy transition

Energy transition refers to a change in the way energy is utilized, a reduction in the share of fossil energy in the energy mix, and a transition from traditional fossil energy consumption to clean energy consumption (Rasoulinezhad et al., 2020 ). Geopolitical risk works both ways for energy transition, with major changes in international energy markets under the Russia–Ukraine conflict. European countries, opposed to Russia’s military conflict over Ukraine and determined to reduce energy trade with Russia, have resumed coal- and oil-fired power generation amid gas shortages (Wang et al., 2023 ), higher geopolitical risk also increases the cost of renewable energy deployment (Shirazi et al., 2023 ), slows down the energy transition and inhibits the transition to renewable energy. Meanwhile, “high-risk” countries at geopolitical centers may face obstacles in seeking foreign investment, inhibiting the development of renewable energy infrastructure (Fischhendler et al., 2021 ). On an optimistic note, studies have demonstrated the positive contribution of geopolitical risk to the development of renewable energy, with high geopolitical risk spurring countries to consume more renewable energy (Sweidan, 2021 ), which could be an important tool to facilitate the clean energy transition (Liu et al., 2023 ). The complex relationship between geopolitical risk and renewable energy has been subjected to multiple argumentative studies, and thus energy transition is one of the important research directions for researchers and scholars in various countries in the context of geopolitical risk affecting energy security.

Purple cluster: natural environment

The three themes of geopolitical risk, energy security, and climate change have become popular topics for researchers and scholars around the world. Geopolitical tensions not only bring political and economic uncertainty but also harm the natural environment (Acheampong et al., 2023 ). The direct impact of geopolitical risk on the environment is manifested in the control of and access to valuable natural resources, such as oil, gas, minerals, and water, competition for which can lead to overexploitation, environmental degradation, and ecosystem destruction (Li et al., 2023 ). International conflicts and armed struggles also have a greater impact on the surrounding environment, and conflicts can lead to increased air pollution and destruction of green facilities in the region, and the production and manufacture of military equipment can increase atmospheric carbon dioxide (Ullah et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, geopolitical risks act on the natural environment by affecting the consumption structure of the energy sector. The previous analysis showed that the process of energy transition was negatively affected by geopolitical risks, the decline in the consumption of renewable energy sources, and the reduction of clean energy infrastructure were not conducive to the suppression of carbon emissions. In addition, unfriendly relations between countries can hamper global cooperation in addressing climate change and environmental issues, and prolonged hostilities can impede the conclusion of bilateral or multivariate agreements, which in turn affects sustainable development (Zhao et al., 2021 ).

Red, pink, and orange cluster: energy market

Geopolitical risks have historically played an important role in influencing global energy prices. One study summarized three channels through which geopolitical risk affected energy prices: the threat of conflict acting on energy conversion resulting in lower oil prices, the impact on energy prices of rising negative investor sentiment due to the threat of conflict, and the role of geopolitical uncertainty on energy supply and demand (Li et al., 2020 ). Additionally, geopolitical tensions and conflicts in major oil- and gas-producing regions could disrupt the production and transportation of energy resources. For example, conflicts in the Middle East involving major oil-producing countries such as Iraq or Saudi Arabia had the potential to result in supply disruptions and subsequent increases in oil prices (Cunado et al., 2019 ; Su et al., 2019 ). Then, geopolitical events have affected national foreign trade policies, leading to the imposition of sanctions or embargoes on certain countries, restricting their ability to export or import energy resources, and reducing the global supply of oil and natural gas, resulting in higher prices. Thus, the complex relationship between geopolitical risks and global energy markets has led to a strong interest in this direction among researchers and scholars in various countries.

Blue cluster: energy policy

As Governments grapple with the dual challenge of meeting growing energy demand and addressing climate issues, the energy policy landscape has changed significantly and is often influenced by geopolitical risks. Energy policy is an integrated strategic framework for managing the production, consumption, and sustainability of a country’s energy resources and plays an important role in economic development, national security, and environmental stability (Chen, 2011 ). The multidimensional objectives of energy policy underscore its centrality to national interests: ensuring reliable and affordable energy supplies, promoting economic growth, reducing environmental impacts, and enhancing energy security (Doukas et al., 2008 ). Energy policy is undergoing transformative changes in the contemporary geopolitical landscape, driven by an intricate interplay of technological advances, environmental imperatives, and geopolitical risks (Wang et al., 2024 ). The geopolitical landscape brings a layer of complexity to energy policy, as countries must navigate an intricate web of alliances, rivalries, and resource dependencies. Geopolitical risk manifests itself in the energy sector in a variety of ways, including disruptions in the global energy supply chain due to conflicts in major oil-producing regions, and trade disputes affecting energy trade (Golan et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2023b ). In the face of these risks, there is a need for a nuanced energy policy that requires a comprehensive understanding of how global geopolitical dynamics can affect energy markets and, in turn, a country’s energy security. Therefore, as the world faces continued geopolitical uncertainty, energy policy will continue to evolve, reflecting the need to balance energy security, economic development, and environmental sustainability in an increasingly interconnected and dynamic global environment.

Conclusions, implications, and limitations

Geopolitics has a profound impact on the energy sector, and the threat in particular is global energy security. Using a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis, we analyzed more than 400 articles published in the Web of Science core collection qualitatively and quantitatively, and identified the historical development trend, the distribution of research power, the overview of the international collaboration, the research hotspots, and the evolution path of the research. The main findings of this study are as follows:

Researches in geopolitics and energy security is under development, the subject area has moved away from economic factors in the distribution of scientific research to a greater reliance on the global distribution of energy sources. In other words, the distribution of literature output in this subject area no longer follows the trend of distribution between developed and developing countries but is distributed in energy-rich countries or regions, such as oil and gas resources.

The macro-, meso- and micro-networks of scientific collaboration show a more connected group of collaborators, with China as an important research force in the field, and strong links with a number of countries in the Americas, the Middle East and Europe. A total of 27 collaborative groups are generated globally in the institutional collaborative network (ICN). Among them, Qingdao University (China), which has formed the largest collaborative network with a number of institutions at home and abroad, represents the collaborative institutions of the center. Chi-Wei Su is identified as an important co-occurring author in the author collaboration network (ACN), with a large number of collaboration clusters center on him. The K–S test verifies the validity of Lotka’s Law for the distribution of authors in this field and the application of Bradford’s Law identifies the core journals in this research area as Resource Policy , Energy Policy , Energy Economics , Energy Research & Social Science .

The keyword heat map of the thematic analysis shows that the first keywords to be hit in this area are natural gas and oil, and that there is a long-term impact on hydrocarbons, and keywords such as climate change, energy policy, and uncertainty have received sudden attention additionally. The evolutionary path of the thematic analysis shows the three main stages of the development of this research topic, while the keyword clustering shows that the research on this topic focuses on the areas of energy transition, energy markets, energy policy, and the natural environment.

Our research prompts global policymakers to pay further attention to the uncertain risks posed by geopolitics to energy security, and endeavor to promote scientific research collaboration and international goodwill among countries to solve practical problems together. Concurrently, it is imperative to rectify the principal research direction, accelerating the transformation of the country’s energy structure, maintaining the stability of the energy market, and formulating rational energy policies, while paying attention to the impact on the natural environment. In addition, our research has certain advantages in terms of identifying overall trends and future directions of a research topic, however, there are still some limitations in data collection, data processing and tool application. First, our data were obtained from the Web of Science core collection, and by manually reading the titles, abstracts, and bodies, we screened the academic papers that best fit the topic for inclusion in the subsequent analysis, but we still failed to immune to omissions. The homogeneity of the database selection may result in the omission of gray literature in the field, as we initially focused on high-quality literature published in high-quality journals. Second, in addition to academic papers, which can represent a country’s research priorities, other categories of academic activities such as research projects, conference papers, and books can also reflect research trends to a certain extent, however, our paper data excluded this information, and it is possible for future research to collect and process the results of the different academic categories to enrich the field’s research. Finally, the systematic limitations of the bibliometric approach may have produced errors in the results of the statistical and bibliometric analysis of the articles, and future research could further improve the research methodology to reduce systematic errors.

Data availability

The datasets publicly available should be through https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/DYCRUR .

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This work is supported by the “Youth Innovation Team Project” of the Higher Education Institutions under the Shandong Provincial Department of Education (No. 2023RW015), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71874203).

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Wang, Q., Ren, F. & Li, R. Geopolitics and energy security: a comprehensive exploration of evolution, collaborations, and future directions. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1071 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03507-2

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History and future of business ecosystem: a bibliometric analysis and visualization

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• Xia Zhang 1 ,
• Yue Yang 1 &
• Yun Chen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5123-1624 2  

The business ecosystem theory has developed rapidly in recent years and has become a hot topic in the field of business and management. However, the use of this concept is controversial. This study systematically reviewed literature published spanning nearly three decades from 1993 to 2022. In this paper, researchers designed an improved traceability method to retrieve literature based on data sources form Web of Science. VOSviewer and CiteSpace are adopted as two scientific atlas tools for information processing and visualization to evaluate the relationship between sub fields of business ecosystem. The findings show that the four branches of business ecosystem, i.e., innovation, platform, entrepreneurship and service, absorb theoretical ideas to varying degrees. Among them, the theoretical inheritance relationship of innovation branch is most clear, and gradually grows into the backbone of ecosystem research. Major contribution of this study is reflected in three aspects: Firstly, the improved traceability method provides a repeatable quantitative description process on the basis of significantly reducing researchers’ subjective participation. Secondly, from perspective of bibliometrics, the branch direction and key nodes of theory development are identified. Thirdly, the study helps identify the future development directions of business ecosystem, including innovation, digitalization, entrepreneurship, self-organization and the strategic transformation guided by emerging technologies.

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1 Introduction

Open innovation in business models is as impactful as technological innovation (Chesbrough, 2007 ). At the end of the last century, companies like Apple and Wal-Mart achieved significant success through disruptive innovations based on open platform models. Their achievements have inspired managers and researchers to understand that, in today’s business environment, companies must transcend traditional organizational boundaries to tackle innovation challenges. They need to incorporate external supplements into their governance systems to overcome key bottlenecks that might lie outside organizational control (Adner, 2006 ). In this multi-faceted interaction structure, a system regarded as complex at one level can function as a component in a more extensive system (Christensen & Rosenbloom, 1995 ). Simple bilateral relations cannot fully explain the intricate value relationships among network members in such nested systems, necessitating a shift from existing linear value theories.

In this context, business ecosystem theory emerged. The term “ecosystem” originally described the interactions between organisms and their physical environment (Tansley, 1935 ). This concept has since expanded to encompass complex connections and dynamic evolution beyond natural sciences, profoundly influencing social science research. Business ecosystem theory, a product of interdisciplinary linkages, metaphorically bridges natural and social sciences, offering a groundbreaking business perspective: companies should be viewed not as isolated industry members but as part of a cross-industry business ecosystem (Moore, 1993 ). This theory provides a framework to bridge the gap between reality and theoretical understanding. Surprisingly, it did not gain significant research attention for a long time. Entering the new century, the concept of business ecosystems regained researchers’ interest, with the term appearing sporadically in business research fields. Significant milestones were reached a decade later with two influential studies published in Harvard Business Review (Iansiti & Levien, 2004 ; Adner, 2006 ), leading researchers to recognize the potential of business ecosystems to develop into a comprehensive theoretical knowledge system.

Business ecosystems are not naturally occurring; they are partially shaped by experimental and engineering design from various perspectives (Jacobides et al., 2018 ), reflecting the intentions of system designers. In these systems, each member occupies a unique niche, developing capabilities aligned with goals set by designers, collectively creating value for the entire network (Moore, 2016 ; Iansiti & Levien, 2004 ). System designers are typically one or more core enterprises, referred to as cornerstone companies or focal actors. They simplify complex connections among network participants by creating service, tool, or technology platforms, leveraging platform leadership to influence the innovation direction within the system (Cusumano & Gawer, 2002 ). Non-core companies usually do not rely on a single ecosystem; they benefit from cross-ecosystem operations and diversification strategies. Participation in ecosystems extends the operational scope of non-core firms, equipping them with the management capabilities and technical resources essential for innovation (Selander et al., 2013 ).

Given the diversity of stakeholders, ecosystem structures may represent some of the most extensive network structures in management research (Autio & Thomas, 2014 ). The broad membership facilitates the integration of ecosystem theory with other theoretical paradigms, evolving various ecological branches tailored to different application scenarios. This trait aided the dissemination of concepts in the early stages of theory development. However, with the rapid expansion of terminology usage and fine-grained theoretical applications, the notion of business ecosystems has shifted from being a premium to a discount, similar to a diversified entity (Khanna & Yafeh, 2007 ). Chaotic usage scenarios and blurred theoretical boundaries undermine the theory’s core values, threatening its legitimacy. Some scholars have sharply criticized this trend in recent years (Oh et al., 2016 ; Bogers et al., 2019 ), suggesting that “ecosystems” function more as a “conceptual umbrella” covering various viewpoints rather than a coherent scientific theory (Spigel, 2017 ).

The interdisciplinary nature of business ecosystem theory results in research being widely distributed across various disciplines and fields. This distribution leads to significant subjectivity in the literature review process. Consequently, our study reflects on the limitations of mainstream literature retrieval methods and proposes an improved “traceability method” for collecting literature. Our research focuses on the following three issues:

What is the main scope of relevant research on business ecosystem theory?

What is the logical relationship between the fields of ecological branching?

What are the theoretical development trends and future research directions?

The rest of this paper is structured into four parts. Section 2 introduces the research and data acquisition methods used in this study. Section 3 reveals fundamental information about the retrieved literature, such as growth trends and the distribution of disciplines and journals. Section 4 analyzes and interprets data concerning the three questions above using keyword co-occurrence, co-citation analysis, cluster distribution, burst detection, and timeline trends. Section 5 compares the traceability method used in this study with traditional search techniques and conducts cluster analysis for findings ; The final part, Sects. 6 & 7 summarizes the study, discussing future research directions in this field.

2 Methodology and data sources

The reasonable selection and filtration of literature are crucial factors that enable smooth and accurate research analysis. Traditionally, the data collection process in existing research comprises two main components: conditional restrictions (such as databases, core terms, subject areas, journals, ratings, etc.) and manual review. This study adheres to this approach for the initial phase of data collection and identifies two opposing challenges:

Subject area restrictions or stringent journal designations can compromise the integrity of research on the periphery.

Removing these restrictions risks limiting the scope to the direction of natural ecology.

This issue partly stems from the metaphorical nature of the business ecosystem concept itself.

To address this challenge, conventional methods often rely on a manual screening process, which increases the subjectivity of the investigator. A horizontal comparison of previous data collection methods highlights the prevalence of this issue. Even with the most stringent double restriction method (Tsujimoto et al., 2018 ), the screening rate for manual review exceeds 50% (see Table  1 below). Such intensive screening can introduce researchers’ personal biases, undermining the credibility of discussions on theoretical boundaries.

2.1 Improved traceability method

To address the challenges in the data collection process, this study developed a literature retrieval method based on concept traceability, using two key literatures as foundational points: (1) Moore’s article “Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition” published in 1993, and (2) the monograph “The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems” published in 1996. The former marks the birth of the business ecosystem concept, while the latter provides the first comprehensive explanation of the theory. Given the expanding scope of ecosystem logic, traceability helps distinguish research based on the business ecosystem concept from those that are not. When an article cites these foundational works, it indicates that the author acknowledges a logical connection between their research and the business ecosystem concept, whether positively or critically. The data samples thus obtained form a necessary subset strongly related to business ecosystem theory.

Building on this foundation, researchers employed VOSviewer and CiteSpace for information processing and visualization. Both programs are designed to construct and view bibliometric maps (Eck & Waltman, 2010 ). VOSviewer excels in speed when handling large-scale maps and balances expressive drawing and functionality, while CiteSpace offers greater operability with a unique timeline view and burst detection function. Bibliometric maps provide a systematic method for researchers to understand the evolution of scientific fields and integrate various information to capture the latest technologies (Chen, 2017 ). This study combines the advantages of both tools to mine and expand information, ensuring that gaps in the sample are filled to meet the literature combing sufficiency requirements.

In summary, this research identifies the shortcomings of traditional methods in handling literature related to business ecosystems and proposes an improved traceability method to address the challenges of the manual review process in data collection.

2.2 Adopted data sources

This study uses the Web of Science (WOS) database as the primary data source. WOS is the leading platform for scientific citation search and analysis, supporting a wide range of scientific tasks across different knowledge areas and serving as a data set for large-scale, data-intensive research. When comparing different databases, WOS is typically regarded as the most stable (Harzing & Alakangas, 2016 ; Mongeon & Paul-Hus, 2016 ; Li et al., 2018 ). Although WOS lacks coverage of social science books (Waltman, 2016 ), this does not impact the study’s content.

Using the WOS citation function “Cited References,” 1106 items were retrieved that cited the 1993 baseline literature. Standard restrictions were applied to refine the target scope: selecting the “Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)” and “Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)” qualification levels to enhance literature quality, restricting subject headings to include “ecosystem*” to ensure relevance, and selecting only “article” types, excluding “early access” articles. As of March 1, 2022, a total of 400 papers met these requirements. The 610 works citing the 1996 baseline monograph were similarly screened, resulting in 189 retained articles. The two literature sets were combined and deduplicated, yielding a final sample of 488 articles. Each document in the sample focuses on ecosystems and is influenced by Moore’s business ecosystem theory to varying degrees, identifying the sample as research “established on the basis of business ecosystem thinking.”

This information query process is general and traceable. For further review, two experts in related fields were invited to examine the samples and list any doubtful literature. If both experts had doubts about the same literature, it was excluded; if they disagreed, consensus was reached through discussion. The results showed that all sample documents successfully passed the review process.

3 Fundamental information of retrieved business ecosystem literatures

This section presents fundamental information about the retrieved literature to outline the contours of the business ecosystem field. It includes the distribution of publications by year, country and region, WOS field, journal, and research institution. Among these indicators, only the distribution ratios for years and journals sum to 1, while other items have cross-connections.

Figure  1 illustrates the growth trend of articles citing Moore’s foundational literature in the WOS database. The earliest related article appeared in 2004, confirming a decade-long period of relative silence for the theory. The research field entered an explosive growth phase around 2012, with the number of published papers continuing to rise after a brief fluctuation. Overall, more than half of the total published papers have been produced in the last three years. Currently, the research concept appears to have reached the mature stage of its life cycle, with the publication growth rate stabilizing.

The growth trend of articles in the field of business ecosystem

Figure  2 illustrates the distribution of documents across different countries and regions, segmented into three time periods represented by different colors. Prior to 2019, the top three countries by the number of articles were the USA, England, and China. In the subsequent two years, China’s share of published articles increased significantly, propelling it to the top rank. As of 2022, the top four countries in terms of total published documents are China, England, the USA, and Finland, with a significant gap between these and the following countries and regions.

Distribution of the sample articles in different countries and regions

Figure  3 demonstrates distribution of literature by different subject areas. “Management” and " Business” categories are the main research fields of this theory. At the same time, there are also a large number of research works involving this theory in the fields such as “Regional Urban Planning”, “Environmental Studies”, “Environmental Sciences” and “Green Sustainable Science Technology”. This suggests that ecosystem theory extends beyond stereotypes and builds bridges between multidisciplinary fields. This echoes our concern that “subject area restrictions or more aggressive designated journal restrictions undermine the integrity of the research fringes”.

The top 11 WOS categories by number of articles

In terms of journal distribution, the 488 articles in the sample are spread across 195 journals. Among these, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and Sustainability have notable quantitative advantages, with 47 and 37 papers published, respectively, accounting for 9.63% and 7.58% of the total. From the perspective of research institutions, the University of Cambridge and Tsinghua University are tied for the highest number of publications, although the University of Cambridge holds a more central position within the knowledge network.

4 Main scope of Business Ecosystem Literatures

This section further analyzes the commonalities and connections between the sample literature, describing the main scope of business ecosystem research using the bibliometric indices “co-occurrence” and “co-citation”.

4.1 Keywords co-occurrence

The full record information of 488 documents was imported into VOSviewer to analyze the co-occurrence of keywords. According to the bibliometric data, 2251 keywords were involved in the sample. To achieve better visualization, the co-occurrence threshold for keywords was set to 6 times, resulting in a visualization map with 135 items, as shown in Fig.  4 below:

Co-keyword network visualization on business ecosystem research

The 135 keywords formed 6 clusters, and the top eleven words sorted by “Total Link Strength” covered all six categories, as shown in Table  2 .

Researchers integrated high-order words calculated by frequency and centrality, categorizing them into three groups:

Initial Search Terms and Derivatives: This includes terms like ecosystem, business ecosystem, network, and business model. Here, the network is related and similar to the ecosystem, with the former being relationship-based and the latter purpose-based. An interesting distinction is that two companies within the same network structure can have vastly different business ecosystems due to differing value propositions (Adner, 2017 ).

Nominalized Verbs: This category includes words such as innovation, value creation, competition, evolution, and cooperation. These terms are highly expressive, reflecting the core of business ecosystem thought. Innovation is the most prominent word, indicating that all business ecosystem projects revolve around innovation. The concept encompasses both dynamic processes and outcomes compared to traditional ecological studies. Notably, “value creation” appeared 88 times, while terms like value distribution or value sharing were scarcely used, highlighting a preference and imbalance in theoretical development. The term competition, particularly in the context of Moore’s “death of competition,” refers to a shift from enterprise to ecosystem competition, often resulting in more intense conflicts between ecosystems.

Generic Terms: This includes words like strategy, performance, technology, knowledge, and framework. Strategy here implies a meso-level perspective, often higher than individual enterprises or industries but below the macro societal level. Performance emphasizes the effective output of ecosystem members, echoing the focus on value creation and reflecting a pursuit of research quantification by scholars.

4.2 Co-citation analysis

A key feature of science mapping is co-citation analysis. When two articles appear together in the bibliography of a third article, they form a co-citation relationship (Chen, 2006 ). The co-citation function identifies significant works in the study of inheritance relationships, isolating weakly related or unrelated literature. This process expands our focus from the 488 documents to those within their citation networks, allowing researchers to identify key research results that connect knowledge networks. Conclusions drawn from this approach are significant for discussions on boundary and genre divisions in business ecosystem theory.

According to bibliometric data, 9,725 citation sources were involved in the sample. By setting a minimum citation threshold of 20, 221 entries were included in the visual map, shown in Fig.  5 . This map highlights journals with significant attention in the field, briefly introduced as follows:

4.2.1 Harvard business review

Known for being forward-looking, it is the origin and cradle of business ecosystem theory, publishing significant works by Moore, Iansiti, and early Adner.

4.2.2 Strategic management journal

Known for outstanding works by Adner and Kapoor ( 2010 ), Jacobides et al. ( 2018 ), and Hannah and Eisenhardt ( 2018 ), these works are frequently cited and remain foundational.

4.2.3 Research policy

Notable for the number of articles published on ecosystems, significantly outperforming other journals in this index.

Using CiteSpace, co-citation analysis was conducted on key nodes. Full record information of 488 documents was imported, with the network clipping method set to “Pathfinder.” In the co-citation graph, node size represents the frequency of occurrences, and line thickness indicates co-occurrence frequency. Figure  6 shows two visualization perspectives of co-citation analysis:

Author Perspective: This map shows the shapers of theoretical foundations, key bottleneck breakthroughs, and continuous investment builders, emphasizing the historical significance of researchers.

Literature Perspective: This map observes field connections and sustained influence, emphasizing the importance of recent research results and depicting a more complex relationship structure between literature.

Co-citation analysis maps from the perspective of author (above) and literature (below)

Among the top ten authors with total citations, Moore, Iansiti, Adner, Jacobides, and Autio have been previously mentioned. Gawer and Nambisan will be introduced in clustering information and burst detection later. Porter and Teece, masters in strategic management and competitive strategy, also provide intellectual value for business ecosystem theory. Porter’s concept of creating shared value aligns with business ecosystem ideas (Porter & Kramer, 2011 ), focusing on value shared within the ecosystem. Teece’s most co-cited work explores innovative support for the digital platform ecosystem (Teece, 2018 ). Additionally, Eisenhardt stands out as a prominent node in the citation network, with her work improving the case study method being frequently cited (Eisenhardt, 2007 ).

This sector explored the scope of business ecosystem literature using co-occurrence and co-citation analyses. The analysis revealed the evolution of business ecosystem research and its integration with strategic management, highlighting the importance of shared value and digital platform ecosystems, and underscoring the historical and ongoing contributions to the field. In the following sector, we will compare the method used in this study with traditional search techniques.

5 Findings and discussion

5.1 comparison between new traceability method and traditional search techniques.

The traceability method proposed in this study offers significant advantages over traditional search techniques. Firstly, it aligns closely with the trajectory of business ecosystem theory, which has a well-documented origin and a ten-year quiescent period, effectively minimizing interference from multiple sources. Secondly, the literature sourced through this method directly links to the theoretical origin, aiding in excluding: 1) Passive fuzzing usage, where researchers use ecological concepts merely as a backdrop without engaging with the theoretical source; 2) Actively blurred usage, where authors may avoid acknowledging the theory’s historical importance for various reasons; 3) Same disciplinary usage, where the concept of ‘ecosystem’ is used differently within the same field, such as the interaction between businesses and natural ecology, without a significant inheritance relationship.

Thirdly, this method mitigates the impact of subjective biases, providing highly discriminative samples that help address contentious issues more effectively.

Although the proposed traceability method has certain limitations compared to traditional search techs, the study has effectively addressed these limitations. One limitation is that it omits documents without citation information, such as articles in the Harvard Business Review, which cannot be retrieved using citation data. Another limitation is the potential overemphasis on certain authors and their research teams, beyond the method’s intended scope. To address the first limitation, this study used bibliometrics to expand the sample and complete the knowledge network. Bibliometric methods employ quantitative approaches to describe, evaluate, and monitor published research, introducing a systematic, transparent, and repeatable review process, thereby enhancing review quality (Zupic & Čater, 2015 ). The second limitation regarding author prominence was addressed by analyzing work from Google Scholar, showing that most of Moore’s ecosystem-related work is independent, with the chosen base points having clear advantages in timelines and citation counts, suggesting that the influence of authorial weight is within acceptable limits.

This study also incorporated a control data set, applying traditional domain constraints like “Management or Business or Economics” and restricting the level to SSCI and SCIE, excluding articles with “early access”. The sample was manually reviewed, resulting in 579 out of 952 articles passing the review. Researchers further validated the new method’s unique advantages by conducting lexical clustering analysis on co-cited documents and comparing these with samples obtained via traditional searches. The analysis, supported by CiteSpace software, confirmed that clusters with a modularity (Q) value above 0.3 and a silhouette (S) value above 0.7 are considered structurally sound and efficient. The new method achieved Q values of 0.926 and S values of 0.952, surpassing traditional methods in creating more coherent and interconnected clusters. The traditional method resulted in scattered clusters with sparse connections, whereas the traceability method produced tightly integrated clusters, enhancing cross-disciplinary linkages and producing distinct cluster labels, which are illustrated in Figs.  7 and 8 .

Clustering comparison of traditional retrieval methods

Clustering comparison of traceability retrieval methods

Comparing the cluster profiles of the two groups of samples, the researchers found significant discrepancy. The clustering modules obtained under the traditional retrieval method are obviously scattered, and the connections between nodes are relatively sparse, while the modules are closely combined under the traceability method, covering more node in the intersection area. These articles serve as a key link between different fields. At the same time, the cluster labels extracted by the two methods are quite different. Tables  3 and 4 respectively list the clustering information of both two samples. The serial numbers are arranged according to the number of members in the group, and the correlation depends more on location of the cluster. With 25 members as the boundary, traceability samples form 7 categories above the scale, and this indicator is 8 in traditional samples. LSI and LLR represent two label extraction algorithms, which are carried out after the clustering ends and do not affect the shape of the clusters.

The results indicate that traditional clustering labels cover a broader range and include general terms like business model and digital platform, suggesting a less precise focus on the research field. New technology hotspots, such as digitization and the Internet of Things, have become central concepts in this theory. The traditional retrieval method often extends literature too far into adjacent disciplines. For example, the semantics of “service-dominant logic” overshadow “service ecosystem,” making it a key clustering label, while entrepreneurship literature is overrepresented, splitting the concept into “Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” and “Value Capture.” Additionally, “digital service” forms a loosely connected category, making it challenging to determine a stable relationship with business ecosystem theory. These issues highlight the negative impact of stringent field restrictions and intensive manual review on the scientific quality of literature samples.

5.2 Relationship between ecological branches and cluster analysis

Despite significant differences, both sample groups agree on basic concepts. They clearly delineate four ecosystem sub-concepts: innovation, platform, entrepreneurship, and service, aligning with mainstream business ecosystem reviews. Business, innovation, and platform clusters hold central positions, while entrepreneurship and service are relatively peripheral. The entrepreneurial ecosystem consistently forms an independent module with a stable member association structure. The following example will analyze the clusters generated according to the traceability method.

Cluster 0 is named as the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and this category has the most group members, and the top three papers with co-citation index are Spigel, 2017 ; Acs et al., 2017 ; Audretsch & Belitski, 2017 . Entrepreneurial flow is an incomplete ecosystem, which is generally limited by geography, and more consideration is given to analysis and research in conjunction with local cultural backgrounds and social systems. There are also barriers in the exchange of entrepreneurial ecosystems and external resources. Entrepreneurs often do not compete for market share, but sell an expectation to attract capital. Therefore, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is likely to lack a dominant player.

On a larger map scale, entrepreneurial ecosystems are connected to knowledge ecosystems, but their value propositions and relational structures are fundamentally different. The centers of the knowledge ecosystem are universities and public research institutions, and value flows mainly linearly along the value chain; the cornerstone of the business ecosystem is the leading company that provides key resources and business infrastructure, and the value creation process adopts an integrated approach (Clarysse et al., 2014 ). It can also be seen from the co-citation relationship that the logical connection between the two concepts is estranged and does not form a major clustering structure. It is worth noting that the process of converting knowledge to business value is still included in the field of business ecosystem research.

The label of cluster 1 is the subject word business ecosystem, and the top three documents in the co-citation index are Adner, 2017 ; Gawer & Cusumano, 2014 ; Oh et al., 2016 . According to Moore’s ( 2016 ) definition, business ecosystem is an economic community of suppliers, major producers, consumers, competitors, and other stakeholders whose members collectively develop their capabilities and tend to align with the direction set by one or more central companies. Iansiti and Levien ( 2004 ) summarized the roles of companies in the business ecosystem as cornerstone, dominant and niche; and constructed three health indicators for evaluating business ecosystems: productivity, robustness and niche creation. As can be seen from the two core literatures of business flow, the school starts from the role of stakeholders, studies the behavior and activities of the participants, and finally boils down to the value proposition of the system. Adner ( 2017 ) reads this process in reverse, starting with a value proposition, considering the activities needed to materialize it, and ending with actors that need to be adjusted. A logical deepening develops between the two schools, the former emphasizing roles and structural relationships, the latter emphasizing value propositions and changing processes. From the perspective of operational effects, starting from the value proposition helps to establish connections with potential participants and achieve multilateral interaction.

Cluster 3 is named platform ecosystem or two-sided marketplace. The top three articles in the co-citation index are Gawer, 2014 ; McIntyre & Srinivasan, 2017 ; Reuver et al., 2018 . Platform may be the fastest growing of all research streams. Under the trend of the Internet of Everything, any business form can be built on the platform, but only by focusing on platform behavior can it be regarded as a platform genre literature. Gawer ( 2014 ) defines an external platform as a product, service or technology, that is the ecological basis for an organization’s external innovators to develop their own complementary products, technologies or services. We also noticed that the platform is in a crossover zone, and its S value is only 0.852, which is in a low range. This means that its composition is more complex.

Cluster 4 is named Innovation Ecosystem, with an S-value of 0.965 being the highest in the list. This indicates a high homogeneity of the set. The top three papers in this cluster are Jacobides et al., 2018 ; Gomes et al., 2018 ; Hannah & Eisenhardt, 2018 . Jacobides et al., ( 2018 ) believes that the mainstream of ecological literature includes business flow, innovation flow and platform flow. The above-mentioned schools of business ecosystem theory have inherited the commonalities of ecosystem research. The ecological characteristics that have been agreed upon are modularity, complementarity, multilateral market relationships and common value proposition. This work by Jacobides is also the most recent explosive literature (Fig.  8 ). What deserves special attention is that the outbreak period of this document has not yet ended, and its second-ranked intensity score still has a large room for improvement.

The label of cluster 6 is service ecosystem, and the top three co-citation literatures are Vargo & Lusch, 2016 ; Lusch & Nambisan, 2015 ; Vargo et al., 2015 . Compared with the logic deepening of “role” to “structure” in the business school, the service school tends to transform from “product” to “service”. In this process, the service-dominant (S-D) logic is the core. Humorously, the research positions of Vargo and Lusch, the founders of S-D logic, may still be slightly different. Moore’s work is almost never cited in Vargo’s literature, while Lusch describes in detail the process of combining S-D logic and ecosystems: a relatively independent and self-regulating system consisting primarily of loosely coupled social and economic actors linked together by shared institutional logic and exchange of services to create common value (Lusch & Nambisan, 2015 ).

The top three co-citation literatures of other two clusters are Tsujimoto et al., 2018 ; Rong et al., 2015 ; Russell & Smorodinskaya, 2018 (cluster 3); and Adner & Kapoor, 2010 , Adner, 2012 ; Basole & Karla, 2011 (cluster 5). Due to space limitations, the introduction will not be carried out. Readers can read and refer to it by themselves. In particular, digitization has been inserted into multiple research streams and has the potential to develop into an independent digital ecosystem school. From the perspective of cohesion, the concept is only lack of landmark literature from the perspective of ecosystem.

6 Development trends and future research directions in business ecosystem

The burst detection function in CiteSpace is used to investigate the phenomenon of sudden increases in the frequency of research topics over a short period, with intensity indicating the level of attention to these hotspots. In the field of business ecosystem research, 43 outbreak literature nodes were initially identified using default parameters. By adjusting the criteria, researchers narrowed this down to the nine most significant pieces of literature.

As shown in Fig.  9 , these nine articles play a crucial role in the evolution of research directions. Business ecosystems and innovation ecosystems exhibit contrasting logical structures, forming at the intersection where a role-based perspective transitions to a structural perspective (Adner & Kapoor, 2010 ; Kapoor, 2018 ). The independence of the innovative school signifies a shift in ecosystem research from a metaphorical ecological relationship to the fundamental logic of business activities. Another critical aspect is examining the value creation and value capture processes as interconnected components (Ritala et al., 2013 ), which helps bridge the research gap resulting from an overemphasis on value creation.

The top 9 literatures by burst strength

Nambisan ( 2013 ) discussed the innovation ecosystem and entrepreneurial environment within the context of central platforms. Due to the overlapping meanings of “business ecosystem” and “innovation ecosystem,” this article serves as a bridge connecting the four main modules. The mixing of terms is common in platform research. In this context, Moore and Iansiti’s work is recognized for their research on platform-based business ecosystem innovation (Gawer & Cusumano, 2014 ). One of the figures summarizes literature related to the platform ecosystem and compares it with the literature flow of other platforms (Thomas et al., 2014 ).

Figure  10 illustrates the time axis map of the 13 main research lines. Solid lines indicate that a line has formed an emerging research area, while dotted lines suggest a cooling trend. Analysis shows that the two-sided market route transitioned to the innovation ecosystem route around 2018, with the business ecosystem branch completing this shift earlier. The convergence of these paths has fostered the growth of the innovation branch into a mainstream research line. The service path has developed steadily for a long period, though its popularity has waned in the past two years. The digital technology research series draws from multiple branches, with its influence steadily expanding, making it the route with the most development potential. Generally, the life cycles of Routes 2, 9, 10, 12, and 15 are relatively short and have been out of the spotlight for a long time. Conceptual fields such as entrepreneurship, innovation, Internet of Things, digitalization, and self-organization continue to release energy, with innovation and digitization leading the way.

Timeline map of main research routes

The research findings indicate that future development in the ecological domain will predominantly focus on innovation, digitization, entrepreneurship, self-organization, and strategic transformations driven by technologies such as the Internet of Things. Due to extensive digital scene construction and industrial digital transformation, digital ecosystem theory is well-grounded in practice and has the potential to evolve into a distinct research domain. Business ecosystem theory effectively captures the dynamic evolutionary process of value logic through three critical links: value creation, value capture, and value sharing. While there is substantial work on integrating value creation with value capture, research that intricately weaves these with value sharing remains scant.

Following the model proposed in our paper, relevant literature in the field has emerged. Consequently, we have adopted this traceable method to identify and review 17 documents published since March 2022, aiming to examine recent research developments. The key findings from this review are discussed below.

Yoon et al. ( 2022 ) examined the connection between business and biological ecosystems, suggesting that a key specie, a leader within a business ecosystem, can enhance its success by strategically managing symbiotic relationships; Shou et al. ( 2022 ) deconstructed business ecosystems into four aspects: complementarity, capabilities, co-creation, and co-evolution, noting that many of the world’s largest and most valuable companies adopt this ecosystem approach. The lack of a unified understanding of business ecosystem features and characteristics complicates the ability of business leaders to formulate and implement effective strategies; Hoeborn et al. ( 2022 ) developed a morphological framework describing all value systems and applied it to business ecosystems, linking its characteristics with ongoing inter-organizational research to aid practitioners in implementing ecosystem concepts; Chandrasekharan and Titov ( 2022 ) explored the business models within the ÜlemisteCity ecosystem to understand the conceptualization of business models and the factors influencing their creation or transformation from an ecosystem perspective, developing a conceptual framework to enhance organizational participation and value processes within ecosystems. Cui et al. ( 2022 ) explored how key enterprises govern their business ecosystems under conditions of resource abundance and resource scarcity.

Further studies have linked business ecosystems to various industries, exploring structural dimensions and standards for assessing industries. Chang et al. ( 2022 ) used fuzzy hierarchical analysis, fuzzy decision-making methods, and experimental laboratory methods to construct five evaluation dimensions and thirty-one evaluation criteria to explore the open data service industry from the perspective of the business ecosystem. Winkler et al. ( 2023 ) demonstrated how knowledge misalignment, knowledge gaps, cultural differences, insufficient building codes, frequently changing regulations, and the implementation of highly embedded innovations disrupt ecosystem coordination, by studying the challenges faced by business ecosystem coordination when implementing solar PV systems in the Swedish built environment. Zhao et al. ( 2022 ) explored the structure of the business ecosystem required for companies to achieve sustainable performance and investigated the open innovation that can be promoted on this basis. Mann et al. ( 2022 ) introduced orchestration as a concept to pursue this research opportunity, using it to observe digital transformation in business ecosystems. Fort ( 2023 ) studied productivity and fairness in the U.S. financial market from the perspective of the business ecosystem. Wei and Li ( 2023 ) researched the impact of platform strategies and niche strategies on corporate growth based on the perspective of business ecosystem positioning. Suuronen et al. ( 2022 ) revealed the significant impact of digital business ecosystems on the industry through a systematic literature review of the prerequisites, challenges, and benefits of manufacturing DBEs. Yi et al. ( 2022 ) examined stakeholder relationships, organizational learning, and business model innovation based on the perspective of business ecosystem research systems. Burström et al. ( 2022 ) integrated business and digital ecosystem literature to study the present and future of software ecosystems. Kokkonen et al. ( 2023 ) studied digital twin business ecosystems based on qualitative data collected from six case companies in the manufacturing industry. Marques-McEwan et al. ( 2023 ) investigated the transition to CE in the chemicals manufacturing industry, revealing the rules for creating circular business ecosystems. Zhu and Du ( 2023 ) investigated the impact on the value of existing business ecosystems when new innovations are introduced, through an event study of Google’s self-driving car announcement.

Collectively, these insights not only deepen academic understanding of business ecosystems but also guide enterprises in formulating and implementing effective strategies in today’s complex business landscape. As digital scene construction and industrial digital transformation continue to solidify the practical foundation for integrating digitalization with ecosystem theory, the direction is poised to evolve into an independent branch of study. However, research methodologies still require further refinement to broaden theoretical applicability. Facing these challenges, coupling business and social ecosystems offers a viable direction. Developing standards and regulatory frameworks to guide sustainable business ecosystem constructions and prevent capital-driven changes in cornerstone enterprises’ nature remain critical future research topics.

7 Conclusion

This paper designed an improved traceability method to retrieve literature related to business ecosystem theory in the WOS database, aiming to avoid interference from the stringent field restrictions and intensive manual screening typical of traditional retrieval methods. Co-occurrence, co-citation, and cluster analyses were used to outline the context of knowledge production, with research results visualized using two scientific mapping tools, VOSviewer and CiteSpace.

This study provides several key insights. Firstly, innovation, platform, entrepreneurship, and service, as main ecological branches, inherit business ecosystem theory to varying degrees. The innovation branch has a clear inheritance relationship and has become a new backbone of ecosystem research. The platform branch has a relatively loose association structure with extensive cross-links to other branches. The entrepreneurial branch’s unique theoretical application scenarios make it easily distinguishable. The service branch combines S-D logic with business ecosystem theory, but research progress on this branch’s ecosystem preference is slow due to S-D logic’s prominence. We identified the shapers of theoretical foundations, breakthroughs of key bottlenecks, and builders of continuous investment in each branch, focusing on nine key literatures that bridge different fields and play a significant role in ecosystem research development.

Although the study offers valuable references for scholars as discussed above, some limitations should be noted and addressed in future research. Firstly, the sample data is sourced from a single database, limiting journal coverage. Secondly, early literature citations are inconsistent, compounded by the impact of journal literature without citations, creating obstacles for vertical logical context and visual analysis. Finally, this article proposes a literature retrieval strategy based on the genealogy of concepts, using James Moore’s seminal works as temporal benchmarks, i.e. his1993 article “Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition,” marking the inception of the business ecosystem concept; and his 1996 book, ‘The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems,’ which provided the first comprehensive interpretation of the theory. However, Moore’s introduction of the concept in 1993 did not gain academic acceptance until a decade later, with significant studies emerging only in 2022. This highlights the unique aspects of studying this concept. While the traceability method is suitable for historical research of business ecological theory, its application in other research domains may introduce noise, requiring careful judgment by researchers regarding specific circumstances. Therefore, discussing the limitations and applicability of this method to other fields is essential.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are derived from public domain resources, which are available in Web of Science.

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The research leading to these results received funding from Chongqing Education Commission, under Grant Agreement No.: 23SKGH138: “Research on the relationship between the ecological dominance of chain owner enterprises, supply chain integration and supply chain innovation performance”.

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Zhang, X., Yang, Y. & Chen, Y. History and future of business ecosystem: a bibliometric analysis and visualization. Environ Dev Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-05318-6

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Experience and satisfaction of participants in colorectal cancer screening programs: a qualitative evidence synthesis

• Cristina Hortalà 1 ,
• Clara Selva 2 ,
• Ivan Sola 1 , 3 , 4 &
• Anna Selva 1 , 4 , 5 , 6  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  2293 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Experience and satisfaction of colorectal cancer screening program participants are among the key factors that determine adherence to these programs. Understanding them is crucial to ensure future participation.

To explore and gain understanding on the experience and satisfaction of the average-risk population participating in colorectal cancer screening programs.

A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis. We conducted a literature search up to April 2023 in Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis. We independently selected the studies for their inclusion, assessed their methodological quality (with CASP tool) and extracted data. Disagreements were solved by consensus. We thoroughly read the selected studies, and analyzed the data following a thematic synthesis approach. We evaluated the confidence in our findings with CERQUAL.

We included six studies: four had an appropriate quality, and two had some methodological limitations. We identified five main findings across studies: (1) Variability in the concerns about the results; (2) Challenges regarding procedure logistics; (3) Care received from the healthcare professionals; (4) Being adequately informed; (5) Expectations and experience with the program. All findings had a moderate level of confidence.

Conclusions

Our qualitative review provides a picture of the experience and satisfaction of the average-risk population participating in colorectal cancer screening programs. Despite some logistical and expectation management issues, the overall satisfaction with the programs is high. More research is needed on the topic, as there are still important gaps in knowledge.

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Colorectal cancer and cancer screening

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most diagnosed cancers worldwide. Among men it is the third most diagnosed cancer (after lung and prostate cancer), and in women it is the second most incident, after breast cancer [ 1 ]. In many regions the risk of CRC is around 5%, and the 5-year survival rate is 57% for colon cancer and 56% for rectal cancer [ 2 ].

CRC is a disease that qualifies for screening as defined by the Wilson and Jugner criteria [ 3 ]. These required characteristics are a high incidence rate [ 1 ] with a long preclinical phase, a recognizable and tractable precursor (polyp) and a correlation between tumour stage at diagnosis and mortality rate [ 4 , 5 ].

Organized screening programs have been proven to reduce incidence and mortality associated with CRC [ 6 , 7 ]. These programs are targeted to the average risk population, normally defined as individuals aged 50 or older, with no other additional risk factors such as inflammatory bowel disease or a family history of CRC or polyposis syndrome. There are different tests for CRC screening, but the most recommended and used worldwide are [ 8 , 9 ]: fecal blood test (guaiac faecal occult blood test [gFOBT] and faecal immunochemical test [FIT], both self-collection tests) [ 10 ], sigmoidoscopy [ 11 ] and colonoscopy, that is usually performed under light sedation [ 12 ]. Both fecal blood test and sigmoidoscopy, if positive, require a colonoscopy to explore the whole bowel.

Patient experience and satisfaction

Participation in CRC screening programs is vital as it determines the efficacy of the programs [ 13 ]. The European Council set the desirable participation rate for the average-risk population at 65%, but when looking at European Union citizens, in 2019 the participation ranged from 4.5 − 66.6% for gFBOT, to 22.8 − 71.3% for FIT [ 5 ]. Although FIT is more acceptable than gFOBT because it only requires one sample and does not require dietary restriction, participation rates are still low [ 14 , 15 ]. This very low percentage might be improved by increasing awareness creation, repeated messages, sensitivity to tone and style, and ensuring the quality of the process so that participants have a positive experience of their participation [ 5 , 16 ].

Experience and satisfaction of CRC screening program participants are among the key factors that determine adherence to them. In fact, studies showed that satisfaction with past stool test screening is a strong behavioural predictor of adherence to future screening rounds [ 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Furthermore, the fact that screening programs are aimed at asymptomatic populations that have not required or requested health care and that it is the health system itself that invites them to participate should be borne in mind. For the foregoing reasons, it is important to know what the experience and satisfaction of participants in relation to CRC screening is.

Patient experience and satisfaction are often used interchangeably despite differing slightly in meaning [ 20 , 21 ]. There is no standard definition for patient experience, but in general it refers to the interactions patients have with the healthcare system. It includes aspects such as getting timely appointments, easy access to information and good communication with healthcare providers [ 22 ]. Understanding patient experience is useful to determine whether something that should happen in a health care setting actually happened (e.g. clear communication with doctors or nurses). On the other hand, patient satisfaction measures the extent to which a patient is content with the care they received, it depends on the patient’s expectations [ 22 ] and involves some sort of rating or evaluation [ 21 ]. Two people who receive the exact care can give different satisfaction ratings depending on what expectations they had about the care that was supposed to be delivered.

Why is it important to do this review?

Several studies have measured patient experience and satisfaction with CRC screening, most using self-reported questionnaires [ 23 , 24 ] that are one of the most used methods to quantify and monitor patient satisfaction and experience. However, to delve into and understand the meaning people give to the phenomenon of interest, the qualitative approach is the most appropriate [ 25 , 26 ]. This qualitative approach also enables the detection and identification of possible issues with the screening programs, which might help to improve its quality and acceptance.

Qualitative research on patient satisfaction already exists [ 27 ], but to our knowledge, there is no previous systematic review that summarizes and critically appraises this knowledge adopting a qualitative research perspective.

Our main objective was to explore and gain understanding on the experience and satisfaction of the average-risk population participating in CRC screening programs. As secondary objectives, we aimed to explore any differences in experience and satisfaction of participants according to screening results (positive screening or negative screening) and according to the screening program nature (organized or opportunistic).

Study design

We conducted a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis (QES), which integrates findings from multiple qualitative studies to gain understanding of a research topic, according to standardized methodology [ 28 ], and registered the protocol prospectively at PROSPERO (CRD42022339548). We reported results following the ENTREQ guidelines (Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research [ 29 ]).

Eligibility criteria

We structured our clinical question and established our eligibility criteria following the SPIDER framework [ 30 ], one of the available frameworks for qualitative questions recommended by the Cochrane Qualitative and implementation methods group [ 31 ] ( Table  1 ) : “What is the experience and satisfaction of people participating in CRC screening programs”.

We included:

Qualitative studies about participants of a CRC screening program, either organized or opportunistic, regardless of the screening test used, attending at least one screening test and which the primary focus is the experience or satisfaction of participants. Studies should use qualitative methods both for data collection and analysis.

Mixed method studies where it is possible to extract disaggregated data that was collected and analysed using qualitative methods.

Studies published in English, Spanish or French, the languages spoken by the research team.

We excluded:

Studies on programs aimed at people with inflammatory bowel, or polyposis syndromes (Lynch Syndrome), or family history of CRC.

Studies that collect data using qualitative methods but do not analyse these data using qualitative analysis methods.

Search methods

We conducted searches up to April 2023 in the following electronic databases without language or date restrictions: MEDLINE (via PubMed); Embase (via embase.com); CINAHL (via EBSCOHost); PsycINFO (via EBSCOHost).

We developed a search strategy for each database. See annex 1 for the detailed search strategies.

We tracked back from references and citations to relevant studies. We checked references lists from relevant studies and located their citations at the Web of Science and Google Scholar. We also searched for thesis and dissertations in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global and for gray literature in OpenGrey ( www.opengrey.eu ).

Selection of studies

We (CH and CS) independently assessed the titles and abstracts of the identified records to evaluate eligibility. We then retrieved the full text of all the papers identified as potentially relevant by one or both review authors. We (CH and CS) then assessed these papers independently. We resolved disagreements by consensus or, when required, by involving a third reviewer (AS). We used the software rayyan.ai ( http://www.rayyan.ai/ ) to conduct the eligibility process, which facilitated the process by enabling efficient importation, collaborative screening, and resolution of conflicts among reviewers.

Data extraction and methodological quality assessment

We designed a data extraction template in an excel file and pilot tested it. One reviewer (CH) conducted the data extraction and a different reviewer (CS) verified that the data was correct. We extracted data on: context and participants (study setting, aims, population characteristics); study design and methods (methodological design and approach, methods for identifying the sample and for recruitment, data collection and analysis methods, any theoretical models used to interpret the findings); Study findings (themes, subthemes, findings and supporting quotations regarding patient satisfaction and experience).

We (CH and CS) independently assessed methodological limitations of included studies using the CASP tool for qualitative research [ 32 ]. We resolved disagreements by discussion or, when required, by involving a third review author [AS].

Data analysis and synthesis

We analysed the data according to a thematic synthesis approach [ 33 ], a method that consists of applying a thematic analysis to an evidence synthesis. It consists of iteratively refining themes based on initial data coding from individual studies included in the review and integrating findings to develop comprehensive and interpretative insights. The thematic synthesis approach consists in three stages which overlapped to some degree:

First, we read the results of all included studies and collected the verbatim findings. One reviewer generated codes based on the results according to its meaning and content (stage 1). We looked for similarities and differences between the codes to detect overlaps and group the codes into a hierarchical tree structure and obtain descriptive themes that constitute our review findings (stage 2).

To answer our review question and try to develop an analytical theme (stage 3), we generated integrative concepts, understandings, and hypothesis from the descriptive themes or review findings.

One author wrote a draft summary of the review findings and then commented it with other review authors to agree on a final version.

Assessing our confidence in the review findings

We (CH and CS) used the CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research) approach to assess our confidence in each review finding [ 34 ]. The CERQual has four key components: Methodological limitations of included studies, coherence of the review finding, adequacy of the data contributing to the review finding and relevance of the included studies to the review question. The final assessment was based on consensus among the review authors. All findings started as high confidence and were then graded down if there were important concerns regarding any of the GRADE-CERQual components.

Review author reflexivity

We represent diverse professional backgrounds with a range of research experiences and expertise that could have biased our input in conducting this review (e.g., one of the reviewers coordinates a population screening programme and, therefore, might have interpreted the findings from the studies from her professional perspective rather than that of a candidate for screening participation). To avoid biases or skewing of the results, we considered how our beliefs would influence our choices while scoping the review and the methods we used, the interpretation of the data and our own interpretation of our findings. That is why we kept a reflexive attitude throughout the review process.

Ethical consideration

As this is a secondary research study, and it did not involve access to individual-level data, we did not seek ethical approval for conducting this systematic review.

We retrieved 2348 references from the search, from which we excluded 806 duplicates and revised 1552 through their title and abstracts. We evaluated the full text of 62 studies. Finally, six studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. A chart detailing the inclusion/exclusion process can be seen in Fig.  1 . Main characteristics of the included studies are described in Table  2 .

PRISMA chart of the study selection process

The included studies were published between 2003 and 2021 and were all in English. All studies reported on organised screenings programs. The studies were from Denmark [ 36 , 38 ], Sweden [ 35 ], Spain [ 37 ], France [ 39 ] and UK [ 40 ]. Two studies explored the participant’s experience undergoing CRC screening and their screening procedure [ 35 , 36 ], two studies explored how participants experience a positive test result/ cancer diagnosis [ 38 , 40 ] and the remaining studies explored the obstacles to mass colorectal screening [ 39 ], and the factors related to the longitudinal adherence of CRC screening related to experience and satisfaction of the participants [ 37 ].

The studies obtained data from 14 focus groups, 88 semi-structured and 24 open-ended interviews of adult individuals (aged 50–80), who had undergone CRC screening. Three of the studies included the experiences of both faecal testing and colonoscopy [ 35 , 36 , 39 ], two only included the participants’ experience with faecal testing [ 37 , 38 ], and one included the participants experience with either sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy [ 40 ]. Aubin-Auger’s study [ 39 ] included interviews to both General Practitioners and participants, clearly separated the findings of both, and only those related to patients were included in this review.

As for the analysis of the data, the studies used thematic analysis [ 37 , 38 , 39 ], an inductive qualitative content analysis [ 35 ], a funnel-structured research cycle analysis [ 36 ] and a constant comparative analysis [ 40 ].

Four of the studies had an appropriate methodological quality [ 35 , 36 , 38 , 39 ], but the remaining had important limitations, due to the appropriateness of the analytic approaches used (authors reported opposite approaches to analyse data) [ 37 ] and the value of the research due to the time elapsed since the study was conducted [ 40 ].

The detailed methodological quality assessment can be seen in Table  3 .

Review findings

We identified five descriptive themes: concerns about the results, challenges regarding procedure logistics, care received from the healthcare professionals, being adequately informed and expectations and experience with the program.

Variability in the concerns about the results

All studies reported the participants having varying degrees of concern regarding the possible outcome of the screening tests [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Some of them went through screening without any further reflections or concerns about the outcome, as they just assumed that the result would be fine. Having an abnormal FIT result did not shock some of the participants either, as the result was somewhat expected because of previous hemorrhoids or those who had polyps detected during their previous colonoscopies [ 35 ].

Really, I didn’t think I was going to get any reply. When I had sent it away (.) it was in a way pretty much gone for me (.) then I’d done my part and didn’t think about it until I received the result [ 35 ].

Others, however, did struggle with anxious thoughts about the screening outcomes, as they were worried about further medical procedures such as a colonoscopy [ 35 , 36 ]. For some participants, receiving an abnormal FIT result was often accompanied by a dooming mindset expressed as “now it is over” [ 35 ].

In sum, the interpretation of a positive FIT result and perceived risk of CRC was shaped by symptom appraisal and experiences with previous abdominal symptoms and investigation. [ 38 ]

Fear about results was reported to be a determinant factor to explain both why individuals decided to participate, as well as why they sometimes decided to stop participating [ 37 ]. Specifically women with established screening habits (e.g., mammography, cervical smears) and individuals with familial exposure to gFOBT, were more likely to accept participation [ 39 ], as the previous experience reduced their fear, and therefore concern, of a possible positive result.

There are many people who prefer to ignore things, until there is no remedy and then you have to face the problem and say, ok because there is no choice. but if I can avoid knowing. Then there will be a percentage of people who will also do it [to participate] out of fear. I think so [ 37 ] (Female).

Challenges regarding procedure logistics

When commenting on the FIT, participants agreed that the performance of the test was simple and easy, and appreciated being able to perform the procedure at home, even though it sometimes was a bit time-consuming [ 35 , 37 ]. Some patients forgot to perform the FIT, while others lacked time or were indifferent [ 39 ]. Furthermore, when a participant received a positive FIT result, the feeling of uncertainty regarding the upcoming colonoscopy was overwhelming and worries about the discomfort of it arose [ 35 ].

When it comes to doing the [FOBT] test (.) I consider it [the FOBT test] a very comfortable thing. You do it in your house, at the moment [ 37 ] (Male).

The colonoscopy itself proved to be more challenging than FIT, as both the investigation and the bowel preparation were perceived as physically unpleasant, exhausting, and disgusting [ 35 , 36 ], regardless of the use or not of sedatives [ 35 ]. The bowel preparation was specially mentioned to be one of the worst and most troublesome aspects of the colonoscopy [ 35 , 36 ].

The main concern regarding logistics was the interference with daily life. Individuals were required to plan or reschedule other activities to undergo colonoscopy [ 36 ], and that ultimately resulted in them prioritizing their everyday tasks and activities over the actions needed to participate in the screening program [ 37 ], postponing the procedure. Colonoscopy appointments required patients to plan for transportation after the examination, often involving a family member or friend accompanying them to and from the hospital. Having to repeat the FIT test twice was also considered burdensome and time-consuming [ 35 ].

Well yes, that (the bowel preparation) was probably the worst bit/Yes/(.)/Yes, that first litre goes very well but then the next gets tough [ 35 ].

Care received from the healthcare professionals

Four of the six included studies [ 35 , 36 , 38 , 40 ] put an emphasis on the participants’ report of the care received. In all studies, healthcare professionals were described as trust-promoting, empathetic, friendly, easy-going, and attentive. Feeling well treated and cared for was a shared experience among the participants.

She who performed it (the colonoscopy), was a really nice woman (.) and there was nothing wrong with anyone else either, but to me, it gets so much easier when you can take it lightly, make a joke and stuff [ 35 ].

Some patients discussed the positive FIT result with a healthcare professional to talk about the upcoming colonoscopy [ 38 ], as doctors played a significant role in mitigating concern and providing reassurance.

Individuals also shared the importance of being involved during the procedure, especially when healthcare professionals explained real-time findings or removals during colonoscopies. This involvement helped increase trust in the skills of the professional performing the intervention [ 36 ]

It was such a positive experience. They told me during the whole procedure what they saw, and they blew up and removed some tiny little polyps. [ 36 ] (Female, 74).

Being adequately informed

A very commonly discussed theme was the information received by participants for the FIT and gFOBT tests, and whether it was adequate or sufficient [ 35 , 37 ]. Most agreed that there was some confusion surrounding the bureaucratic aspects of the screening process, such as what process to follow to participate, time periods between rounds, age limits for the program, and where to confirm the colonoscopy appointment [ 35 , 39 ].

We have all been relaxed about it because none of us knew that the maximum period between analysis and analysis of the colon are two years, we did not know. And then, well, they have done it and that’s it . and it is not like that [ 37 ] (Male).

The lack of information regarding CRC screening in the media contributed to the general misinformation, which prompted many individuals to consult a general practitioner after receiving the invitation to make the decision to undergo the screening process [ 37 ]. Some patients were not convinced by the explanatory letter and asked their GPs for other reasons why screening was necessary, such as epidemiological factors. [ 39 ] Some other patients preferred managing their health in different ways, such as eating healthy food or exercising, and believed screening was only useful in the case of high-risk familial CRC. [ 39 ].

I went to my GP [before making a decision] and they talked me through it [the letter] a bit [ 37 ] (Male).

Some patients showed a complete lack of knowledge about the test (gFOBT), sometimes thinking that it was a colonoscopy. [ 39 ]

When talking about colonoscopy, participants referred to being well informed both before and during the procedure, which was highly valued as it gave them the feeling of being more involved [ 36 , 37 ].

The way the results were communicated also brought up uncertainties, as participants were not sure whether they had gotten their result, as the letter they received was unclear [ 36 ]. General misinformation also affected how participants interpreted the results, with a positive result being automatically linked to cancer. [ 39 ]

In cases where the patients received a cancer diagnostic, initially they were only told that polyps had been found, interpreting this outcome as non-serious. Despite having a period in which they were essentially symptomatic, they failed to prepare themselves for the possibility that the polyps detected at screening might turn out to be malignant. [ 40 ]

Expectations and experience with the program

Individuals described their expectations not corresponding with the reality of the screening procedure both in a positive and negative way. Their experience with the FIT test was better than what they expected, and they were surprised by its cleanliness and simplicity.

Colonoscopy however, had contradicting experiences. While for some, despite being relatively painless and professional, was worse than what they expected [ 35 ], for others undergoing the colonoscopy was a better experience than anticipated, and the behaviour of healthcare professionals provided comfort, making patients feel less uncomfortable about undergoing a colonoscopy in the future. [ 37 ]

There was a sense of relief once the screening procedure was completed, as they felt pleased since it was considered “good to know” [ 35 ].

I think it is such a comfort to get screened and to be told that there is no cancer at all. I can only be content with this screening procedure. [ 36 ] (Female, 74).

There was a sense of gratitude towards screening offers, as participants appreciated and realized the health benefit that this type of service introduces, not only on an individual level but also on a populational level. Some even considered participating in these programs as a “moral obligation” [ 36 , 37 ]. Even after a cancer diagnostic, no one expressed the view that they wished they had not gone for screening [ 40 ]. Many participants thought that screening can help detect disease at the stage when things can be done, offering a chance of cure, prolonged life, and a choice about whether to go ahead with treatment or not. [ 40 ].

Screening is just something you should do. It is no fun, but you should do it for your family’s sake. This is a priority of society. Finally, when there is a screening offer for men, we should jump at the offer [ 36 ] (Male, 58).

Interpretive explanation of satisfaction with the screening programme

The actual experiences of individuals undergoing CRC screening, compared to initial expectations, significantly impact overall satisfaction, and so, how both factors are shaped will be decisive.

Regarding expectations, they might differ influenced by the participant’s past experiences. On one hand, having undergone screening successfully in the past can encourage them to participate again, but on the other hand, concerns they might have about the procedures can affect how they face the tests, and even prevent them from participating at all. Fear of a positive result can also negatively impact expectations, as people with a more dooming mindset will meet the whole screening process with far worse prospects. Expectations are also easily defined by the information participants receive from both the letter they receive at their home as from the media or their GP. This information needs to be clear and straightforward, as being adequately informed will determine what the participants will assume the whole process will look like.

As for the experiences, the review highlights a wide range of concerns regarding the screening outcome, varying from no concern to anxious thoughts and a dooming mindset among participants. Logistic issues arising from the screening process, particularly challenges with FIT and colonoscopy procedures, were commonly reported. These challenges led to disruptions in daily life, often resulting in the postponement or rescheduling of tests to prioritize participants’ everyday tasks. Notably, participants consistently praised the care provided by healthcare professionals throughout the screening program. The professionals were characterized as empathetic, attentive, and actively involved during procedures. This involvement significantly contributed to participants feeling well-informed both before and during the procedure, in contrast to the general lack of information received prior to the test. The confusion around bureaucratic aspects of the screening program led many individuals to consult GPs after receiving invitations to participate.

In essence, participant satisfaction is a complex interplay of emotional responses, logistical challenges, healthcare professional interactions, information adequacy, and the alignment of expectations with actual experiences during the screening process. Successfully managing these factors contributes to overall participant satisfaction. Therefore, to improve satisfaction with CRC screening programs, it is necessary that the experience of participants is good and that expectations are as alligned as possible with reality. An overview of the construction of the analytical theme can be found in Fig.  2 .

Despite disparities between expectations and the reality of the screening procedure, participants did not express dissatisfaction with the program. Upon finalisation, there was a shared sense of relief, and participants expressed gratitude towards the screening offers.

Confidence in our findings

We presented our confidence in review findings in a CERQual evidence profile table (Table  4 ). All findings had a moderate level of confidence due to the limited amount of data that supported the findings and due to concerns on relevance as the objectives of two included studies [ 37 , 39 ] did not align completely with our research question.

Summary of main findings

Overall, participants describe a generally satisfactory experience with the program.

The review highlights a wide range of concerns regarding the screening outcome, varying from no concern to anxious thoughts and a dooming mindset among participants. Logistic issues arising from the screening process, particularly challenges with colonoscopy procedures and forgetting to do the FIT, were commonly reported. These challenges led to disruptions in daily life, often resulting in the postponement or rescheduling of tests to prioritize participants’ everyday tasks.

Notably, participants consistently praised the care provided by healthcare professionals throughout the screening program. The professionals were characterized as empathetic, attentive, and actively involved during procedures. This involvement significantly contributed to participants feeling well-informed both before and during the procedure, in contrast to the general lack of information received prior to the test. The confusion around bureaucratic aspects of the screening program led many individuals to consult GPs after receiving invitations to participate.

Despite disparities between expectations and the reality of the screening procedure, participants did not express dissatisfaction with the program. Upon finalization, there was a shared sense of relief, and participants expressed gratitude towards the screening offers.

Strengths and limitations of the study

One of the strengths of this study is the extensive effort made to find and review all relevant primary studies by performing exhaustive bibliographic research in four different databases and searching for grey literature. Even though studies in English, Spanish and French were included, other studies relevant to this topic published in other languages might exist. Included studies were all conducted in Europe: three in Nordic countries, two in centre-European countries and one southern-European country which have health care and societal context differences. This proves to be a strength as identifying the most prevalent and convergent experiences of participants in CRC screening programs across countries further increases the confidence in our results. Finally, the originality of our work lies on the fact that, to our knowledge, the are no other qualitative evidence synthesis on this topic.

Our study has some limitations. The first one being the relatively small number of included primary studies in the review. We also could not find the complete text for three preliminarily included studies. All studies were European, which, despite them having different healthcare systems, limits the extrapolation of our results to other regions and contexts. Besides, the small amount of data and concerns about relevance limited the confidence in our findings and did not allow us to answer our secondary objectives.

Comparison to existing literature

One of the main findings of our study were the varying degrees of concern about the results of the screening test. However, after a negative FIT result, or after being cleared of a positive FIT result by a colonoscopy, people felt a huge feeling of relief. This indicates that the confirmation of a good health outcome has a value ‘per se’ [ 41 ]. Just by accepting to participate in the program, individuals accept the risk of “false alarm”, which aggravates the concern of a positive result. At the same time, it has been suggested that participation elicits a feeling of being examined for good, and therefore causing a “relaxation effect” that delays future doctor visits and might deter them from participating again in future screening rounds [ 42 ]. From our findings, we can neither support nor contradict these suggestions.

We have found that many participants feel a moral obligation to participate in screening programs, from personal, interpersonal, and societal perspectives. This finding is reinforced when looking at breast and cervical cancer screening studies, which suggest screening might constitute a moral framework of obligation and responsibility, as these programs are both a social and medical intervention [ 43 , 44 , 45 ]. This might be even more relevant in countries with socialized healthcare systems, which often remind residents about the scarcity of resources, and therefore appeal to their sense of obligation to participate in the screening programs, explaining the high participation levels [ 46 ].

When discussing the tests themselves, previous research confirms that the FIT procedure is considered simple and easy [ 47 ], and participants preferred FITs that were single sample, used a probe and vial for sample collection, and had simple, large font instructions with colourful pictures [ 48 ]. Studies also validate the difficulties with colonoscopy bowel preparation [ 49 ] and suggest that offering different laxative alternatives might help relieve the stress and optimize the preparation [ 50 ].

Published quantitative studies based on surveys/questionnaires also reinforce our findings of a general positive experience with the screening, with room for improvement in the informative material and the colonoscopy preparation [ 51 , 52 ].

Implications of our results and future research

Our study has identified some issues that might negatively affect participants’ satisfaction with CRC screening programs. This knowledge can help in the design of interventions or changes to the current programs that might help alleviate these challenges, including: (1) Having a clearer presentation of the program and what timelines to follow in the letter sent home; (2) Implementing automated reminders via mobile apps or text messages, with prompts to complete the FIT test within recommended time frames (3) Provide a detailed and more realistic explanation about how the colonoscopy preparation is going to be like, so participants’ expectations are better managed.

Our study also highlighted the relevance of HCP in the screening process. Especially General Practitioners, as their support and interactions with participants play a pivotal role in their decision to participate in the programs.

We tried to bring integrated knowledge on the understanding of the experience and satisfaction of participants of CRC screening programs. However, we could only include six studies, which sheds a light into the need of performing more qualitative research on this topic. There were no studies that considered the gender perspective, and whether the satisfaction with the program varied if the participants was a man or a woman, or other demographic differences such as ethnicity or socioeconomic status. There is also a lack of studies answering any of our secondary objectives, such as: whether any differences existed in satisfaction with opportunistic or populational screening, or whether the final screening results impact the overall satisfaction with the programs.

Our qualitative evidence synthesis provided a picture of the experience and satisfaction of participants in CRC screening programs. There are varying degrees of concern about the results derived from their participation, and while the FIT test is easy and straightforward, bowel preparation for colonoscopy is a problem for participants. The screening process interrupts with daily life, which encourages individuals to postpone screening. During the procedure they feel well cared after and informed, but there is still some lack of information that contributes to the mismanagement of expectations. Despite this, the overall satisfaction with the screening programs is high.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this article. Further enquiries can be directed to the corresponding.

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Acknowledgements

Cristina Hortalà Bas is a doctoral candidate in Methodology of Biomedical Research and Public Health, at the Department of Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Preventive Medicine and Public Health at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.

This work was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos Tercero, grant number (PI18/00460).

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C.H. wrote the main manuscript text. C.H. and C.S. performed the analysis. I.S. designed the search strategy. A.S. reviewed all analysis and provided feedback and guidance. All authors reviewed the manuscript and provided corrections.

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Hortalà, C., Selva, C., Sola, I. et al. Experience and satisfaction of participants in colorectal cancer screening programs: a qualitative evidence synthesis. BMC Public Health 24 , 2293 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19678-1

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The role of emotions in academic performance of undergraduate medical students: a narrative review

• Nora Alshareef 1 , 2 ,
• Ian Fletcher 2 &
• Sabir Giga 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  907 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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This paper is devoted to a narrative review of the literature on emotions and academic performance in medicine. The review aims to examine the role emotions play in the academic performance of undergraduate medical students.

Eight electronic databases were used to search the literature from 2013 to 2023, including Academic Search Ultimate, British Education Index, CINAHL, Education Abstract, ERIC, Medline, APA Psych Articles and APA Psych Info. Using specific keywords and terms in the databases, 3,285,208 articles were found. After applying the predefined exclusion and inclusion criteria to include only medical students and academic performance as an outcome, 45 articles remained, and two reviewers assessed the quality of the retrieved literature; 17 articles were selected for the narrative synthesis.

The findings indicate that depression and anxiety are the most frequently reported variables in the reviewed literature, and they have negative and positive impacts on the academic performance of medical students. The included literature also reported that a high number of medical students experienced test anxiety during their study, which affected their academic performance. Positive emotions lead to positive academic outcomes and vice versa. However, Feelings of shame did not have any effect on the academic performance of medical students.

The review suggests a significant relationship between emotions and academic performance among undergraduate medical students. While the evidence may not establish causation, it underscores the importance of considering emotional factors in understanding student performance. However, reliance on cross-sectional studies and self-reported data may introduce recall bias. Future research should concentrate on developing anxiety reduction strategies and enhancing mental well-being to improve academic performance.

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Introduction

Studying medicine is a multi-dimensional process involving acquiring medical knowledge, clinical skills, and professional attitudes. Previous research has found that emotions play a significant role in this process [ 1 , 2 ]. Different types of emotions are important in an academic context, influencing performance on assessments and evaluations, reception of feedback, exam scores, and overall satisfaction with the learning experience [ 3 ]. In particular, medical students experience a wide range of emotions due to many emotionally challenging situations, such as experiencing a heavy academic workload, being in the highly competitive field of medicine, retaining a large amount of information, keeping track of a busy schedule, taking difficult exams, and dealing with a fear of failure [ 4 , 5 , 6 ].Especially during their clinical years, medical students may experience anxiety when interacting with patients who are suffering, ill, or dying, and they must work with other healthcare professionals. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the impact of emotions on medical students to improve their academic outcomes [ 7 ].

To distinguish the emotions frequently experienced by medical students, it is essential to define them. Depression is defined by enduring emotions of sadness, despair, and a diminished capacity for enjoyment or engagement in almost all activities [ 4 ]. Negative emotions encompass unpleasant feelings such as anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety, and they frequently cause distress [ 8 ]. Anxiety is a general term that refers to a state of heightened nervousness or worry, which can be triggered by various factors. Test anxiety, on the other hand, is a specific type of anxiety that arises in the context of taking exams or assessments. Test anxiety is characterised by physiological arousal, negative self-perception, and a fear of failure, which can significantly impair a student’s ability to perform well academically [ 9 , 10 ]. Shame is a self-conscious emotion that arises from the perception of having failed to meet personal or societal standards. It can lead to feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, severely impacting a student’s motivation and academic performance [ 11 , 12 ]. In contrast, positive emotions indicate a state of enjoyable involvement with the surroundings, encompassing feelings of happiness, appreciation, satisfaction, and love [ 8 ].

Academic performance generally refers to the outcomes of a student’s learning activities, often measured through grades, scores, and other formal assessments. Academic achievement encompasses a broader range of accomplishments, including mastery of skills, attainment of knowledge, and the application of learning in practical contexts. While academic performance is often quantifiable, academic achievement includes qualitative aspects of a student’s educational journey [ 13 ].

According to the literature, 11–40% of medical students suffer from stress, depression, and anxiety due to the intensity of medical school, and these negative emotions impact their academic achievement [ 14 , 15 ]. Severe anxiety may impair memory function, decrease concentration, lead to a state of hypervigilance, and interfere with judgment and cognitive function, further affecting academic performance [ 16 ]. However, some studies have suggested that experiencing some level of anxiety has a positive effect and serves as motivation that can improve academic performance [ 16 , 17 ].

Despite the importance of medical students’ emotions and their relation to academic performance, few studies have been conducted in this area. Most of these studies have focused on the prevalence of specific emotions without correlating with medical students’ academic performance. Few systematic reviews have addressed the emotional challenges medical students face. However, there is a lack of comprehensive reviews that discuss the role of emotions and academic outcomes. Therefore, this review aims to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between emotions and the academic performance of medical students.

Aim of the study

This review aims to examine the role emotions play in the academic performance of undergraduate medical students.

A systematic literature search examined the role of emotions in medical students’ academic performance. The search adhered to the concepts of a systematic review, following the criteria of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) [ 18 ]. Then, narrative synthesise was done to analyse the retrieved literature and synthesise the results. A systematic literature search and narrative review provide complete coverage and flexibility to explore and understand findings. Systematic search assures rigour and reduces bias, while narrative synthesis allows for flexible integration and interpretation. This balance improves review quality and utility.

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria.

The study’s scope was confined to January 2013 to December 2023, focusing exclusively on undergraduate medical students. The research encompassed articles originating within medical schools worldwide, accepting content from all countries. The criteria included only full-text articles in English published in peer-reviewed journals. Primary research was considered, embracing quantitative and mixed-method research. The selected studies had to explicitly reference academic performance, test results, or GPA as key outcomes to address the research question.

Exclusion criteria

The study excluded individuals beyond the undergraduate medical student demographic, such as students in other health fields and junior doctors. There was no imposed age limit for the student participants. The research specifically focused on articles within medical schools, excluding those from alternative settings. It solely considered full-text articles in English-language peer-reviewed journals. Letters or commentary articles were excluded, and the study did not limit itself to a particular type of research. Qualitative studies were excluded from the review because they did not have the quantitative measures required to answer the review’s aim. This review excluded articles on factors impacting academic performance, those analysing nursing students, and gender differences. The reasons and numbers for excluding articles are shown in Table  1 .

Information sources

Eight electronic databases were used to search the literature. These were the following: Academic Search Ultimate, British Education Index, CINAHL, Education Abstract, ERIC, Medline, APA Psych Articles and APA Psych Info. The databases were chosen from several fields based on relevant topics, including education, academic evaluation and assessment, medical education, psychology, mental health, and medical research. Initially, with the help of a subject librarian, the researcher used all the above databases; the databases were searched with specific keywords and terms, and the terms were divided into the following concepts emotions, academic performance and medical students. Google Scholar, EBSCOhost, and the reference list of the retrieved articles were also used to identify other relevant articles.

Search strategy

This review started with a search of the databases. Eight electronic databases were used to search the literature from 2013 to 2023. Specific keywords and terms were used to search the databases, resulting in 3,285,208 articles. After removing duplicates, letters and commentary, this number was reduced to 1,637 articles. Exclusion and inclusion criteria were then applied, resulting in 45 articles. After two assessors assessed the literature, 17 articles were selected for the review. The search terms are as follows:

Keywords: Emotion, anxiety, stress, empathy, test anxiety, exam anxiety, test stress, exam stress, depression, emotional regulation, test scores, academic performance, grades, GPA, academic achievement, academic success, test result, assessment, undergraduate medical students and undergraduate medical education.

Emotions: TI (Emotion* OR Anxiety OR Stress OR empathy) OR emotion* OR (test anxiety or exam anxiety or test stress or exam stress) OR (depression) OR AB ((Emotion* OR Anxiety OR Stress OR empathy) OR emotion* OR (test anxiety or exam anxiety or test stress or exam stress)) (MH “Emotions”) OR (MH “Emotional Regulation”) DE “EMOTIONS”.

Academic performance: TI (test scores or academic performance or grades or GPA) OR (academic achievement or academic performance or academic success) OR (test result* OR assessment*) OR AB (test scores or academic performance or grades or GPA) OR (academic achievement or academic performance or academic success) OR test result* OR assessment*.

Medical Students: TI (undergraduate medical students OR undergraduate medical education) OR AB (undergraduate medical students OR undergraduate medical education), TI “medical students” OR AB “medical students” DE “Medical Students”.

Selection process

This literature review attempts to gather only peer-reviewed journal articles published in English on undergraduate medical students’ negative and positive emotions and academic performance from January 2013 to December 2023. Their emotions, including depression, anxiety, physiological distress, shame, happiness, joy, and all emotions related to academic performance, were examined in quantitative research and mixed methods.

Moreover, to focus the search, the author specified and defined each keyword using advanced search tools, such as subject headings in the case of the Medline database. The author used ‘MeSH 2023’ as the subject heading, then entered the term ‘Emotion’ and chose all the relevant meanings. This method was applied to most of the keywords.

Studies were included based on predefined criteria related to study design, participants, exposure, outcomes, and study types. Two independent reviewers screened each record, and the report was retrieved. In the screening process, reviewers independently assessed each article against the inclusion criteria, and discrepancies were resolved through consensus during regular team meetings. In cases of persistent disagreement, a third reviewer was consulted. Endnote library program was used for the initial screening phase. This tool was used to identify duplicates, facilitated the independent screening of titles and abstracts and helped to retrieve the full-text articles. The reasons for excluding the articles are presented in Table  1 .

Data collection process

Two independent reviewers extracted data from the eligible studies, with any discrepancies resolved through discussion and consensus. If the two primary reviewers could not agree, a third reviewer served as an arbitrator. For each included study, the following information was extracted and recorded in a standardised database: first author name, publication year, study design, sample characteristics, details of the emotions exposed, outcome measures, and results.

Academic performance as an outcome for medical students was defined to include the following: Exam scores (e.g., midterm, final exams), Clinical assessments (e.g., practical exams, clinical rotations), Overall grade point average (GPA) or any other relevant indicators of academic achievement.

Data were sought for all outcomes, including all measures, time points, and analyses within each outcome domain. In cases where studies reported multiple measures or time points, all relevant data were extracted to provide a comprehensive overview of academic performance. If a study reported outcomes beyond the predefined domains, inclusion criteria were established to determine whether these additional outcomes would be included in the review. This involved assessing relevance to the primary research question and alignment with the predefined outcome domains.

Quality assessment

The quality and risk of bias in included studies were assessed using the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) critical appraisal tool. The tool evaluates studies based on the following domains: selection bias, performance bias, detection bias, attrition bias, reporting bias, and other biases. Two independent reviewers assessed the risk of bias in each included study. Reviewers worked collaboratively to reach a consensus on assessments. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion and consensus. In cases of persistent disagreement, a third reviewer was consulted.

To determine the validity of eligible articles, all the included articles were critically appraised, and all reviewers assessed bias. The validity and reliability of the results were assessed by using objective measurement. Each article was scored out of 14, with 14 indicating high-quality research and 1 indicating low-quality research. High-quality research, according to the NIH (2013), includes a clear and focused research question, defines the study population, features a high participation rate, mentions inclusion and exclusion criteria, uses clear and specific measurements, reports results in detail, lists the confounding factors and lists the implications for the local community. Therefore, an article was scored 14 if it met all criteria of the critical appraisal tool. Based on scoring, each study was classified into one of three quality categories: good, fair or poor. The poorly rated articles mean their findings were unreliable, and they will not be considered, including two articles [ 16 , 19 ]. Seventeen articles were chosen after critical appraisal using the NIH appraisal tool, as shown in Table  2 .

Effect measures

For each outcome examined in the included studies, various effect measures were utilised to quantify the relationship between emotions and academic performance among undergraduate medical students. The effect measures commonly reported across the studies included prevalence rat, correlation coefficients, and mean differences. The reviewer calculated the effect size for the studies that did not report the effect. The choice of effect measure depended on the nature of the outcome variable and the statistical analysis conducted in each study. These measures were used to assess the strength and direction of the association between emotional factors and academic performance.

The synthesis method

The findings of individual studies were summarised to highlight crucial characteristics. Due to the predicted heterogeneity, the synthesis involved pooling effect estimates and using a narrative method. A narrative synthesis approach was employed in the synthesis of this review to assess and interpret the findings from the included studies qualitatively. The narrative synthesis involved a qualitative examination of the content of each study, focusing on identifying common themes. This synthesis was employed to categorise and interpret data, allowing for a nuanced understanding of the synthesis. Themes related to emotions were identified and extracted for synthesis. Control-value theory [ 20 ] was used as an overarching theory, providing a qualitative synthesis of the evidence and contributing to a deeper understanding of the research question. If the retrieved articles include populations other than medical, such as dental students or non-medical students, the synthesis will distinguish between them and summarise the findings of the medical students only, highlighting any differences or similarities.

The Control-Value Theory, formulated by Pekrun (2006), is a conceptual framework that illustrates the relationship between emotions and academic achievement through two fundamental assessments: control and value. Control pertains to the perceived ability of a learner to exert influence over their learning activities and the results they achieve. Value relates to a student’s significance to these actions and results. The theory suggests that students are prone to experiencing good feelings, such as satisfaction and pride when they possess a strong sense of control and importance towards their academic assignments. On the other hand, individuals are prone to encountering adverse emotions (such as fear and embarrassment) when they perceive a lack of control or worth in these particular occupations. These emotions subsequently impact students’ motivation, learning strategies, and, eventually, their academic achievement. The relevance of control-value theory in reviewing medical student emotions and their influence on academic performance is evident for various reasons. This theory offers a complete framework that facilitates comprehending the intricate connection between emotions and academic achievement. It considers positive and negative emotions, providing a comprehensive viewpoint on how emotions might influence learning and performance. The relevance of control and value notions is particularly significant for medical students due to their frequent exposure to high-stakes tests and difficult courses. Gaining insight into the students’ perception of their power over academic assignments and the importance they attach to their medical education might aid in identifying emotional stimuli and devising remedies. Multiple research has confirmed the theory’s assertions, showing the critical influence of control and value evaluations on students’ emotional experiences and academic achievements [ 21 , 22 ].

Data extraction

For this step, a data extraction sheet was developed using the data extraction template provided by the Cochrane Handbook. To ensure the review is evidence-based and bias-free, the Cochrane Handbook strongly suggests that more than one reviewer review the data. Therefore, the main researcher extracted the data from the included studies, and another reviewer checked the included, excluded and extracted data. Any disagreements were resolved via discussion by a third reviewer. The data extraction Table  2 identified all study features, including the author’s name, the year of publication, the method used the aim of the study, the number and description of participants, data collection tools, and study findings.

Finalisation of references and study characteristics

Prisma sheet and the summary of final studies that have been used for the review.

When the keywords and search terms related to emotions, as mentioned above, in the eight databases listed, 3,285,208 articles were retrieved. After using advanced search and subject headings, the number of articles increased to 3,352,371. Similarly, searching for the second keyword, ‘academic performance,’ using all the advanced search tools yielded 8,119,908 articles. Searching for the third keyword, ‘medical students’, yielded 145,757 articles. All terms were searched in article titles and abstracts. After that, the author combined all search terms by using ‘AND’ and applied the time limit from 2013 to 2023; the search narrowed to 2,570 articles. After duplicates, letters and commentary were excluded, the number was reduced to 1,637 articles. After reading the title and abstract to determine relevance to the topic and applying the exclusion and inclusion criteria mentioned above, 45 articles remained; after the quality of the retrieved literature was assessed by two reviewers, 17 articles were selected for the review. The PRISMA flow diagram summarising the same is presented in Fig.  1 . Additionally, One article by Ansari et al. (2018) was selected for the review; it met most inclusion and exclusion criteria except that the outcome measure is cognitive function and not academic performance. Therefore, it was excluded from the review. Figure  1 shows the Prisma flow diagram (2020) of studies identified from the databases.

Prisma flow diagram (2020)

Study characteristics

Table  2 , summarising the characteristics of the included studies, is presented below.

Findings of the study

Country of the study.

Many of the studies were conducted in developing countries, with the majority being conducted in Europe ( n  = 4), followed by Pakistan ( n  = 2), then Saudi Arabia ( n  = 2), and the United States ( n  = 2). The rest of the studies were conducted in South America ( n  = 1), Morocco ( n  = 1), Brazil ( n  = 1), Australia ( n  = 1), Iran ( n  = 1), South Korea ( n  = 1) and Bosnia and Herzegovina ( n  = 1). No included studies were conducted in the United Kingdom.

Study design

Regarding study design, most of the included articles used a quantitative methodology, including 12 cross-sectional studies. There were two randomised controlled trials, one descriptive correlation study, one cohort study, and only one mixed-method study.

Population and study setting

Regarding population and setting, most of the studies focused on all medical students studying in a medical school setting, from first-year medical students to those in their final year. One study compared medical students with non-medical students; another combined medical students with dental students.

The study aims varied across the included studies. Seven studies examined the prevalence of depression and anxiety among medical students and their relation to academic performance. Four studies examined the relationship between test anxiety and academic performance in medical education. Four studies examined the relationship between medical students’ emotions and academic achievements. One study explored the influence of shame on medical students’ learning.

Study quality

The studies were assessed for quality using tools created by the NIH (2013) and then divided into good, fair, and poor based on these results. Nine studies had a high-quality methodology, seven achieved fair ratings, and only three achieved poor ratings. The studies that were assigned the poor rating were mainly cross-sectional studies, and the areas of weakness were due to the study design, low response rate, inadequate reporting of the methodology and statistics, invalid tools, and unclear research goals.

Outcome measures

Most of the outcome measures were heterogenous and self-administered questionnaires; one study used focus groups and observation ward assessment [ 23 ]. All the studies used the medical students’ academic grades.

Results of the study

The prevalence rate of psychological distress in the retrieved articles.

Depression and anxiety are the most common forms of psychological distress examined concerning academic outcomes among medical students. Studies consistently show concerningly high rates, with prevalence estimates ranging from 7.3 to 66.4% for anxiety and 3.7–69% for depression. These findings indicate psychological distress levels characterised as moderate to high based on common cut-off thresholds have a clear detrimental impact on academic achievement [ 16 , 24 , 25 , 26 ].

The studies collectively examine the impact of psychological factors on academic performance in medical education contexts, using a range of effect sizes to quantify their findings. Aboalshamat et al. (2015) identified a small effect size ( η 2 = 0.018) for depression’s impact on academic performance, suggesting a modest influence. Mihailescu (2016) found a significant negative correlation between levels of depression/anxiety (rho=-0.14, rho=-0.19), academic performance and GPA among medical students. Burr and Beck Dallaghan (2019) reported professional efficacy explaining 31.3% of the variance in academic performance, indicating a significant effect size. However, Del-Ben (2013) et al. did not provide the significant impact of affective changes on academic achievement, suggesting trivial effect sizes for these factors.

In conclusion, anxiety and depression, both indicators of psychological discomfort, are common among medical students. There is a link between distress and poor academic performance results, implying that this relationship merits consideration. Table  3 below shows the specific value of depression and anxiety in retrieved articles.

Test anxiety

In this review, four studies examined the relationship between test anxiety and academic performance in medical education [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. The studies found high rates of test anxiety among medical students, ranging from 52% [ 27 ] to as high as 81.1% [ 29 ]. Final-year students tend to experience the highest test anxiety [ 29 ].

Test anxiety has a significant negative correlation with academic performance measures and grade point average (GPA) [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Green et al. (2016) found that test anxiety was moderately negatively correlated with USMLE score ( r = − 0.24, p  = 0.00); high test anxiety was associated with low USMLE scores in the control group, further suggesting that anxiety can adversely affect performance. The findings that a test-taking strategy course reduced anxiety without improving test scores highlight the complex nature of anxiety’s impact on performance.

Nazir et al. (2021) found that excellent female medical students reported significantly lower test anxiety than those with low academic grades, with an odds ratio of 1.47, indicating that students with higher test anxiety are more likely to have lower academic grades. Kim’s (2016) research shows moderate correlations between test anxiety and negative achievement emotions such as anxiety and boredom, but interestingly, this anxiety does not significantly affect practical exam scores (OSCE) or GPAs. However, one study found that examination stress enhanced academic performance with a large effect size (W = 0.78), with stress levels at 47.4% among their sample, suggesting that a certain stress level before exams may be beneficial [ 30 ].

Three papers explored shame’s effect on medical students’ academic achievement [ 24 , 31 , 32 ]. Hayat et al. (2018) reported that academic feelings, like shame, significantly depend on the academic year. shame was found to have a slight negative and significant correlation with the academic achievement of learners ( r =-0.15). One study found that some medical students felt shame during simulations-based education examinations because they had made incorrect decisions, which decreased their self-esteem and motivation to learn. However, others who felt shame were motivated to study harder to avoid repeating the same mistakes [ 23 ].

Hautz (2017) study examined how shame affects medical students’ learning using a randomised controlled trial where researchers divided the students into two groups: one group performed a breast examination on mannequins and the other group on actual patients. The results showed that students who performed the clinical examination on actual patients experienced significantly higher levels of shame but performed better in examinations than in the mannequin group. In the final assessments on standardised patients, both groups performed equally well. Therefore, shame decreased with more clinical practice, but shame did not have significant statistics related to learning or performance. Similarly, Burr and Dallaghan (2019) reported that the shame level of medical students was (40%) but had no association with academic performance.

Academic performance, emotions and medical students

Three articles discussed medical students’ emotions and academic performance [ 23 , 24 , 32 ]. Burr and Dallaghan (2019) examine the relationship between academic success and emotions in medical students, such as pride, hope, worry, and shame. It emphasises the links between academic accomplishment and professional efficacy, as well as hope, pride, worry, and shame. Professional efficacy was the most significant factor linked to academic performance, explaining 31.3% of the variance. The importance of emotions on understanding, processing of data, recall of memories, and cognitive burden is emphasised throughout the research. To improve academic achievement, efforts should be made to increase student self-efficacy.

Hayat et al. (2018) found that positive emotions and intrinsic motivation are highly connected with academic achievement, although emotions fluctuate between educational levels but not between genders. The correlations between negative emotions and academic achievement, ranging from − 0.15 to -0.24 for different emotions, suggest small but statistically significant adverse effects.

Behren et al.‘s (2019) mixed-method study found that students felt various emotions during the simulation, focusing on positive emotions and moderate anxiety. However, no significant relationships were found between positive emotions and the student’s performance during the simulation [ 23 ].

This review aims to investigate the role of emotions in the academic performance of undergraduate medical students. Meta-analysis cannot be used because of the heterogeneity of the data collection tools and different research designs [ 33 ]. Therefore, narrative synthesis was adopted in this paper. The studies are grouped into four categories as follows: (1) The effect of depression and anxiety on academic performance, (2) Test anxiety and academic achievement, (3) Shame and academic performance, and (4) Academic performance, emotions and medical students. The control-value theory [ 20 ], will be used to interpret the findings.

The effect of depression and anxiety on academic performance

According to the retrieved research, depression and anxiety can have both a negative and a positive impact on the academic performance of medical students. Severe anxiety may impair memory function, decrease concentration, lead to a state of hypervigilance, interfere with judgment and cognitive function, and further affect academic performance [ 4 ]. Most of the good-quality retrieved articles found that anxiety and depression were associated with low academic performance [ 16 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Moreira (2018) and Mihailescu (2016) found that higher depression levels were associated with more failed courses and a lower GPA. However, they did not find any association between anxiety level and academic performance.

By contrast, some studies have suggested that experiencing some level of anxiety reinforces students’ motivation to improve their academic performance [ 16 , 34 ]. Zalihic et al. (2017) conducted a study to investigate anxiety sensitivity about academic success and noticed a positive relationship between anxiety level and high academic scores; they justified this because when medical students feel anxious, they tend to prepare and study more, and they desire to achieve better scores and fulfil social expectations. Similarly, another study found anxiety has a negative impact on academic performance when excessive and a positive effect when manageable, in which case it encourages medical students and motivates them to achieve higher scores [ 35 ].

In the broader literature, the impact of anxiety on academic performance has contradictory research findings. While some studies suggest that having some level of anxiety can boost students’ motivation to improve their academic performance, other research has shown that anxiety has a negative impact on their academic success [ 36 , 37 ]. In the cultural context, education and anxiety attitudes differ widely across cultures. High academic pressure and societal expectations might worsen anxiety in many East Asian societies. Education is highly valued in these societies, frequently leading to significant academic stress. This pressure encompasses attaining high academic marks and outperformance in competitive examinations. The academic demands exerted on students can result in heightened levels of anxiety. The apprehension of not meeting expectations can lead to considerable psychological distress and anxiety, which can appear in their physical and mental health and academic achievement [ 38 , 39 ].

Test anxiety and academic achievement

The majority of the studies reviewed confirm that test anxiety negatively affects academic performance [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Several studies have found a significant correlation between test anxiety and academic achievement, indicating that higher levels of test anxiety are associated with lower exam scores and lower academic performance [ 40 , 41 ]. For example, Green et al. (2016) RCT study found that test anxiety has a moderately significant negative correlation with the USMLE score. They found that medical students who took the test-taking strategy course had lower levels of test anxiety than the control group, and their test anxiety scores after the exam had improved from the baseline. Although their test anxiety improved after taking the course, there was no significant difference in the exam scores between students who had and had not taken the course. Therefore, the intervention they used was not effective. According to the control-value theory, this intervention can be improved if they design an emotionally effective learning environment, have a straightforward instructional design, foster self-regulation of negative emotions, and teach students emotion-oriented regulation [ 22 ].

Additionally, according to this theory, students who perceive exams as difficult are more likely to experience test anxiety because test anxiety results from a student’s negative appraisal of the task and outcome values, leading to a reduction in their performance. This aligns with Kim’s (2016) study, which found that students who believed that the OSCE was a problematic exam experienced test anxiety more than other students [ 9 , 22 , 42 ].

In the wider literature, a meta-analysis review by von der Embse (2018) found a medium significant negative correlation ( r =-0.24) between test anxiety and test performance in undergraduate educational settings [ 43 ] . Also, they found a small significant negative correlation ( r =-0.17) between test anxiety and GPA. This indicates that higher levels of test anxiety are associated with lower test performance. Moreover, Song et al. (2021) experimental study examined the effects of test anxiety on working memory capacity and found that test anxiety negatively correlated with academic performance [ 44 ]. Therefore, the evidence from Song’s study suggests a small but significant effect of anxiety on working memory capacity. However, another cross-sectional study revealed that test anxiety in medical students had no significant effect on exam performance [ 45 ]. The complexities of this relationship necessitate additional investigation. Since the retrieved articles are from different countries, it is critical to recognise the possible impact of cultural differences on the impact of test anxiety. Cultural factors such as different educational systems, assessment tools and societal expectations may lead to variances in test anxiety experience and expression across diverse communities [ 46 , 47 ]. Culture has a substantial impact on how test anxiety is expressed and evaluated. Research suggests that the degree and manifestations of test anxiety differ among different cultural settings, emphasising the importance of using culturally validated methods to evaluate test anxiety accurately. A study conducted by Lowe (2019) with Canadian and U.S. college students demonstrated cultural variations in the factors contributing to test anxiety. Canadian students exhibited elevated levels of physiological hyperarousal, but U.S. students had more pronounced cognitive interference. These variations indicate that the cultural environment has an influence on how students perceive and respond to test anxiety, resulting in differing effects on their academic performance in different cultures. Furthermore, scholars highlight the significance of carrying out meticulous instruments to assess test anxiety, which are comparable among diverse cultural cohorts. This technique guarantees that the explanations of test scores are reliable and can be compared across different populations. Hence, it is imperative to comprehend and tackle cultural disparities in order to create efficient interventions and assistance for students who encounter test anxiety in diverse cultural environments. Therefore, there is a need for further studies to examine the level of test anxiety and cultural context.

Shame and academic performance

The review examined three studies that discuss the impact of feelings of shame on academic performance [ 23 , 24 , 48 ]. Generally, shame is considered a negative emotion which involves self-reflection and self-evaluation, and it leads to rumination and self-condemnation [ 49 ]. Intimate examinations conducted by medical students can induce feelings of shame, affecting their ability to communicate with patients and their clinical decisions. Shame can increase the avoidance of intimate physical examinations and also encourage clinical practice [ 23 , 24 , 48 ].

One study found that some medical students felt shame during simulations-based education examinations because they had made incorrect decisions, which decreased their self-esteem and motivation to learn. However, others who felt shame were motivated to study harder to avoid repeating the same mistakes [ 23 ]. Shame decreased with more clinical practice, but shame did not affect their learning or performance [ 48 ]. The literature on how shame affects medical students’ learning is inconclusive [ 31 ].

In the broader literature, shame is considered maladaptive, leading to dysfunctional behaviour, encouraging withdrawal and avoidance of events and inhibiting social interaction. However, few studies have been conducted on shame in the medical field. Therefore, more research is needed to investigate the role of shame in medical students’ academic performance [ 49 ]. In the literature, there are several solutions that can be used to tackle the problem of shame in medical education; it is necessary to establish nurturing learning settings that encourage students to openly discuss their problems and mistakes without the worry of facing severe criticism. This can be accomplished by encouraging medical students to participate in reflective practice, facilitating the processing of their emotions, and enabling them to derive valuable insights from their experiences, all while avoiding excessive self-blame [ 50 ]. Offering robust mentorship and support mechanisms can assist students in effectively managing the difficulties associated with intimate examinations. Teaching staff have the ability to demonstrate proper behaviours and provide valuable feedback and effective mentoring [ 51 ]. Training and workshops that specifically target communication skills and the handling of sensitive situations can effectively equip students to handle intimate tests, hence decreasing the chances of them avoiding such examinations due to feelings of shame [ 52 ].

The literature review focused on three studies that examined the relationship between emotions and the academic achievements of medical students [ 23 , 24 , 32 ].

Behren et al. (2019) mixed-method study on the achievement emotions of medical students during simulations found that placing students in challenging clinical cases that they can handle raises positive emotions. Students perceived these challenges as a positive drive for learning and mild anxiety was considered beneficial. However, the study also found non-significant correlations between emotions and performance during the simulation, indicating a complex relationship between emotions and academic performance. The results revealed that feelings of frustration were perceived to reduce students’ interest and motivation for studying, hampered their decision-making process, and negatively affected their self-esteem, which is consistent with the academic achievement emotions literature where negative emotions are associated with poor intrinsic motivation and reduced the ability to learn [ 3 ].

The study also emphasises that mild anxiety can have positive effects, corroborated by Gregor (2005), which posits that moderate degrees of anxiety can improve performance. The author suggests that an ideal state of arousal (which may be experienced as anxiety) enhances performance. Mild anxiety is commonly seen as a type of psychological stimulation that readies the body for upcoming challenges, frequently referred to as a “fight or flight” response. Within the realm of academic performance, this state of heightened arousal can enhance concentration and optimise cognitive functions such as memory, problem-solving skills, and overall performance. However, once the ideal point is surpassed, any additional increase in arousal can result in a decline in performance [ 53 ]. This is additionally supported by Cassady and Johnson (2002), who discovered that a specific level of anxiety can motivate students to engage in more comprehensive preparation, hence enhancing their performance.

The reviewed research reveals a positive correlation between positive emotions and academic performance and a negative correlation between negative emotions and academic performance. These findings align with the control–value theory [ 8 , 22 ], which suggests that positive emotions facilitate learning through mediating factors, including cognitive learning strategies such as strategic thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving and metacognitive learning strategies such as monitoring, regulating, and planning students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Additionally, several studies found that extrinsic motivation from the educational environment and the application of cognitive and emotional strategies improve students’ ability to learn and, consequently, their academic performance [ 23 , 24 , 32 ]. By contrast, negative emotions negatively affect academic performance. This is because negative emotions reduce students’ motivation, concentration, and ability to process information [ 23 , 24 , 32 ].

Limitations of the study

This review aims to thoroughly investigate the relationship between emotions and academic performance in undergraduate medical students, but it has inherent limitations. Overall, the methodological quality of the retrieved studies is primarily good and fair. Poor-quality research was excluded from the synthesis. The good-quality papers demonstrated strengths in sampling techniques, data analysis, collection and reporting. However, most of the retrieved articles used cross-section studies, and the drawback of this is a need for a more causal relationship, which is a limitation in the design of cross-sectional studies. Furthermore, given the reliance on self-reported data, there were concerns about potential recall bias. These methodological difficulties were noted in most of the examined research. When contemplating the implications for practice and future study, the impact of these limitations on the validity of the data should be acknowledged.

The limitation of the review process and the inclusion criteria restricted the study to articles published from January 2013 to December 2023, potentially overlooking relevant research conducted beyond this timeframe. Additionally, the exclusive focus on undergraduate medical students may constrain the applicability of findings to other health fields or educational levels.

Moreover, excluding articles in non-English language and those not published in peer-reviewed journals introduces potential language and publication biases. Reliance on electronic databases and specific keywords may inadvertently omit studies using different terms or indexing. While the search strategy is meticulous, it might not cover every relevant study due to indexing and database coverage variations. However, the two assessors’ involvement in study screening, selection, data extraction, and quality assessment improved the robustness of the review and ensured that it included all the relevant research.

In conclusion, these limitations highlight the need for careful interpretation of the study’s findings and stress the importance of future research addressing these constraints to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the nuanced relationship between emotions and academic performance in undergraduate medical education.

Conclusion and future research

The review exposes the widespread prevalence of depression, anxiety and test anxiety within the medical student population. The impact on academic performance is intricate, showcasing evidence of adverse and favourable relationships. Addressing the mental health challenges of medical students necessitates tailored interventions for enhancing mental well-being in medical education. Furthermore, it is crucial to create practical strategies considering the complex elements of overcoming test anxiety. Future research should prioritise the advancement of anxiety reduction strategies to enhance academic performance, focusing on the control-value theory’s emphasis on creating an emotionally supportive learning environment. Additionally, Test anxiety is very common among medical students, but the literature has not conclusively determined its actual effect on academic performance. Therefore, there is a clear need for a study that examines the relationship between test anxiety and academic performance. Moreover, the retrieved literature did not provide effective solutions for managing test anxiety. This gap highlights the need for practical solutions informed by Pekrun’s Control-Value Theory. Ideally, a longitudinal study measuring test anxiety and exam scores over time would be the most appropriate approach. it is also necessary to explore cultural differences to develop more effective solutions and support systems tailored to specific cultural contexts.

The impact of shame on academic performance in medical students was inconclusive. Shame is a negative emotion that has an intricate influence on learning outcomes. The inadequacy of current literature emphasises the imperative for additional research to unravel the nuanced role of shame in the academic journeys of medical students.

Overall, emotions play a crucial role in shaping students’ academic performance, and research has attempted to find solutions to improve medical students’ learning experiences; thus, it is recommended that medical schools revise their curricula and consider using simulation-based learning in their instructional designs to enhance learning and improve students’ emotions. Also, studies have suggested using academic coaching to help students achieve their goals, change their learning styles, and apply self-testing and simple rehearsal of the material. Moreover, the study recommended to improve medical students’ critical thinking and autonomy and changing teaching styles to support students better.

Data availability

all included articles are mentioned in the manuscript, The quality assessment of included articles are located in the supplementary materials file no. 1.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lancaster university library for helping me to search the literature and to find the appropriate databases and thanks to Lancaster university to prove access to several softwares.

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NA made substantial contributions throughout the systematic review process and was actively involved in writing and revising the manuscript. NA’s responsible for the design of the study, through the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data, to the drafting and substantive revision of the manuscript. NA has approved the submitted version and is personally accountable for her contributions, ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the work. IF was instrumental in screening the literature, extracting data, and conducting the quality assessment of the included studies. Additionally, IF played a crucial role in revising the results and discussion sections of the manuscript, ensuring that the interpretation of data was both accurate and insightful. IF has approved the submitted version and has agreed to be personally accountable for his contributions, particularly in terms of the accuracy and integrity of the parts of the work he was directly involved in. SG contributed significantly to the selection of papers and data extraction, demonstrating critical expertise in resolving disagreements among authors. SG’s involvement was crucial in revising the entire content of the manuscript, enhancing its coherence and alignment with the study’s objectives. SG has also approved the submitted version and is personally accountable for his contributions, committed to upholding the integrity of the entire work.

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Alshareef, N., Fletcher, I. & Giga, S. The role of emotions in academic performance of undergraduate medical students: a narrative review. BMC Med Educ 24 , 907 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05894-1

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Ecosystem stability relies on diversity difference between trophic levels

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The stability of ecological communities has a profound impact on humans, ranging from individual health influenced by the microbiome to ecosystem services provided by fisheries. A long-standing goal of ecology is the elucidation of the interplay between biodiversity and ecosystem stability, with some ecologists warning of instability due to loss of species diversity while others arguing that greater diversity will instead lead to instability. Here, by considering a minimal two-level ecosystem with multiple predator and prey species, we show that stability does not depend on absolute diversity but rather on diversity differences between levels. We discovered that increasing diversity in either level first destabilizes but then stabilizes the community (i.e., a re-entrant stability transition). We therefore find that it is the diversity difference between levels that is the key to stability, with the least stable communities having similar diversities in different levels. An analytical stability criterion is derived, demonstrating quantitatively that the critical diversity difference is determined by the correlation between how one level affects another and how it is affected in turn. Our stability criterion also applies to consumer-resource models with other forms of interaction such as cross-feeding. Finally, we show that stability depends on diversity differences in ecosystems with three trophic levels. Our finding of a non-monotonic dependence of stability on diversity provides a natural explanation for the variety of diversity-stability relationships reported in the literature, and emphasizes the significance of level structure in predicting complex community behaviors.

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Literature search for research planning and identification of research problem

Anju grewal.

Department of Anaesthesiology, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

Hanish Kataria

1 Department of Surgery, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India

2 Department of Cardiac Anaesthesia, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Literature search is a key step in performing good authentic research. It helps in formulating a research question and planning the study. The available published data are enormous; therefore, choosing the appropriate articles relevant to your study in question is an art. It can be time-consuming, tiring and can lead to disinterest or even abandonment of search in between if not carried out in a step-wise manner. Various databases are available for performing literature search. This article primarily stresses on how to formulate a research question, the various types and sources for literature search, which will help make your search specific and time-saving.

INTRODUCTION

Literature search is a systematic and well-organised search from the already published data to identify a breadth of good quality references on a specific topic.[ 1 ] The reasons for conducting literature search are numerous that include drawing information for making evidence-based guidelines, a step in the research method and as part of academic assessment.[ 2 ] However, the main purpose of a thorough literature search is to formulate a research question by evaluating the available literature with an eye on gaps still amenable to further research.

Research problem[ 3 ] is typically a topic of interest and of some familiarity to the researcher. It needs to be channelised by focussing on information yet to be explored. Once we have narrowed down the problem, seeking and analysing existing literature may further straighten out the research approach.

A research hypothesis[ 4 ] is a carefully created testimony of how you expect the research to proceed. It is one of the most important tools which aids to answer the research question. It should be apt containing necessary components, and raise a question that can be tested and investigated.

The literature search can be exhaustive and time-consuming, but there are some simple steps which can help you plan and manage the process. The most important are formulating the research questions and planning your search.

FORMULATING THE RESEARCH QUESTION

Literature search is done to identify appropriate methodology, design of the study; population sampled and sampling methods, methods of measuring concepts and techniques of analysis. It also helps in determining extraneous variables affecting the outcome and identifying faults or lacunae that could be avoided.

Formulating a well-focused question is a critical step for facilitating good clinical research.[ 5 ] There can be general questions or patient-oriented questions that arise from clinical issues. Patient-oriented questions can involve the effect of therapy or disease or examine advantage versus disadvantage for a group of patients.[ 6 ]

For example, we want to evaluate the effect of a particular drug (e.g., dexmedetomidine) for procedural sedation in day care surgery patients. While formulating a research question, one should consider certain criteria, referred as ‘FINER’ (F-Feasible, I-Interesting, N-Novel, E-Ethical, R-Relevant) criteria.[ 5 ] The idea should be interesting and relevant to clinical research. It should either confirm, refute or add information to already done research work. One should also keep in mind the patient population under study and the resources available in a given set up. Also the entire research process should conform to the ethical principles of research.

The patient or study population, intervention, comparison or control arm, primary outcome, timing of measurement of outcome (PICOT) is a well-known approach for framing a leading research question.[ 7 , 8 ] Dividing the questions into key components makes it easy and searchable. In this case scenario:

• Patients (P) – What is the important group of patients? for example, day care surgery
• Intervention (I) – What is the important intervention? for example, intravenous dexmedetomidine
• Comparison (C) – What is the important intervention of comparison? for example, intravenous ketamine
• Outcome (O) – What is the effect of intervention? for example, analgesic efficacy, procedural awareness, drug side effects
• Time (T) – Time interval for measuring the outcome: Hourly for first 4 h then 4 hourly till 24 h post-procedure.

Multiple questions can be formulated from patient's problem and concern. A well-focused question should be chosen for research according to significance for patient interest and relevance to our knowledge. Good research questions address the lacunae in available literature with an aim to impact the clinical practice in a constructive manner. There are limited outcome research and relevant resources, for example, electronic database system, database and hospital information system in India. Even when these factors are available, data about existing resources is not widely accessible.[ 9 ]

TYPES OF MEDICAL LITERATURE

(Further details in chapter ‘Types of studies and research design’ in this issue).

Primary literature

Primary sources are the authentic publication of an expert's new evidence, conclusions and proposals (case reports, clinical trials, etc) and are usually published in a peer-reviewed journal. Preliminary reports, congress papers and preprints also constitute primary literature.[ 2 ]

Secondary literature

Secondary sources are systematic review articles or meta-analyses where material derived from primary source literature are infererred and evaluated.[ 2 ]

Tertiary literature

Tertiary literature consists of collections that compile information from primary or secondary literature (eg., reference books).[ 2 ]

METHODS OF LITERATURE SEARCH

There are various methods of literature search that are used alone or in combination [ Table 1 ]. For past few decades, searching the local as well as national library for books, journals, etc., was the usual practice and still physical literature exploration is an important component of any systematic review search process.[ 10 , 11 ] With the advancement of technology, the Internet is now the gateway to the maze of vast medical literature.[ 12 ] Conducting a literature review involves web-based search engines, i.e., Google, Google Scholar, etc., [ Table 2 ], or using various electronic research databases to identify materials that describe the research topic or those homologous to it.[ 13 , 14 ]

Methods of literature search

Web based methods of literature search

The various databases available for literature search include databases for original published articles in the journals [ Table 2 ] and evidence-based databases for integrated information available as systematic reviews and abstracts [ Table 3 ].[ 12 , 14 ] Most of these are not freely available to the individual user. PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ) is the largest available resource since 1996; however, a large number of sources now provide free access to literature in the biomedical field.[ 15 ] More than 26 million citations from Medline, life science journals and online books are included in PubMed. Links to the full-text material are included in citations from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.[ 16 ] The choice of databases depends on the subject of interest and potential coverage by the different databases. Education Resources Information Centre is a free online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, available at http://eric.ed.gov/ . No one database can search all the medical literature. There is need to search several different databases. At a minimum, PubMed or Medline, Embase and the Cochrane central trials Registry need to be searched. When searching these databases, emphasis should be given to meta-analysis, systematic reviews randomised controlled trials and landmark studies.

Electronic source of Evidence-Based Database

Time allocated to the search needs attention as exploring and selecting data are early steps in the research method and research conducted as part of academic assessment have narrow timeframes.[ 17 ] In Indian scenario, limited outcome research and accessibility to data leads to less thorough knowledge of nature of research problem. This results in the formulation of the inappropriate research question and increases the time to literature search.

TYPES OF SEARCH

Type of search can be described in different forms according to the subject of interest. It increases the chances of retrieving relevant information from a search.

Translating research question to keywords

This will provide results based on any of the words specified; hence, they are the cornerstone of an effective search. Synonyms/alternate terms should be considered to elicit further information, i.e., barbiturates in place of thiopentone. Spellings should also be taken into account, i.e., anesthesia in place of anaesthesia (American and British). Most databases use controlled word-stock to establish common search terms (or keywords). Some of these alternative keywords can be looked from database thesaurus.[ 4 ] Another strategy is combining keywords with Boolean operators. It is important to keep a note of keywords and methods used in exploring the literature as these will need to be described later in the design of search process.

‘Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) is the National Library of Medicine's controlled hierarchical vocabulary that is used for indexing articles in PubMed, with more specific terms organised underneath more general terms’.[ 17 ] This provides a reliable way to retrieve citations that use different terminology for identical ideas, as it indexes articles based on content. Two features of PubMed that can increase yield of specific articles are ‘Automatic term mapping’ and ‘automatic term explosion’.[ 4 ]

For example, if the search keyword is heart attack, this term will match with MeSH transcription table heading and then explode into various subheadings. This helps to construct the search by adding and selecting MeSH subheadings and families of MeSH by use of hyperlinks.[ 4 ]

We can set limits to a clinical trial for retrieving higher level of evidence (i.e., randomised controlled clinical trial). Furthermore, one can browse through the link entitled ‘Related Articles’. This PubMed feature searches for similar citations using an intricate algorithm that scans titles, abstracts and MeSH terms.[ 4 ]

Phrase search

This will provide pages with only the words typed in the phrase, in that exact order and with no words in between them.

Boolean operators

AND, OR and NOT are the three Boolean operators named after the mathematician George Boole.[ 18 ] Combining two words using ‘AND’ will fetch articles that mention both the words. Using ‘OR’ will widen the search and fetch more articles that mention either subject. While using the term ‘NOT’ to combine words will fetch articles containing the first word but not the second, thus narrowing the search.

Filters can also be used to refine the search, for example, article types, text availability, language, age, sex and journal categories.

Overall, the recommendations for methodology of literature search can be as below (Creswell)[ 19 ]

• Identify keywords and use them to search articles from library and internet resources as described above
• Search several databases to search articles related to your topic
• Use thesaurus to identify terms to locate your articles
• Find an article that is similar to your topic; then look at the terms used to describe it, and use them for your search
• Use databases that provide full-text articles (free through academic libraries, Internet or for a fee) as much as possible so that you can save time searching for your articles
• If you are examining a topic for the first time and unaware of the research on it, start with broad syntheses of the literature, such as overviews, summaries of the literature on your topic or review articles
• Start with the most recent issues of the journals, and look for studies about your topic and then work backward in time. Follow-up on references at the end of the articles for more sources to examine
• Refer books on a single topic by a single author or group of authors or books that contain chapters written by different authors
• Next look for recent conference papers. Often, conference papers report the latest research developments. Contact authors of pertinent studies. Write or phone them, asking if they know of studies related to your area of interest
• The easy access and ability to capture entire articles from the web make it attractive. However, check these articles carefully for authenticity and quality and be cautious about whether they represent systematic research.

The whole process of literature search[ 20 ] is summarised in Figure 1 .

Process of literature search

Literature search provides not only an opportunity to learn more about a given topic but provides insight on how the topic was studied by previous analysts. It helps to interpret ideas, detect shortcomings and recognise opportunities. In short, systematic and well-organised research may help in designing a novel research.

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