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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

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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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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.

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.

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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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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

What is the purpose of literature review , a. habitat loss and species extinction: , b. range shifts and phenological changes: , c. ocean acidification and coral reefs: , d. adaptive strategies and conservation efforts: .

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 

Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review .

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field.

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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example 

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:  

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

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How to write a good literature review 

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review 

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:  

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:  

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:  

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:  

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:  

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:  

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

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A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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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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What is a literature review? [with examples]

What is a literature review?

The purpose of a literature review, how to write a literature review, the format of a literature review, general formatting rules, the length of a literature review, literature review examples, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

In a literature review, you’re expected to report on the existing scholarly conversation, without adding new contributions.

If you are currently writing one, you've come to the right place. In the following paragraphs, we will explain:

• the objective of a literature review
• how to write a literature review
• the basic format of a literature review

Tip: It’s not always mandatory to add a literature review in a paper. Theses and dissertations often include them, whereas research papers may not. Make sure to consult with your instructor for exact requirements.

The four main objectives of a literature review are:

• Studying the references of your research area
• Summarizing the main arguments
• Identifying current gaps, stances, and issues
• Presenting all of the above in a text

Ultimately, the main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

The format of a literature review is fairly standard. It includes an:

• introduction that briefly introduces the main topic
• body that includes the main discussion of the key arguments
• conclusion that highlights the gaps and issues of the literature

➡️ Take a look at our guide on how to write a literature review to learn more about how to structure a literature review.

First of all, a literature review should have its own labeled section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature can be found, and you should label this section as “Literature Review.”

➡️ For more information on writing a thesis, visit our guide on how to structure a thesis .

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, it will be short.

Take a look at these three theses featuring great literature reviews:

• School-Based Speech-Language Pathologist's Perceptions of Sensory Food Aversions in Children [ PDF , see page 20]
• Who's Writing What We Read: Authorship in Criminological Research [ PDF , see page 4]
• A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Online Instructors of Theological Reflection at Christian Institutions Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools [ PDF , see page 56]

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

No. A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature review can be found, and label this section as “Literature Review.”

The main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

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What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

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.

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 summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write 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, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will 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 scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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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 objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. 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 if 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 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 use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

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?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• 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 find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

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’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference 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.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to 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 organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

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 summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse 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 organise 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.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, 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 transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

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

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

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

• To familiarise 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  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

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Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

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15 Literature Review Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Literature reviews are a necessary step in a research process and often required when writing your research proposal . They involve gathering, analyzing, and evaluating existing knowledge about a topic in order to find gaps in the literature where future studies will be needed.

Ideally, once you have completed your literature review, you will be able to identify how your research project can build upon and extend existing knowledge in your area of study.

Generally, for my undergraduate research students, I recommend a narrative review, where themes can be generated in order for the students to develop sufficient understanding of the topic so they can build upon the themes using unique methods or novel research questions.

If you’re in the process of writing a literature review, I have developed a literature review template for you to use – it’s a huge time-saver and walks you through how to write a literature review step-by-step:

Get your time-saving templates here to write your own literature review.

Literature Review Examples

For the following types of literature review, I present an explanation and overview of the type, followed by links to some real-life literature reviews on the topics.

1. Narrative Review Examples

Also known as a traditional literature review, the narrative review provides a broad overview of the studies done on a particular topic.

It often includes both qualitative and quantitative studies and may cover a wide range of years.

The narrative review’s purpose is to identify commonalities, gaps, and contradictions in the literature .

I recommend to my students that they should gather their studies together, take notes on each study, then try to group them by themes that form the basis for the review (see my step-by-step instructions at the end of the article).

Example Study

Title: Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations

Citation: Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ijcp.12686  

Overview: This narrative review analyzed themes emerging from 69 articles about communication in healthcare contexts. Five key themes were found in the literature: poor communication can lead to various negative outcomes, discontinuity of care, compromise of patient safety, patient dissatisfaction, and inefficient use of resources. After presenting the key themes, the authors recommend that practitioners need to approach healthcare communication in a more structured way, such as by ensuring there is a clear understanding of who is in charge of ensuring effective communication in clinical settings.

Other Examples

• Burnout in United States Healthcare Professionals: A Narrative Review (Reith, 2018) – read here
• Examining the Presence, Consequences, and Reduction of Implicit Bias in Health Care: A Narrative Review (Zestcott, Blair & Stone, 2016) – read here
• A Narrative Review of School-Based Physical Activity for Enhancing Cognition and Learning (Mavilidi et al., 2018) – read here
• A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents (Dyrbye & Shanafelt, 2015) – read here

2. Systematic Review Examples

This type of literature review is more structured and rigorous than a narrative review. It involves a detailed and comprehensive plan and search strategy derived from a set of specified research questions.

The key way you’d know a systematic review compared to a narrative review is in the methodology: the systematic review will likely have a very clear criteria for how the studies were collected, and clear explanations of exclusion/inclusion criteria. 

The goal is to gather the maximum amount of valid literature on the topic, filter out invalid or low-quality reviews, and minimize bias. Ideally, this will provide more reliable findings, leading to higher-quality conclusions and recommendations for further research.

You may note from the examples below that the ‘method’ sections in systematic reviews tend to be much more explicit, often noting rigid inclusion/exclusion criteria and exact keywords used in searches.

Title: The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review  

Citation: Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092422441730122X  

Overview: This systematic review included 72 studies of food naturalness to explore trends in the literature about its importance for consumers. Keywords used in the data search included: food, naturalness, natural content, and natural ingredients. Studies were included if they examined consumers’ preference for food naturalness and contained empirical data. The authors found that the literature lacks clarity about how naturalness is defined and measured, but also found that food consumption is significantly influenced by perceived naturalness of goods.

• A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018 (Martin, Sun & Westine, 2020) – read here
• Where Is Current Research on Blockchain Technology? (Yli-Huumo et al., 2016) – read here
• Universities—industry collaboration: A systematic review (Ankrah & Al-Tabbaa, 2015) – read here
• Internet of Things Applications: A Systematic Review (Asghari, Rahmani & Javadi, 2019) – read here

3. Meta-analysis

This is a type of systematic review that uses statistical methods to combine and summarize the results of several studies.

Due to its robust methodology, a meta-analysis is often considered the ‘gold standard’ of secondary research , as it provides a more precise estimate of a treatment effect than any individual study contributing to the pooled analysis.

Furthermore, by aggregating data from a range of studies, a meta-analysis can identify patterns, disagreements, or other interesting relationships that may have been hidden in individual studies.

This helps to enhance the generalizability of findings, making the conclusions drawn from a meta-analysis particularly powerful and informative for policy and practice.

Title: Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s Disease Risk: A Meta-Meta-Analysis

Citation: Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Source: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060386  

O verview: This study examines the relationship between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Researchers conducted a systematic search of meta-analyses and reviewed several databases, collecting 100 primary studies and five meta-analyses to analyze the connection between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease. They find that the literature compellingly demonstrates that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels significantly influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

• The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research (Wisniewski, Zierer & Hattie, 2020) – read here
• How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis (Ritchie & Tucker-Drob, 2018) – read here
• A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling (Geiger et al., 2019) – read here
• Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits (Patterson, Chung & Swan, 2014) – read here

Other Types of Reviews

• Scoping Review: This type of review is used to map the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available. It can be undertaken as stand-alone projects in their own right, or as a precursor to a systematic review.
• Rapid Review: This type of review accelerates the systematic review process in order to produce information in a timely manner. This is achieved by simplifying or omitting stages of the systematic review process.
• Integrative Review: This review method is more inclusive than others, allowing for the simultaneous inclusion of experimental and non-experimental research. The goal is to more comprehensively understand a particular phenomenon.
• Critical Review: This is similar to a narrative review but requires a robust understanding of both the subject and the existing literature. In a critical review, the reviewer not only summarizes the existing literature, but also evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. This is common in the social sciences and humanities .
• State-of-the-Art Review: This considers the current level of advancement in a field or topic and makes recommendations for future research directions. This type of review is common in technological and scientific fields but can be applied to any discipline.

How to Write a Narrative Review (Tips for Undergrad Students)

Most undergraduate students conducting a capstone research project will be writing narrative reviews. Below is a five-step process for conducting a simple review of the literature for your project.

• Search for Relevant Literature: Use scholarly databases related to your field of study, provided by your university library, along with appropriate search terms to identify key scholarly articles that have been published on your topic.
• Evaluate and Select Sources: Filter the source list by selecting studies that are directly relevant and of sufficient quality, considering factors like credibility , objectivity, accuracy, and validity.
• Analyze and Synthesize: Review each source and summarize the main arguments  in one paragraph (or more, for postgrad). Keep these summaries in a table.
• Identify Themes: With all studies summarized, group studies that share common themes, such as studies that have similar findings or methodologies.
• Write the Review: Write your review based upon the themes or subtopics you have identified. Give a thorough overview of each theme, integrating source data, and conclude with a summary of the current state of knowledge then suggestions for future research based upon your evaluation of what is lacking in the literature.

Literature reviews don’t have to be as scary as they seem. Yes, they are difficult and require a strong degree of comprehension of academic studies. But it can be feasibly done through following a structured approach to data collection and analysis. With my undergraduate research students (who tend to conduct small-scale qualitative studies ), I encourage them to conduct a narrative literature review whereby they can identify key themes in the literature. Within each theme, students can critique key studies and their strengths and limitations , in order to get a lay of the land and come to a point where they can identify ways to contribute new insights to the existing academic conversation on their topic.

Ankrah, S., & Omar, A. T. (2015). Universities–industry collaboration: A systematic review. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(3), 387-408.

Asghari, P., Rahmani, A. M., & Javadi, H. H. S. (2019). Internet of Things applications: A systematic review. Computer Networks , 148 , 241-261.

Dyrbye, L., & Shanafelt, T. (2016). A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents. Medical education , 50 (1), 132-149.

Geiger, J. L., Steg, L., Van Der Werff, E., & Ünal, A. B. (2019). A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling. Journal of environmental psychology , 64 , 78-97.

Martin, F., Sun, T., & Westine, C. D. (2020). A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018. Computers & education , 159 , 104009.

Mavilidi, M. F., Ruiter, M., Schmidt, M., Okely, A. D., Loyens, S., Chandler, P., & Paas, F. (2018). A narrative review of school-based physical activity for enhancing cognition and learning: The importance of relevancy and integration. Frontiers in psychology , 2079.

Patterson, G. T., Chung, I. W., & Swan, P. W. (2014). Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits: A meta-analysis. Journal of experimental criminology , 10 , 487-513.

Reith, T. P. (2018). Burnout in United States healthcare professionals: a narrative review. Cureus , 10 (12).

Ritchie, S. J., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? A meta-analysis. Psychological science , 29 (8), 1358-1369.

Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K., & Hattie, J. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology , 10 , 3087.

Yli-Huumo, J., Ko, D., Choi, S., Park, S., & Smolander, K. (2016). Where is current research on blockchain technology?—a systematic review. PloS one , 11 (10), e0163477.

Zestcott, C. A., Blair, I. V., & Stone, J. (2016). Examining the presence, consequences, and reduction of implicit bias in health care: a narrative review. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , 19 (4), 528-542

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Literature Review Guide: Examples of Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Picking your research question and searching
• Search strategies and Databases
• How to organise the review
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• Library summary

All good quality journal articles will include a small Literature Review after the Introduction paragraph.  It may not be called a Literature Review but gives you an idea of how one is created in miniature.

Sample Literature Reviews as part of a articles or Theses

• Hackett, G and Melia, D . The hotel as the holiday/stay destination:trends and innovations. Presented at TRIC Conference, Belfast, Ireland- June 2012 and EuroCHRIE Conference

Links to sample Literature Reviews from other libraries

• Sample literature reviews from University of West Florida

Irish Theses

• Phillips, Martin (2015) European airline performance: a data envelopment analysis with extrapolations based on model outputs. Master of Business Studies thesis, Dublin City University.
• The customers’ perception of servicescape’s influence on their behaviours, in the food retail industry : Dublin Business School 2015
• Coughlan, Ray (2015) What was the role of leadership in the transformation of a failing Irish Insurance business. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.
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Literature Review Samples

Click on the links below for examples of Literature Reviews

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How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

By: Amy Rommelspacher (PhD) | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | November 2020 (Updated May 2023)

Writing the literature review chapter can seem pretty daunting when you’re piecing together your dissertation or thesis. As  we’ve discussed before , a good literature review needs to achieve a few very important objectives – it should:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic
• Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these
• Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one)
• Inform your own  methodology and research design

To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure . Get the structure of your literature review chapter wrong and you’ll struggle to achieve these objectives. Don’t worry though – in this post, we’ll look at how to structure your literature review for maximum impact (and marks!).

But wait – is this the right time?

Deciding on the structure of your literature review should come towards the end of the literature review process – after you have collected and digested the literature, but before you start writing the chapter. 

In other words, you need to first develop a rich understanding of the literature before you even attempt to map out a structure. There’s no use trying to develop a structure before you’ve fully wrapped your head around the existing research.

Equally importantly, you need to have a structure in place before you start writing , or your literature review will most likely end up a rambling, disjointed mess. 

Importantly, don’t feel that once you’ve defined a structure you can’t iterate on it. It’s perfectly natural to adjust as you engage in the writing process. As we’ve discussed before , writing is a way of developing your thinking, so it’s quite common for your thinking to change – and therefore, for your chapter structure to change – as you write. 

Need a helping hand?

Like any other chapter in your thesis or dissertation, your literature review needs to have a clear, logical structure. At a minimum, it should have three essential components – an  introduction , a  body   and a  conclusion . 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

1: The Introduction Section

Just like any good introduction, the introduction section of your literature review should introduce the purpose and layout (organisation) of the chapter. In other words, your introduction needs to give the reader a taste of what’s to come, and how you’re going to lay that out. Essentially, you should provide the reader with a high-level roadmap of your chapter to give them a taste of the journey that lies ahead.

Here’s an example of the layout visualised in a literature review introduction:

Your introduction should also outline your topic (including any tricky terminology or jargon) and provide an explanation of the scope of your literature review – in other words, what you  will   and  won’t   be covering (the delimitations ). This helps ringfence your review and achieve a clear focus . The clearer and narrower your focus, the deeper you can dive into the topic (which is typically where the magic lies). 

Depending on the nature of your project, you could also present your stance or point of view at this stage. In other words, after grappling with the literature you’ll have an opinion about what the trends and concerns are in the field as well as what’s lacking. The introduction section can then present these ideas so that it is clear to examiners that you’re aware of how your research connects with existing knowledge .

2: The Body Section

The body of your literature review is the centre of your work. This is where you’ll present, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the existing research. In other words, this is where you’re going to earn (or lose) the most marks. Therefore, it’s important to carefully think about how you will organise your discussion to present it in a clear way. 

The body of your literature review should do just as the description of this chapter suggests. It should “review” the literature – in other words, identify, analyse, and synthesise it. So, when thinking about structuring your literature review, you need to think about which structural approach will provide the best “review” for your specific type of research and objectives (we’ll get to this shortly).

There are (broadly speaking)  three options  for organising your literature review.

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

Organising the literature chronologically is one of the simplest ways to structure your literature review. You start with what was published first and work your way through the literature until you reach the work published most recently. Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this option is that it makes it easy to discuss the developments and debates in the field as they emerged over time. Organising your literature chronologically also allows you to highlight how specific articles or pieces of work might have changed the course of the field – in other words, which research has had the most impact . Therefore, this approach is very useful when your research is aimed at understanding how the topic has unfolded over time and is often used by scholars in the field of history. That said, this approach can be utilised by anyone that wants to explore change over time .

For example , if a student of politics is investigating how the understanding of democracy has evolved over time, they could use the chronological approach to provide a narrative that demonstrates how this understanding has changed through the ages.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you structure your literature review chronologically.

• What is the earliest literature published relating to this topic?
• How has the field changed over time? Why?
• What are the most recent discoveries/theories?

In some ways, chronology plays a part whichever way you decide to structure your literature review, because you will always, to a certain extent, be analysing how the literature has developed. However, with the chronological approach, the emphasis is very firmly on how the discussion has evolved over time , as opposed to how all the literature links together (which we’ll discuss next ).

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

The thematic approach to structuring a literature review means organising your literature by theme or category – for example, by independent variables (i.e. factors that have an impact on a specific outcome).

As you’ve been collecting and synthesising literature , you’ll likely have started seeing some themes or patterns emerging. You can then use these themes or patterns as a structure for your body discussion. The thematic approach is the most common approach and is useful for structuring literature reviews in most fields.

For example, if you were researching which factors contributed towards people trusting an organisation, you might find themes such as consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s competence, benevolence and integrity. Structuring your literature review thematically would mean structuring your literature review’s body section to discuss each of these themes, one section at a time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when structuring your literature review by themes:

• Are there any patterns that have come to light in the literature?
• What are the central themes and categories used by the researchers?
• Do I have enough evidence of these themes?

PS – you can see an example of a thematically structured literature review in our literature review sample walkthrough video here.

Option 3: Methodological

The methodological option is a way of structuring your literature review by the research methodologies used . In other words, organising your discussion based on the angle from which each piece of research was approached – for example, qualitative , quantitative or mixed  methodologies.

Structuring your literature review by methodology can be useful if you are drawing research from a variety of disciplines and are critiquing different methodologies. The point of this approach is to question  how  existing research has been conducted, as opposed to  what  the conclusions and/or findings the research were.

For example, a sociologist might centre their research around critiquing specific fieldwork practices. Their literature review will then be a summary of the fieldwork methodologies used by different studies.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when structuring your literature review according to methodology:

• Which methodologies have been utilised in this field?
• Which methodology is the most popular (and why)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies?
• How can the existing methodologies inform my own methodology?

3: The Conclusion Section

Once you’ve completed the body section of your literature review using one of the structural approaches we discussed above, you’ll need to “wrap up” your literature review and pull all the pieces together to set the direction for the rest of your dissertation or thesis.

The conclusion is where you’ll present the key findings of your literature review. In this section, you should emphasise the research that is especially important to your research questions and highlight the gaps that exist in the literature. Based on this, you need to make it clear what you will add to the literature – in other words, justify your own research by showing how it will help fill one or more of the gaps you just identified.

Last but not least, if it’s your intention to develop a conceptual framework for your dissertation or thesis, the conclusion section is a good place to present this.

Example: Thematically Structured Review

In the video below, we unpack a literature review chapter so that you can see an example of a thematically structure review in practice.

Let’s Recap

In this article, we’ve  discussed how to structure your literature review for maximum impact. Here’s a quick recap of what  you need to keep in mind when deciding on your literature review structure:

• Just like other chapters, your literature review needs a clear introduction , body and conclusion .
• The introduction section should provide an overview of what you will discuss in your literature review.
• The body section of your literature review can be organised by chronology , theme or methodology . The right structural approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your research.
• The conclusion section should draw together the key findings of your literature review and link them to your research questions.

If you’re ready to get started, be sure to download our free literature review template to fast-track your chapter outline.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

29 Comments

Great work. This is exactly what I was looking for and helps a lot together with your previous post on literature review. One last thing is missing: a link to a great literature chapter of an journal article (maybe with comments of the different sections in this review chapter). Do you know any great literature review chapters?

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

I agree with Marin. This would be quite helpful if you annotate a nicely structured literature from previously published research articles.

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

It is indeed thought and supportive work for the futurist researcher and students

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. My question is that do I put all the variables into a single conceptual framework or each hypothesis will have it own conceptual framework?

Thank you very much, very helpful

This is very educative and precise . Thank you very much for dropping this kind of write up .

Pheeww, so damn helpful, thank you for this informative piece.

I’m doing a research project topic ; stool analysis for parasitic worm (enteric) worm, how do I structure it, thanks.

comprehensive explanation. Help us by pasting the URL of some good “literature review” for better understanding.

great piece. thanks for the awesome explanation. it is really worth sharing. I have a little question, if anyone can help me out, which of the options in the body of literature can be best fit if you are writing an architectural thesis that deals with design?

I am doing a research on nanofluids how can l structure it?

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

I like how this was so clear with simple language 😊😊 thank you so much 😊 for these information 😊

Insightful. I was struggling to come up with a sensible literature review but this has been really helpful. Thank you!

You have given thought-provoking information about the review of the literature.

Thank you. It has made my own research better and to impart your work to students I teach

I learnt a lot from this teaching. It’s a great piece.

I am doing research on EFL teacher motivation for his/her job. How Can I structure it? Is there any detailed template, additional to this?

You are so cool! I do not think I’ve read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with some genuine thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a little originality!

I’m asked to do conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, and i just don’t know how to structure it

Asking questions are actually fastidious thing if you are not understanding anything fully, but this article presents good understanding yet.

thank you SOOO much it is really helpful ..

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YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

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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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Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Literature Review

• Collecting Resources for a Literature Review
• Organizing the Literature Review
• Writing the Literature Review
• Examples of Literature Reviews

Examples of Literature Reviews in Book & Government Document Format

• Social and economic considerations for coastal and watershed restoration in the Puget Sound, Washington : a literature review by Stinchfield, Holly; Koontz, Lynne; and Sexton, Natalie
• A literature review of wipe sampling methods for chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals by prepared by Battelle Washington, DC : Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, [2007]
• Collaboration, technology, and outsourcing initiatives in higher education : a literature review by Kaganoff, Tessa Santa Monica, CA : RAND, 1998

Examples of Literature Reviews in Dissertations and Journal Articles

• The stigma of childhood obesity: A literature review by Janel Swaye MacDermott

Journal Articles

Papastergiou, Marina. 2009. "Exploring the potential of computer and video games for health and physical education: A literature review." Computers & Education 53, no. 3: 603-622.

de Campos, Ana Carolina, Nelci Adriana Cicuto Ferreira Rocha, and Geert J. P. Savelsbergh. "Reaching and grasping movements in infants at risk: A review." Research in Developmental Disabilities 30, no. 5 (September 2009): 819-826.

Dissertations

• A meta-analysis/literature review comparing the effectiveness of SSRI antidepressants, cognitive behavioral therapy, and placebo for the treatment of depression by John J Wagner
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• Last Updated: Mar 22, 2024 12:28 PM
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WTO / Education / 39 Best Literature Review Examples (Guide with Samples)

39 Best Literature Review Examples (Guide with Samples)

A literature review is a compilation of current knowledge on a particular topic derived from the critical evaluation of different scholarly sources such as books, articles, and publications, which is then presented in an organized manner to relate to a specific research problem being investigated.

It highlights the methods, relevant theories, and gaps in existing research on a particular subject. It can be both a summary and synthesis of information on a specific topic. A summary reiterates key information from scholarly sources, while synthesis is a new interpretation or combination of new and old material. 

As a synthesis, it can outline the intellectual progression of knowledge in a particular field or topic, which might involve stating key debates throughout the advancement period.  

Literature Review Examples

Purpose of Literature Review

Literature reviews have different purposes in scholarly articles, research papers , and books, depending on the discipline at hand. First and foremost, reviews are generally meant to showcase the extensive research carried out by an author on a particular topic and their findings, which will form the foundation of the research. It then summarizes the information to show the author’s familiarity with the topic in question.

The review also demonstrates the relationship between the topic being investigated and other topics that were under consideration. Finally, it outlines the gaps in the previous works of other scholars, which create areas of research.

Literature reviews provide a new interpretation of previous scholarly publications and aim to resolve conflicting studies done in the past. In addition, identifying existing gaps in a particular research area illustrates the starting point of the research.

Literature Review vs. Academic Research Paper

A research paper presents new ideas, arguments, and approaches toward a particular topic. The conclusions of a research paper will be based on the analysis and interpretation of raw data collected by the author and an original study. On the other hand, a literature review is based on the findings of other publications. Thus, the review highlights the author’s understanding of a topic based on the previously conducted research. It is part of a research paper.

Where, When, and Why

The need for a literature review in a publication will vary from one situation to the other and the field/discipline of research. These two factors determine what is expected from the lit review. For example, a scientific review will be more analytical on the methods and results of previous research. In contrast, a philosophical review will be more argumentative, highlighting the discrepancies and correspondences between scholars.

It can either be part of a publication or a stand-alone document. As part of a research publication, it is often placed after the introduction to the topic outlining knowledge about a particular topic and critical sources that formed the foundation of the research. As an individual document, it is prepared by students as part of course study to aid the students in familiarizing themselves with different topics in their field of study.

Lit reviews also guide students to help them synthesize theoretical methodologies and frameworks to adopt in academic research . As a publication, literature reviews are used to document existing information about a topic for readers (other scholars) to go through for whatever reasons they may have. Published studies are essentially helpful to new scholars getting into any field of research.

Types of Literature Review

Before looking into how to write a literature review, it is vital to understand the different types. The type will usually depend on the objective approach of the author.

Common types are:  

Argumentative review

An argumentative review is adopted when the research paper or publication is meant to take a contrarian viewpoint on a particular subject. The review analyses an existing argument, philosophical problem, assumption, or conclusion outlined in different studies with an objective to either support or oppose the argument. 

Integrative review

An integrative review integrates secondary data to develop new perspectives and frameworks on a topic. This is more prevalent in research that does not involve primary data. In addition, integrative reviews are more familiar with social sciences.       

Historical review

Historical reviews are used when scholars or authors place a particular idea, concept, theory, or research in a historical context. It examines the idea, theory, or issue from the first time it was discussed and outlines its evolution throughout a given period.  

Methodological review

Methodological reviews look at how a specific theory, concept, results, or findings were developed. Therefore, methodological reviews will analyze the different methods used by different scholars to arrive at conclusions or knowledge about the topic being investigated.

Some of the methods scholars use in different disciplines to obtain information are interviewing, sampling, practical experiments/data collection, research approaches, critical thinking, social experiments, etc.

Methodological reviews are hence used to discuss tested methods of research and ethics that a researcher should be aware of before undertaking their investigations.  

Systematic review

A systematic review is a more detailed and comprehensive review compared to other types of lit reviews. It highlights any existing research evidence associated with a clearly defined research problem or question. The evidence is collected, analyzed, and reported in a summarized but detailed manner. Systematic reviews are popularly presented as a cause-and-effect structure.

Theoretical review

A theoretical review delves into the different theories regarding a particular issue, challenge, concept, or theory. It identifies their inadequacy in explaining the issue or concept at hand. The review then identifies the relationships between the identified theories, and the degree of research done and poses novel hypotheses to be investigated.

Organization of a Literature Review

How an author organizes a literature review will depend on what they aim to achieve. As a consequence, there are multiple ways of organizing it which are discussed below:

Chronological 

A chronological format outlines knowledge on a particular topic based on when the scholarly source of information was published. Starting with the earliest followed up to the most recent chronological order. This format should be used if there is a clear chronological order in the development of the information; therefore, it will not be applicable in some cases. Instead, key turning points, patterns, and events that impacted the direction of the knowledge should be outlined.  

By publication

It can be organized in the scholarly publications reviewed by the author, scholar, or student. The by-publication format should only improve the review and facilitate what the author aims to accomplish. 

Scholars or students can adopt a dominant trend in research, such as history, developmental stages, steps involved in a process, etc.

Methodological

A methodological format is based on the methods used by the researcher. Thus, the order of contents in the lit review will depend on the method they will use to carry out their research, knowledge obtained from the first method appears first, and the rest of the information follows in the same order according to the methods used by the author.  

Literature reviews organized in a thematic format revolve around the subject being investigated in no order. It is, therefore, ordinarily up to the researcher or author to determine how they intend to outline the information. A thematic format will crossover from one period and publication to another, but can sometimes incorporate a chronological order.

Theoretical

Literature reviews organized in a theoretical format have their contents organized in an abstract framework established by the author to discuss different concepts, theories, and concepts and how they relate to the research at hand.

Additional sections

Depending on the objective, other sections do not fit under conventional lit review formats that one may need to add. Below are some of the sections that authors or students can include in the lit review:

• Current situation: The review can have information about the current state of things regarding the topic at hand to facilitate further understanding.
• History: Researchers can summarize the subject under investigation, literature, or concept if the review is not already in chronological format.
• Selection methods: Lit reviews are known to outline the methods or criteria used in selecting the way to present information and scholarly sources referenced in the review.
• Standards: it can also include the standards used in choosing the format to present information in the review and the scholarly literature used in the research.
• Further questions for research: The review can include questions emanating from the review and how the researcher will further explore their research to address the queries raised.

Literature Review Samples

Considerations Before Writing a Literature Review

Preparation is essential when it comes to writing. The objective should be to come up with a review that satisfactorily explores the topic being discussed. The following considerations are steps towards that if incorporated into the writing process:

Authors should seek clarification from mentors or supervisors before commencing the writing process. First, determine what is expected from the lit review. The type and number of sources to be used, the assignment (summarize, synthesize, or critique), and the type of information provided should be clear.

Find models

You should review literature from other authors in the same discipline and evaluate how those authors presented their lit reviews. Previous lit reviews can be used as guides that point authors in the right direction when writing their lit reviews.

Narrow your topic

It is always advantageous to narrow down the research topic to a specific area of research; that way, the number of sources can also be reduced. Even though conducting research will usually involve extensive research on all available materials about a particular topic, having a well-defined topic simplifies the task at hand.

Current sources

Determine if the research project or discipline ought to be based on the most recent findings or information. It is common for knowledge to become obsolete, especially in disciplines where discoveries and new inventions are made fast. If the lit review should be based on current knowledge, limit the sources to the most recent literature. Some disciplines will typically have a limit on how old the sources should be.  

How to Write a Literature Review (Expert Guide)

Once all pre-writing considerations have been taken into account, it is time to write the document. At this point, you should already be aware of what you wish to accomplish with the literature review, and the steps to writing an exemplary lit review are mentioned below:

Problem formulation

First and foremost, clearly define the topic (research area) to be investigated. For students, this will sometimes be given as an assignment. However, the research could be an academic project, which means that the author has to come up with the problem and define it themselves.

Search for relevant studies

Once the problem is clearly expressed, you should search for studies related to the topic, concept, theory, or idea and questions surrounding the topic. Most stand-alone lit reviews will generally attempt to answer a more concentrated question. On the internet, literature can be searched using keywords related to the research area. In addition to keywords, include vital variables such as synonyms and associated terms. The inclusion of Boolean operators and, or not, is also used to narrow down results to more specific publications.

Familiar sources for publications are:

• Google Scholar
• Library catalogue
• Econ lit (economics)
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Inspec (physics, engineering, and computer science )
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)

Before selecting relevant studies, go through their abstract and determine if they fit the scope needed in the investigation. Use a list to note down any chosen works. Select landmark sources in the discipline.

Evaluation of sources/data

The next step is the evaluation stage . Evaluation involves a lot of reading. Evaluation can be done in two stages; overall skimming and thorough reading. During the second stage of this step, be critical, ask questions, and take many notes.

Some of the questions authors or researchers should ask themselves are:

• What is the author’s objective? What problem, concept, or theory are they putting across?
• What are the main concepts?
• What are the methodologies used by the author to arrive at the results and conclusions?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the results and conclusions?

Use credible sources. Most cited sources are preferred as they indicate their influence in the field. Also, keep track of the citations to be later incorporated.

Identify themes, debates, and gaps

While reading the sources, identify key patterns, themes, debates/arguments, and gaps in each literature. These elements help tie the literature to the topic under investigation. Look for consistent patterns, themes, questions, challenges, methods, and inconsistencies in the same. Consistencies present critical information for consideration, while inconsistencies present opportunities for research areas.

Outline the structure

Formatting is part and parcel of a well-written work. Selecting the structure should start by creating an outline with all the information that will go into the lit review, then consider the different types of structures and select the most suitable. Next, take the basic structure of the introduction, body, and conclusion into consideration and start work from there. 

Analysis and interpretation 

Lastly, perform an in-depth analysis and interpretation of the information obtained from the scholarly research and put it into writing. The summarized, synthesized, and critically evaluated information is then written down in well-structured paragraphs that follow the chosen structure. Transition words are used to draw comparisons, connections, and contrasts.

Format 

Ordinarily, a literature review will have three key components: introduction, body, and conclusion. These components should appear in the document in the following order:

Introduction

An introduction should inform the reader which topic is being studied. It gives the reader an overall idea of the purpose and focus of the document. The introduction lets the reader know beforehand the key things that will be highlighted in the document. Therefore, the introduction should be brief and precise.

The next item is the body, where the primary purpose of the lit review is fulfilled. The body should take critical information from all the sources used and comprehensively present them. This is where the author reports the extensive analysis and interpretation results that they gathered from all the sources they reviewed. The body should be categorized into themes, ideas, and concepts within the main topic.

Lastly, a summary of what the lit review entails should be provided as a conclusion. The critical points obtained from examining the sources should be written down and linked to the primary subject of the review. Key points are those that have the most outstanding contribution to the research.

Studies used should be screened based on provenance (author’s credentials or credibility), methodology, objectivity, persuasiveness, and value related to the topic at hand.

Guidelines for Writing a Literature Review

To improve the delivery of information, there are certain elements that authors can incorporate. They are:

Use evidence

The lit review’s findings, interpretations, and general contents should be based on actual evidence or credible literature. Using citations is evidence of authentic information.

Be selective

There will always be a lot of information available from the reviewed sources. Authors should therefore be selective and discuss the key points that focus on the topic. Not all information must be included in the review.  

Word-for-word quotes are acceptable . This is even more so if a critical point or author-specific terminology or knowledge cannot be paraphrased. Quotes should, however, be used sparingly.

Summarize and synthesize

The information obtained from the sources should be summarized, and the author should use it to synthesize new arguments, concepts, or ideas related to their research.

Keep your voice

The literature review should reflect the author’s voice as it is a review of other people’s works. This can be done by starting and ending the paragraphs with an original voice, ideas, and wordings.

Use caution while paraphrasing

Any paraphrased information should be conveyed accurately and in the author’s words. A citation must always be done, even when paraphrasing has been done.

Proofread before submitting or publishing. Go through the document a few times and make the necessary changes. The review should be within the applicable guidelines. Check for language and any other errors and edit accordingly.

Do’s and Don’ts for a Literature Review 

Every researcher wants to introduce their readers to a particular topic in an informative and engaging manner. Below are tips that can be used to this effect.

The following things should be opted by the researcher when writing a lit review:

• Find a focus: Authors should take a direction, idea, concept, or argument and stick to it. The information conveyed should then be made to align with the chosen point of focus. Thus, the review is not simply a list of analyzed sources, but a detailed summary of how different sources have a focal point (intertwined).
• Well-chosen sources: The quality of the information will, to a great extent, be determined by the quality of sources used. Therefore, take time to select suitable sources and more value will be added to the review.
• Create an annotated bibliography: Creating an annotated bibliography is recommended as one reads their sources. The bibliography keeps track of sources and takes notes. This information can be used when writing the final lit review.
• Synthesize research: Information obtained from the relevant studies should be combined to come up with new or original ideas. You should present a new domain based on previous sources’ knowledge, not just restating the information.
• Argumentative approach: Well-written literature reviews will often argue to support an author’s stance on a particular topic. The author can choose to address how the author’s work is filling a particular gap or support one of the scholar’s arguments and perception towards a particular topic. However, this argumentative approach will not work in all situations; it is usually discipline-specific. 
• Convey it to the reader: It should let the reader know the document’s main idea, concept, or argument. This can be done by including a simple statement that compels the reader to think precisely and know what to expect.
• Break out your disciplinary box: The research will often be multi-disciplinary. Literature reviews should then collect interdisciplinary information from multiple sources as they add novel dynamics to the topic under investigation. It should be noted that this does not imply that the researcher should substitute the literature from the topic’s discipline with that from other disciplines. This is usually an improvement strategy that adds substance to the review.
• Look for repeated patterns: Be attentive to pick out repeated ideas, findings, and concepts from different scholars as they will often illustrate agreed research dead-end or a scholarly conclusion.
• Don’t just review for content: When reviewing the literature, examine the content and other writing and presentation techniques. Look out for unique ways information has been presented, methods used, consistent citations, and non-textual elements such as graphs, and figures used to present information. In addition, the researcher identifies theories used to predict, explain, or understand phenomena within the discipline.
• Search Web of Science and Google Scholar: Conduct citation tracking about the leading scholars already identified in the search process. Scholars cited by multiple scholars outside the principal discipline will generally indicate that there are no new publications on the topic.

The following don’ts should be avoided:

• Do not select studies that are not directly related to the topic being investigated.
• Avoid rushing when identifying and selecting sources to use to research the problem.
• Avoid the use of secondary analytical sources. Instead, opt to use sources with primary research studies or data. Secondary analytical sources will often cite primary analytical sources; research should refer to them instead.
• Do not accept other scholarly findings, theories, or interpretations without critically examining and critiquing them.
• Researchers should not outline the search procedures used to identify scholarly sources for reviewing purposes.
• Avoid including isolated statistical findings without illustrating how they were arrived at using chi-squared or meta-analytic methods.
• Do not review studies that only validate the assumptions, stances, and concepts of your thesis; consider contradicting works with alternative and conflicting stances.

Frequently Asked Questions

It is written by researchers, authors, and students who must study literature to gather knowledge on a particular topic they are interested in.

It should be placed right after the introduction of the dissertation. It places the research in a scholarly context by summarizing existing knowledge on the particular topic.

Researchers and authors are not limited in terms of how many sources they can review. Students will usually have a given number of sources to review as an assignment. However, the number of sources referenced in a lit review will vary from one topic or discipline to the other. Some topics have a vast catalog of available sources, while others have minimal sources, especially emerging issues. It is, however, advised that each key point discussed should have at least 2-3 references/sources. For example, a 10-page lit review will have an average of 30 references.

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Literature Review

• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• Sample Literature Reviews
• FAMU Writing Center

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

• Literature Review Sample 1
• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3
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• Last Updated: Oct 20, 2022 11:24 AM
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Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• Steps for Creating a Literature Review
• Providing Evidence / Critical Analysis
• Challenges when writing a Literature Review
• Systematic Literature Reviews

Developing a Literature Review

1. Purpose and Scope

To help you develop a literature review, gather information on existing research, sub-topics, relevant research, and overlaps. Note initial thoughts on the topic - a mind map or list might be helpful - and avoid unfocused reading, collecting irrelevant content.  A literature review serves to place your research within the context of existing knowledge. It demonstrates your understanding of the field and identifies gaps that your research aims to fill. This helps in justifying the relevance and necessity of your study.

To avoid over-reading, set a target word count for each section and limit reading time. Plan backwards from the deadline and move on to other parts of the investigation. Read major texts and explore up-to-date research. Check reference lists and citation indexes for common standard texts. Be guided by research questions and refocus on your topic when needed. Stop reading if you find similar viewpoints or if you're going off topic.

You can use a "Synthesis Matrix" to keep track of your reading notes. This concept map helps you to provide a summary of the literature and its connections is produced as a result of this study. Utilizing referencing software like RefWorks to obtain citations, you can construct the framework for composing your literature evaluation.

2. Source Selection

Focus on searching for academically authoritative texts such as academic books, journals, research reports, and government publications. These sources are critical for ensuring the credibility and reliability of your review. 

• Academic Books: Provide comprehensive coverage of a topic.
• Journal Articles: Offer the most up-to-date research and are essential for a literature review.
• Research Reports: Detailed accounts of specific research projects.
• Government Publications: Official documents that provide reliable data and insights.

3. Thematic Analysis

Instead of merely summarizing sources, identify and discuss key themes that emerge from the literature. This involves interpreting and evaluating how different authors have tackled similar issues and how their findings relate to your research.

4. Critical Evaluation

Adopt a critical attitude towards the sources you review. Scrutinize, question, and dissect the material to ensure that your review is not just descriptive but analytical. This helps in highlighting the significance of various sources and their relevance to your research.

Each work's critical assessment should take into account:

Provenance:  What qualifications does the author have? Are the author's claims backed up by proof, such as first-hand accounts from history, case studies, stories, statistics, and current scientific discoveries? Methodology:  Were the strategies employed to locate, collect, and evaluate the data suitable for tackling the study question? Was the sample size suitable? Were the findings properly reported and interpreted? Objectivity : Is the author's viewpoint impartial or biased? Does the author's thesis get supported by evidence that refutes it, or does it ignore certain important facts? Persuasiveness:  Which of the author's arguments is the strongest or weakest in terms of persuasiveness? Value:  Are the author's claims and deductions believable? Does the study ultimately advance our understanding of the issue in any meaningful way?

5. Categorization

Organize your literature review by grouping sources into categories based on themes, relevance to research questions, theoretical paradigms, or chronology. This helps in presenting your findings in a structured manner.

6. Source Validity

Ensure that the sources you include are valid and reliable. Classic texts may retain their authority over time, but for fields that evolve rapidly, prioritize the most recent research. Always check the credibility of the authors and the impact of their work in the field.

7. Synthesis and Findings

Synthesize the information from various sources to draw conclusions about the current state of knowledge. Identify trends, controversies, and gaps in the literature. Relate your findings to your research questions and suggest future directions for research.

Practical Tips

• Use a variety of sources, including online databases, university libraries, and reference lists from relevant articles. This ensures a comprehensive coverage of the literature.
• Avoid listing sources without analysis. Use tables, bulk citations, and footnotes to manage references efficiently and make your review more readable.
• Writing a literature review is an ongoing process. Start writing early and revise as you read more. This iterative process helps in refining your arguments and identifying additional sources as needed.  

Brown University Library (2024) Organizing and Creating Information. Available at: https://libguides.brown.edu/organize/litreview (Accessed: 30 July 2024).

Pacheco-Vega, R. (2016) Synthesizing different bodies of work in your literature review: The Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) technique . Available at: http://www.raulpacheco.org/2016/06/synthesizing-different-bodies-of-work-in-your-literature-review-the-conceptual-synthesis-excel-dump-technique/ (Accessed: 30 July 2024).

Study Advice at the University of Reading (2024) Literature reviews . Available at: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/literaturereview/developing (Accessed: 31 July 2024).

Further Reading

Frameworks for creating answerable (re)search questions  How to Guide

Literature Searching How to Guide

• << Previous: Steps for Creating a Literature Review
• Next: Providing Evidence / Critical Analysis >>
• Last Updated: Sep 4, 2024 11:43 AM
• URL: https://library.lsbu.ac.uk/literaturereviews

• Schools & departments

2. Writing a Literature Review

Objective: To help draft a literature review on the effects of social media on academic performance.

Prompt Example: 

Summarise key findings from recent studies (post-2018) on the topic. 

Compare and contrast different methodologies used in these studies. 

Highlight gaps in the current research that could be explored further. 

Ensure the review is structured with an introduction, main body, and conclusion. 

Use formal academic language and cite sources in Harvard referencing style. 

Audience: Second-year undergraduate students in psychology. 

Expected Outcome: A draft literature review of approximately 500 words with a synthesis of recent research findings, a critical comparison of methodologies, and identification of research gaps, all presented in a coherent and scholarly manner. 

Example User Query: 

Draft a 500-word literature review on the effects of social media on academic performance. The review should cover the following points: 

Summarise recent studies from 2018 onwards on this topic. 

Compare and contrast the methodologies used in these studies. 

Identify and discuss gaps in the current research that could be further explored. 

Please structure the review with an introduction, main body, and conclusion, using formal academic language. Make sure to cite the sources using Harvard referencing style. 

The target audience for this review is second-year undergraduate students in psychology.  

ELM’s Response: 

Introduction 

The ubiquity of social media in contemporary society has sparked a growing body of research examining its effects on various aspects of life, including academic performance. This literature review aims to synthesise findings from recent studies (2018-present) on the impact of social media usage on academic performance. By comparing methodologies and identifying research gaps, this review seeks to provide a holistic understanding of the current academic discourse on this topic. 

Summarising Recent Studies 

Several recent studies have explored the connection between social media use and academic performance with varied findings. Wang and Xing (2018) conducted a survey-based study with university students in China, revealing a negative correlation between time spent on social media and academic grades. Similarly, a study by Kirschner and Karpinski (2020) in the United States found that students who used social media excessively had lower GPAs compared to their peers who used it less frequently. 

Conversely, some studies report more nuanced outcomes. A longitudinal study by Al-Menayes (2019) found that while overall social media use did correlate with lower academic performance, this effect was moderated by the type of social media engagement — with academic-related use proving beneficial. Similarly, Cho et al. (2021) highlighted that the impact of social media on academic performance is not straightforward but contingent on factors such as the nature of use (active vs. passive) and individual differences in self-regulation. 

Comparing and Contrasting Methodologies 

The methodologies employed in these studies vary significantly, influencing the robustness and generalisability of their findings. Cross-sectional surveys, as used by Wang and Xing (2018) and Kirschner and Karpinski (2020), provide quick snapshots but are limited by their inability to infer causality. These studies typically rely on self-reported data, which may be subject to biases such as social desirability or inaccurate recall. 

In contrast, longitudinal studies like that of Al-Menayes (2019) offer stronger evidence for causal relationships by tracking changes over time. However, they require more resources and time, and their findings can be influenced by external variables that change during the study period. Experimental designs, though less common in this field, could provide more definitive insights by controlling for extraneous variables, as suggested by Nowak and Gao (2022), who implemented a controlled experiment to isolate the effects of social media on academic tasks. 

Identifying Research Gaps 

Despite the valuable insights provided by recent research, several gaps remain. Firstly, there is a need for more experimental studies to establish causality more definitively and eliminate confounding variables. Additionally, much of the existing research focuses on Western or East Asian contexts, with limited exploration in other cultural settings. This geographical bias suggests a need for cross-cultural studies to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. 

Furthermore, while some studies have begun to distinguish between different types of social media use, there remains a lack of granular investigation into the distinct effects of specific platforms. Kim and Venditti (2023) suggest that the varying functionalities and user interactions on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn might differentially impact academic performance. 

Conclusion 

The existing literature offers valuable insights into the relationship between social media usage and academic performance, revealing both negative and context-dependent effects. Nevertheless, the methodological diversity and geographical concentration of studies highlight the need for further research, particularly experimental and cross-cultural inquiries, as well as platform-specific analyses. Addressing these gaps will enrich the understanding of how social media impacts academic outcomes and guide the development of effective educational strategies and policies. 

References 

Al-Menayes, J. J. (2019). ‘The relationship between social media use and academic performance in university students’ Global Media Journal, 17(33), pp. 1-11. 

Cho, J., Kim, S., Lee, W. & Kim, S. (2021). ‘The moderating effect of self-control on the relationship between social media use and academic performance’ Computers in Human Behaviour, 123, p. 106873.&nbsp;

Kim, H. & Venditti, D. (2023). ‘Differentiated impacts of social media platforms on academic performance: An exploratory study’ Journal of Educational Technology, 45(2), pp. 200-214.&nbsp;

Kirschner, P. A., & Karpinski, A. C. (2020). ‘Facebook and academic performance’ Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6), pp. 1237-1245.&nbsp;

Nowak, G., & Gao, L. (2022). ‘Experimental study on social media and student learning outcomes’ Journal of Experimental Education, 90(3), pp. 512-529.&nbsp;

Wang, Q. & Xing, Q. (2018). ‘The impact of social media on academic performance: Evidence from Chinese university students’ International Journal of Educational Research, 95, pp. 1-9.&nbsp;

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What is your building doing for the city systematic literature review on the potential of façade design for the mitigation of urban environmental problems.

1. Introduction

• What research is being conducted regarding the impact of the design of building envelopes on urban environmental problems?
• What impacts on the urban environment have been reported regarding different façade design aspects?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. identification of relevant scientific reports, 2.2. screening of relevant reports and inclusion/exclusion criteria, 2.3. reports included in the detailed review, 3.1. façade design and the urban environment, 3.2. reported impact of selected façade design variables on urban environmental issues, 3.2.1. reported impact on air pollution, 3.2.2. reported impact on biodiversity, 3.2.3. reported impact on noise.

3.2.4. Reported Impact on Urban Heat

4. discussion, 5. conclusions, supplementary materials, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Prieto, A.; Pastén, M. What Is Your Building Doing for the City? Systematic Literature Review on the Potential of Façade Design for the Mitigation of Urban Environmental Problems. Sustainability 2024 , 16 , 7855. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177855

Prieto A, Pastén M. What Is Your Building Doing for the City? Systematic Literature Review on the Potential of Façade Design for the Mitigation of Urban Environmental Problems. Sustainability . 2024; 16(17):7855. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177855

Prieto, Alejandro, and Marcela Pastén. 2024. "What Is Your Building Doing for the City? Systematic Literature Review on the Potential of Façade Design for the Mitigation of Urban Environmental Problems" Sustainability 16, no. 17: 7855. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177855

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• Published: 09 September 2024

The transfer effect of computational thinking (CT)-STEM: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis

• Zuokun Li 1 &
• Pey Tee Oon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1732-7953 1  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  11 , Article number:  44 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Integrating computational thinking (CT) into STEM education has recently drawn significant attention, strengthened by the premise that CT and STEM are mutually reinforcing. Previous CT-STEM studies have examined theoretical interpretations, instructional strategies, and assessment targets. However, few have endeavored to delineate the transfer effects of CT-STEM on the development of cognitive and noncognitive benefits. Given this research gap, we conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to provide deeper insights.

We analyzed results from 37 studies involving 7,832 students with 96 effect sizes. Our key findings include: (i) identification of 36 benefits; (ii) a moderate overall transfer effect, with moderate effects also observed for both near and far transfers; (iii) a stronger effect on cognitive benefits compared to noncognitive benefits, regardless of the transfer type; (iv) significant moderation by educational level, sample size, instructional strategies, and intervention duration on overall and near-transfer effects, with only educational level and sample size being significant moderators for far-transfer effects.

Conclusions

This study analyzes the cognitive and noncognitive benefits arising from CT-STEM’s transfer effects, providing new insights to foster more effective STEM classroom teaching.

Introduction

In recent years, computational thinking (CT) has emerged as one of the driving forces behind the resurgence of computer science in school curriculums, spanning from pre-school to higher education (Bers et al., 2014 ; Polat et al., 2021 ; Tikva & Tambouris, 2021a ). CT is complex, with many different definitions (Shute et al., 2017 ). Wing ( 2006 , p. 33) defines CT as a process that involves solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science (CS). Contrary to a common perception that CT belongs solely to CS, gradually, it has come to represent a universally applicable attitude and skill set (Tekdal, 2021 ) involving cross-disciplinary literacy (Ye et al., 2022 ), which can be applied to solving a wide range of problems within CS and other disciplines (Lai & Wong, 2022 ). Simply put, CT involves thinking like a computer scientist when solving problems, and it is a universal competence that everyone, not just computer scientists, should acquire (Hsu et al., 2018 ). Developing CT competency not only helps one acquire domain-specific knowledge but enhances one’s general ability to solve problems across various academic fields (Lu et al., 2022 ; Wing, 2008 ; Woo & Falloon, 2022 ; Xu et al., 2022 ), including STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) (Chen et al., 2023a ; Lee & Malyn-Smith, 2020 ; Wang et al., 2022a ; Waterman et al., 2020 ; Weintrop et al., 2016 ), the social sciences, and liberal arts (Knochel & Patton, 2015 ).

Given the importance of CT competency, integrating it into STEM education (CT-STEM) has emerged as a trend in recent years (Lee et al., 2020 ; Li & Anderson, 2020 ; Merino-Armero et al., 2022 ). CT-STEM represents the integration of CT practices with STEM learning content or context, grounded in the premise that a reciprocal relationship between STEM content learning and CT can enrich student learning (Cheng et al., 2023 ). Existing research supports that CT-STEM enhances student learning in two ways (Li et al., 2020b ). First, CT, viewed as a set of practices for bridging disciplinary teaching, shifts traditional subject forms towards computational-based STEM content learning (Wiebe et al., 2020 ). Engaging students in discipline-specific CT practices like modeling and simulation has been shown to improve their content understanding (Grover & Pea, 2013 ; Hurt et al., 2023 ) and enhance learning (Aksit & Wiebe, 2020 ; Rodríguez-Martínez et al., 2019 ; Yin et al., 2020 ). Another way is to take CT as a transdisciplinary thinking process and practice, providing a structured problem-solving framework that can reduce subject fixation (Ng et al., 2023 ). Aligning with integrated STEM (iSTEM) teaching, this approach equips students with critical skills such as analytical thinking, data manipulation, algorithmic thinking, collaboration, and creative solution development in authentic contexts (Tikva & Tambouris, 2021b ). Such skills are increasingly vital for addressing complex problems in a rapidly evolving digital and artificial intelligence-driven world.

Despite the growing interest in CT-STEM (Li et al., 2020b ; Tekdal, 2021 ), recent reviews indicate a focus on theoretical interpretations (Lee & Malyn-Smith, 2020 ; Weintrop et al., 2016 ), instructional strategies (Hutchins et al., 2020a ; Ma et al., 2021 ; Rachmatullah & Wiebe, 2022 ), and assessment targets (Bortz et al., 2020 ; Román- González et al., 2017). Although previous meta-analyses have shown CT-STEM’s positive impact on students meeting learning outcomes (Cheng et al., 2023 ), there is a gap in systematically analyzing its benefits, particularly in differentiating student learning via transfer effects (Popat & Starkey, 2019 ; Ye et al., 2022 ). Transfer, a key educational concept categorized as near and far transfer based on the theory of “common elements” (Perkins & Salomon, 1992 ), is crucial for understanding and evaluating CT-STEM’s utility and developing effective pedagogies. Previous studies have concentrated on cognitive learning outcomes (Cheng et al., 2023 ; Zhang & Wong, 2023 ) but offer limited insight into CT-STEM’s transfer effects on noncognitive outcomes like affective and social skills (Lai et al., 2023 ; Tang et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2023 ). Given that CT-STEM effects extend beyond the cognitive domain (Ezeamuzie & Leung, 2021; Lu et al., 2022 ), it is equally important to recognize and nurture noncognitive benefits like self-efficacy, cooperativity, and communication in CT-STEM practices (Yun & Cho, 2022 ).

To better understand and evaluate CT-STEM transfer effects on students’ cognitive and noncognitive benefits acquisition, we systematically review published CT-STEM effects using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines (Moher et al., 2010 ). We employ meta-analysis to quantify these effects and identify moderating variables. The following research questions guide our study:

RQ1: What cognitive and noncognitive benefits are acquired from CT-STEM’s near and far transfer effects?

RQ2: (a) What are the overall transfer effects of CT-STEM on cognitive and noncognitive benefits mentioned in Q1? and (b) What are the moderators of this effect?

RQ3: (a) What are the near and far transfer effects of CT-STEM on cognitive and noncognitive benefits mentioned in Q1? and (b) What are the moderators of these effects?

Literature review

• Computational thinking (CT)

The concept of procedural thinking was first introduced by Papert ( 1980 ), who connected programming to procedural thinking and laid a foundation for CT (Merino-Armero et al., 2022 ). Although Papert was the first to describe CT, Wing ( 2006 , 2008 , 2011 ) brought considerable attention back to the term, a focus that continues to date (Brennan & Resnick, 2012 ; Chen et al., 2023a ). Various other definitions have emerged in the literature, and there is no consensus definition of CT (Barr & Stephenson, 2011 ; Grover & Pea, 2013 ; Shute et al., 2017 ). The definitions of CT often incorporate programming and computing concepts (e.g., Israel-Fishelson & Hershkovitz, 2022 ) or consider CT to be a set of elements associated with both computing concepts and problem-solving skills (e.g., Kalelioglu et al., 2016 ; Piatti et al., 2022 ). From the former perspective, many researchers defined CT based on programming and computing concepts. For example, Denner et al. ( 2012 ) defined CT as a united competence composed of three key dimensions of CT: programming, documenting and understanding software, and designing for usability. An alternative defining framework (Brennan & Resnick, 2012 ), originating from a programming context (i.e., Scratch), focuses on CT concepts and practices, including computational terms of sequences, loops, conditionals, debugging, and reusing.

Viewed from the latter perspective, CT deviates from the competencies typically associated with simple computing or programming activities. Instead, it is characterized as a set of competencies encompassing domain-specific knowledge/skills in programming and problem-solving skills for non-programming scenarios (Lai & Ellefson, 2023 ; Li et al., 2020a ; Tsai et al., 2021 , 2022 ). Using this broad viewpoint, CT can be defined as a universally applicable skill set involved in problem-solving processes. For instance, ISTE and CSTA (2011) developed an operational definition of CT, which refers to a problem-solving process covering core skills, such as abstraction , problem reformulation , data practices , algorithmic thinking , automation & modeling & simulation, and generalization . Selby and Woollard ( 2013 ) proposed a process-oriented definition of CT based on its five essential practices: abstraction , decomposition , algorithmic thinking , evaluation , and generalization . Shute et al. ( 2017 ) provided a cross-disciplinary definition centered on solving problems effectively and efficiently, categorizing CT into six practices: decomposition , abstraction , algorithm design , debugging , iteration , and generalization . In all these cases, the essence of CT lies in a computer scientist’s approach to problems, which is a skill applicable to everyone’s daily life and across all learning domains.

The above classification of definitions mainly focuses on the cognitive aspect of CT. Other researchers have suggested that CT contains not only a cognitive component (Román-González et al., 2017 ) but also a noncognitive component, highlighting important dispositions and attitudes, including confidence in dealing with complexity, persistence in working with difficult problems, tolerance for ambiguity, the ability to deal with open-ended problems, and the ability to communicate and work with others to achieve a common goal or solution (Barr & Stephenson, 2011 ; CSTA & ISTE, 2011 ).

In short, while computational thinking (CT) is frequently associated with programming, its scope has significantly expanded over the years (Hurt et al., 2023 ; Kafai & Proctor, 2022 ). Building on these prior efforts, we define CT as a problem-solving/thought process that involves selecting and applying the appropriate tools and practices for solving problems effectively and efficiently. As a multifaceted set of skills and attitudes, CT includes both cognitive aspects, highlighting students’ interdisciplinary practices/skills, and noncognitive aspects like communication and collaboration.

Integrating CT in STEM education (CT-STEM)

There is an urgent need to bring CT into disciplinary classrooms to prepare students for new integrated fields (e.g., computational biology, computational physics, etc.) as practiced in the realistic professional world. To address this, a growing body of research and practice has focused on integrating CT into specific and iSTEM lessons (Jocius et al., 2021 ). This integration, i.e., CT-STEM, refers to the infusion of CT practices with STEM content/context, with the aim of enhancing students’ CT skills and STEM knowledge (Cheng et al., 2023 ). Accordingly, CT-STEM serves a dual purpose: one, it has the potential to foster the development of student CT practices and skills; and another, it simultaneously deepens students’ disciplinary understanding and improves learning performance within and across disciplines (Waterman et al., 2020 ). Current research reveals two potential ways this integration facilitates students’ STEM learning. First, integrating CT into STEM provides students with an essential, structured framework by characterizing CT as a thought process and general competency, with disciplinary classrooms offering “a meaningful context (and set of problems) within which CT can be applied” (Weintrop et al., 2016 , p. 128). Key processes of this problem-solving approach include: formulating problems computationally, data processing for solving problems, automating/simulating/modeling solutions, evaluating solutions, and generalizing solutions (Lyon & Magana, 2021 ; Wang et al., 2022a ). Engaging in these practices aids students in applying STEM content to complex problem-solving and develops their potential as future scientists and innovators, aligning with iSTEM teaching.

In addition, introducing CT within disciplinary classroom instruction transforms traditional STEM subject formats into an integrated computational-based approach. This way takes a specific set of CT practices naturally integrated into different STEM disciplines to facilitate students’ content learning (Li et al., 2020b ; Weller et al., 2022 ). Weintrop et al. ( 2016 ) identified four categories of CT practices in math and science education: data practices , modeling and simulation practices , computational problem-solving practices , and systems thinking practices . Engaging students in systems thinking practices can simplify the understanding of systems and phenomena within the STEM disciplines (Grover & Pea, 2013 ). Integrating CT involves students in data practices , modeling , simulation and/or using computational tools such as programming to generate representations, rules, and reasoning structures (Phillips et al., 2023 ). This aids in formulating predictions and explanations, visualizing systems, testing hypotheses, and enhancing students’ understanding of scientific phenomena and mechanisms (Eidin et al., 2024 ). When comparing the previously mentioned two integrated ways, the first places specific attention on developing discipline-general CT, while the second emphasizes improving students’ learning of disciplinary content and developing discipline-specific CT (Li et al., 2020b ).

Practical aspects of CT-STEM have also been explored in the literature, including instructional strategies and assessment targets. Scholars have attempted different instructional strategies for CT-STEM implementation to achieve the designated educational purpose. These strategies can be categorized as instructional models (e.g., problem-driven strategies and project-based strategies), topic contexts (e.g., game-based strategies, and modeling- and simulation-based strategies), scaffolding strategies, and collaborative strategies (Wang et al., 2022a ) (see Table  1 ) . Typically, in instructional models , CT is viewed as an essential competency, guiding students to create interdisciplinary artifacts and solve specific real-world problems. Li et al. ( 2023 ) integrated CT as a core thought model into a project-based learning process, focusing on student-designed products for practical problems. Compatible with instructional models, a variety of instruction strategies based on topic contexts have been used, such as game design, computational modeling and simulation, and robotics. These also called plugged-in activities, typically involve computer programming for performing STEM tasks (Adanır et al., 2024 ). In contrast, unplugged activities operate independently of computers, involving physical movements or using certain objects to illustrate abstract STEM concepts or principles (Barth-Cohen et al., 2019 ; Chen et al. 2023b ). In combination with the above strategies, scaffolding strategies have been designed and utilized in CT-STEM to reduce students’ cognitive load and provide support for their self-regulated learning, such as guidance and adaptive, peer-, and resource-scaffolding. In addition, educators have employed various collaborative strategies (e.g., Think-Pair-Share practice) to enhance students’ cooperative and communicative skills in CT-STEM learning (Tikva & Tambouris, 2021a ). In short, the use of different types of instructional strategies serves as a significant factor in influencing the effectiveness of CT-STEM.

Prior research has focused on assessment targets within the cognitive and noncognitive domains (Tang et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2022a ). The former includes direct cognitive manifestations such as knowledge and skills related to CT constructs and STEM constructs, as well as domain-general mental abilities such as creativity and critical thinking (Tang et al., 2020 ). Wang et al. ( 2022a ) reported CT-STEM studies targeted cognitive domain assessments, which included assessments of students’ CT concepts and skills, programming knowledge and skills, and STEM achievements. These constructs were mainly measured through tests, including validated and self-developed tests. Other researchers characterize CT as a general thinking skill and employ performance scales for measurement (e.g., Korkmaz et al., 2017 ; Tsai et al., 2019 , 2021 ). The assessment of the noncognitive domain focused on students’ dispositions and attitudes towards CT-STEM (Lai & Wong, 2022 ), including self-efficacy, interest, and cooperativity, mainly measured by surveys/scales.

In summary, CT-STEM has garnered considerable attention from researchers, primarily exploring theoretical interpretations of how a reciprocal relationship between STEM and CT can enrich student learning. CT-STEM is implemented through the development and application of varied instructional strategies, with assessments aimed at understanding its effects on students’ cognitive and noncognitive domains. While these are important contributions, there is a notable lack of systematic and empirical evidence concerning the differentiated benefits of CT-STEM integration. We aim to address this deficit by differentiating benefits via transfer effects and systematically synthesizing pertinent research in this field.

Transfer effect of learning

Transference or transfer effect refers to the ability to apply what one has known or learned in one situation to another (Singley & Anderson, 1989 ), standing at the heart of education as it highlights the flexible application of acquired knowledge (OECD, 2018 ). Perkins and Salomon ( 1992 ) defined transfer as the process of transferring learning and performance from one context to another, possibly even in a dissimilar context. From a cognitivist perspective, knowledge, seen as a stable mental entity, can traditionally be summoned and adapted to new situations under the right circumstances (Day & Goldstone, 2012 ). Nevertheless, this traditional approach has been subject to extensive criticism, particularly from those who hold a constructivist perspective. From their view, the transfer of learning is not a static application of knowledge to a new context but rather the “byproduct of participation in particular situations” (Day & Goldstone, 2012 )—a standpoint widely acknowledged and endorsed by most researchers. Despite the broad consensus on this view (Scherer et al., 2019 ), some questions remain: How can a successful transfer occur? What factors define “other” or “new” contexts?

One prominent explanation for the successful transfer of knowledge is the theory of “common elements” (Singley & Anderson, 1989 ), which hypothesizes that successful transfer depends upon the elements that two different contexts or problem situations share (Scherer et al., 2019 ). Thus, based on this theory, the transfer effect can be divided into near transfer and far transfer (Perkins & Salomon, 1992 ). Near transfer occurs when successful skills and strategies are transferred between contexts that are similar, i.e., contexts that are closely related and require similar skills and strategies to be performed; conversely, far transfer occurs when successful skills or strategies are transferred between contexts that are inherently different (Perkins & Salomon, 1992 ). Essentially, the transfer effect is determined by the similarity or overlap between the contexts and problems in which the skills were acquired and new different problems that are encountered in the future (Baldwin & Ford, 1988 ). Simply put, there is a greater chance of transference between related contexts or problem situations (near-transfer) than between divergent situations (far-transfer). Since transfer effects are inherently situation-specific, they depend highly on the circumstances under which the skills/knowledge were acquired and the overlap with the new situation (Lobato, 2006 ).

While far-transfer effects are less likely to occur, numerous studies have reported far-transfer effects, albeit to varying extents (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999 ). Scherer et al. ( 2019 ) reported a moderate effect ( g  = 0.47) indicative of far transfer effects in learning computer programming, while Sala and Gobet ( 2016 ) found relatively limited evidence of far transfer effects within the domains of chess instruction and music education: successful transfer was only observed in situations that required skills similar to those acquired in the interventions. The extent of far-transfer can fluctuate across different contexts, indicating a need for further exploration within different disciplines and learning contexts.

The transfer effects of CT-STEM

The transfer effects of learning computer programming have been explored (Bernardo & Morris, 1994 ; Pirolli & Recker, 1994 ; Scherer et al., 2019 , 2020 ). For instance, students learning BASIC programming demonstrated that acquiring programming knowledge significantly enhanced the students’ abilities to solve verbal and mathematical problems; however, no significant differences were found in mathematical modeling and procedural comprehension (Bernardo & Morris, 1994 ). Scherer et al. ( 2019 ) conducted a meta-analysis exploring the effects of transferring computer programming knowledge on students’ cognitive benefits. They identified positive skill transfers from learning programming to areas such as creative thinking, mathematical abilities, and spatial skills. Beyond cognitive benefits, Popat and Starkey ( 2019 ) and Melro et al. ( 2023 ) indicate that learning programming also contributes to noncognitive benefits like collaboration and communication.

Programming can be a conduit for teaching, learning, and assessing CT and a mechanism to expose students to CT by creating computational artifacts. Although programming skills and CT share a close relationship and overlap in several aspects (e.g., application of algorithms, abstraction, and automation), they are not identical (Ezeamuzie & Leung, 2022 )—the latter (i.e., CT) also involves incorporating computational perspectives and computational participation (i.e., the student’s understanding of himself or herself, and their interactions with others and technology; Shue et al., 2017). CT can also be taught without programming through so-called unplugged activities. Hence, research on the transfer of programming only addresses a limited aspect of the CT transference.

Research on CT transfer effects has recently surged (Liu & Jeong, 2022 ; Ye et al., 2022 ). In a meta-analysis, Ye et al. ( 2022 ) reported a positive transfer effect beyond computer programming in understanding science, engineering, mathematics, and the humanities. Using in-game CT supports, Liu and Jeong ( 2022 ) reported a significant improvement in student CT skills at the near transfer level but not at the far transfer level. Correlation analyses by Román-González et al. ( 2017 ) demonstrated a significant relationship between CT and other cognitive abilities, which is collaborated by Xu et al.’s ( 2022 ) study, showing CT relates to numerous cognitive and learning abilities in other domains, such as reasoning, creative thinking, and arithmetic fluency. Other studies attribute cognitive benefits to CT, such as executive functions (Arfé et al., 2019 ). Although the results from correlation analyses cannot provide definitive causal evidence, they offer valuable insights and directions for future investigations, including potential meta-analysis studies.

While several systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been conducted on programming and CT transfer effects, there is a scarcity of meta-analysis that investigate the transfer effects of CT-STEM and the variables that moderate these effects. Cheng et al. ( 2023 ) explored the overall effect of CT-STEM on students’ STEM learning performance within a K-12 education context and reported a large effect size ( g  = 0.85) between pretest and posttest scores on STEM learning outcomes. They investigated moderating variables in the models, including student grade levels, STEM disciplines, intervention durations, and types of interventions. Of these, only the intervention durations had a significant moderating effect. While their work offers evidence supporting the effectiveness of CT-STEM on students’ learning outcomes, evidenced by a large effect size, we identified three notable shortcomings: First, their meta-analysis lacked a focus on potential benefits that can be derived from CT-STEM integration, particularly in terms of differentiating learning outcomes from the perspective of transfer effects. Existing meta-analyses have found that effect sizes vary considerably across various types of learning outcomes (Sala & Gobet, 2017 ; Scherer et al., 2019 ). This variation indicates that CT-STEM may not benefit different categories of learning outcomes equally. Second, the study focused only on cognitive learning outcomes, omitting noncognitive effects that may be fostered by CT-STEM. As noted earlier, although CT is primarily a cognitive psychological construct associated with cognitive benefits, it also has a complementary noncognitive aspect (Román-González et al., 2018 ). The synergy between CT and STEM holds promise for delivering cognitive and noncognitive benefits to students. Third, their inclusion of only studies that employed one-group pretest–posttest designs may contribute to biased outcomes, limiting the potential representativeness and robustness of the research findings (Cuijpers et al., 2017 ). Morris and DeShon ( 2002 ) posited that combining effect sizes from different study designs, both rationally and empirically, would lead to more reliable and comprehensive conclusions.

While various studies have validated the transfer effect of programming and CT, a systematic examination of CT-STEM’s transfer effects remains an area for further exploration. Our review identified key gaps, including a lack of differentiation in learning outcomes, insufficient focus on noncognitive benefits, and limitations in research robustness. Additionally, practical challenges, such as identifying effective activities and methods for CT integration into STEM, as well as determining optimal intervention durations, need to be addressed. We address these issues by investigating the transfer effects of CT-STEM, combining effect sizes from diverse studies, and considering both cognitive and noncognitive domains. We also identify practical factors that could influence these effects through moderator analysis. Our goal is to enhance instructional design in CT-STEM and provide new insights and guidance for both practitioners and researchers in the field.

Conceptual framework for the present study

Drawing from Mayer’s ( 2011 , 2015 ) framework, we synthesized evidence on the CT-STEM transfer effects and the contextual conditions that enhance instructional effectiveness. This framework, widely used to evaluate technology-based interventions like computer programming and educational robotics (Chen et al., 2018 ; Sun & Zhou, 2022 ; Tsai & Tsai, 2018 ), offers a multifaceted perspective on instructional methods. It allows for the exploration of three types of research questions: (a) Learning consequences, by examining the benefits of specific instructional methods; (b) Media comparison, by assessing the effectiveness of instructional methods; and (c) Value-added teaching, by investigating how changes in teaching conditions affect student performance. Chen et al. ( 2018 ) highlights this framework’s aptitude for systematically organizing and mapping domains and study contexts, accommodating diverse research foci.

Transferring this framework to the context of CT-STEM instruction (see Fig.  1 ), we systematically summarize the learning sequences through CT-STEM’s transfer effect. Based on our literature review section, we have categorized these sequences into four types: (a) Cognitive benefits through near transfer effect (CNT); (b) Noncognitive benefits through near transfer effect (NCNT); (c) Cognitive benefits through far transfer effect (CFT); and (d) Noncognitive benefits through far transfer effect (NCFT). This study synthesizes evidence on CT-STEM’s effectiveness per transfer type and examines various moderators affecting these effects. We considered sample features (e.g., educational level and sample size) and study features (e.g., study design, subject, instructional strategy, and intervention duration) as potential moderators affecting the transferability of CT-STEM. Previous CT-related studies indicated that these moderators contribute to variance in the effect sizes (Lai & Wong, 2022 ; Scherer et al., 2020 ; Sun & Zhou, 2022 ; Ye et al., 2022 ).

Conceptual framework of the present meta-analysis

Methodology

We collected and analyzed literature on the transfer effects of CT-STEM using a rigorous systematic review process (Jesson et al., 2011 ), adhering to the PRISMA guidelines (Moher et al., 2010 ).

Database and keywords

We initially searched for key works on CT and STEM in seven databases: Web of Science, Science Direct, Springer, Wily, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Sage, and Taylor & Francis. In the search, CT was explicitly confined to “computational thinking.” The major intervention approaches were included, such as programming, plugged activities, and unplugged activities. For STEM, we used the following terms: STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and further supplemented “science” with discipline-specific terms like “physics,” “chemistry,” and “biology.” Additionally, we added “game design” and “robotics” to complement “technology,” as these are significant technical contexts for CT. As a final step, we searched for full peer-reviewed articles in the databases using keyword groupings, focusing exclusively on educational and educational research fields: (“Computational thinking” OR “programming” OR “plugged activity” OR “unplugged activity”) AND (“STEM” OR “technology” OR “engineering” OR “mathematics” OR “physics” OR “chemistry” OR “biology” OR “game design” OR “robotics”). The initial search included articles published between January 1, 2011, and March 1, 2023, as professional CT-STEM fields were formed and gained popularity after 2011 (Lee & Malyn-Smith, 2020 ; Malyn-Smith & Ippolito, 2011 ). This initial search yielded 12,358 publications, which were then subjected to further screening.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The inclusion and exclusion criteria for articles were detailed in Table  2 . This study examined the transfer effects of CT-STEM, exploring both near and far transfer effects on cognitive and noncognitive benefits acquisition. Eligible studies included those with experimental or quasi-experimental designs, such as Independent-groups pretest–posttest (IGPP), Independent-groups posttest (IGP), and Single-group pretest–posttest (SGPP), reporting pretest and posttest or solely posttest performance. Articles where CT was not integrated with STEM content or context, or if the authors did not conceptualize or assert their studies as integrating CT with STEM learning, were excluded. Studies focusing on programming tools like Scratch or robotics, without involving other STEM content or contexts were excluded. Since STEM education often emphasizes situated learning, with contexts from social studies, culture, language, and arts (Kelley & Knowles, 2016 ), articles in other disciplines (e.g., social sciences, literacy, and culture) that involve CT activities, such as designing digital stories and games (Zha et al., 2021 ), were included. We did not limit the educational context (e.g., K-12 or higher education) since the effects of CT-STEM differ at various educational levels, and including both enables a more comprehensive understanding. The methods of assessment after the CT-STEM interventions were unrestricted. Inclusion criteria for studies necessitated reporting at least one cognitive (e.g., critical thinking or school achievement) or noncognitive (e.g., communication or collaboration) benefit using performance-based outcome measures. Studies reporting only behavioral (e.g., response times and number and sequence of actions) were excluded. Eligibility also depended on providing adequate statistical data for effect size calculation, requiring details like sample sizes, standard deviations, means, t -values, F -values, or z -scores.

Study selection

Figure  2 shows the three selection stages: identification , screening , and eligibility evaluation . After the initial search, automatic and manual searching were used to eliminate duplicates. Two independent researchers used the inclusion and exclusion criteria to screen the article titles and abstracts, eliminating those that did not fit the criteria. Following this, the texts of the remaining articles were scrutinized and assessed using the criteria requirements for inclusion in the final sample. The interrater agreement was high (Cohen’s Kappa coefficient = 0.92). All disagreements were resolved by discussing and reviewing. This selection process yielded 32 studies that met the eligibility criteria. Lastly, a “snowball” search method (Petersen & Valdez, 2005 ) was used to find additional articles that met the criteria. Both backward and forward snowballing using the identified papers resulted in an additional five papers. Overall, the search and evaluation process yielded 37 articles for analysis (a complete list of references for these included studies can be found in Supplementary Material A1).

The selection flowchart used based on PRISMA approach

Data extraction and analysis

Coding of studies.

We modified the systematic review coding scheme spreadsheet (Scherer et al., 2019 ; Ye et al., 2022 ), which was used to document and extract information. It includes basic study details (reference, publication year, and journal), four types of outcome variables, sample features (educational level and sample size), study characteristics (study design, subject, instructional strategy, and intervention duration), and statistical data for effect size calculation. To ensure the reliability of the coding, each study was coded by two researchers using the coding scheme. The interrater reliability was 0.93 using the Kappa coefficient, and discrepancies were settled in discussion sessions until mutual agreement was reached.

Outcome variables

To ascertain which cognitive and noncognitive benefits can be derived through CT-STEM transference, we constructed a hierarchical structure and classified these benefits into four categories: CNT, NCNT, CFT, and NCFT (see Table  3 ). CNT (i.e., domain-specific cognitive skills/knowledge) occurs when skills or knowledge acquired in CT-STEM are applied to a domain that is closely related, such as CT knowledge/concepts and CT practices/skills (Scherer et al., 2019 ; Sun & Zhou, 2022 ). In the included studies, CNT was measured using (a) validated tests, such as the Computation Thinking test (CTt), and (b) self-developed tests/tasks for evaluating students’ comprehension of subject-specific concepts and knowledge. NCNT pertains to shifts in students’ attitudes, motivations, self-efficacy, or perceptions concerning the related domain (e.g., CT-STEM, iSTEM, STEM, or programming) following their engagement with CT-STEM (Bloom & Krathwohl, 1956 ). Measures for NCNT in the selected studies primarily utilized standardized scales, with some employing self-developed scales.

CFT (i.e., domain-general cognitive skills) manifests when the skills attained from the CT-STEM are applied to different domains (Doleck et al., 2017 ; Xu et al., 2022 ). These skills, such as reasoning skills, creativity, and critical thinking, were mostly assessed by standardized scales and various tests like the Bebras test, TOPS test, Computational Thinking Scale (CTS) (e.g., Korkmaz et al., 2017 ; Tsai et al., 2019 , 2021 ), and Cornell Critical Thinking test (CCTT). NCFT involves the transfer of skills from CT-STEM to higher-order noncognitive learning outcomes such as cooperativity and communication (OECD, 2018 ). Measurement techniques for this category included validated scales along with specific self-developed tasks. Then, we calculated the measured frequency of each benefit in the selected papers (N = 37) and used bar charts for visualization to answer RQ1.

Moderator variables

Based on the framework presented in Fig.  1 and previous meta-analyses in CT-STEM and related fields (e.g., educational robotics, programming, and CT), we examined two types of moderators for their potential role in enhancing the transferability within CT-STEM (see Table  4 ). The variables included: (1) Sample features. Sample features comprised the educational levels targeted by the intervention—kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, and university/college—and the sample size , with the latter equating to class size in educational contexts and exhibiting variability across studies; (2) Study features. The design of the primary studies was coded as either an IGPP, an IGP, or a SGPP. Considering the possibility of multiple designs occurring within one study, we elected to code them independently (Scherer et al., 2020 ). Next to the subject , the coding of categories is primarily predicated on the intervention transfer area (Ye et al., 2022 ). When CT is integrated into several subjects, we coded such studies as “Multiple STEM subjects” accordingly. Based on Wang et al.’s ( 2022a ) review, we assigned instructional strategy as additional possible moderating variables and coded them as “instructional models,” “topic contexts,” “scaffolding strategies,” and “collaborative strategies.” Table  1 provides an account of these instructional strategies and contains sample references; Supplementary Material A2 contains more detailed descriptions of these strategies for each included study. Finally, the length of the intervention was extracted and later coded as < 1 week, one week-1 month, one month-1 semester, > 1 semester, and not mentioned.

Calculating effect sizes

We computed effect sizes using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) Software 3.0 (Borenstein et al., 2013 ). To increase the number of articles in our meta-analysis, we included three types of study designs (Morris & DeShon, 2002 ). Despite potential time bias and selection bias, our study used the same metric (i.e., raw-score metric) for calculating effect sizes. This metric is insensitive to variations in ρ and is recommended when homogeneity of ρ cannot be assumed or tested empirically (Morris & DeShon, 2002 ). These calculations were based on the means and standard deviations of the student learning outcome data. If these values were not reported in the studies, we used other statistics to calculate the standardized mean difference, such as t -values, z -scores, F -values, Cohen’s d , SE , and Confidence intervals (95% CI) (Borenstein et al., 2009 ). All reported p -values are two-tailed unless otherwise reported.

We calculated the effect sizes by the metric of Hedges’ g , which allows the integration of results from varied research designs with minimal bias and provides a global measure of CT-STEM effectiveness (Sun et al., 2021 ). Hedges’ g was interpreted by Hedges and Olkin’s ( 2014 ) assertion, in which 0.20–0.49 indicates low effect, 0.50–0.79 indicates medium effect, and 0.8 and above indicates high effect. CMA 3.0 empirically supports the amalgamation of multiple study designs in a single analysis (Borenstein et al., 2013 ). Leveraging this feature, we used experimental designs as a moderator to mitigate potential bias (Morris & DeShon, 2002 ). The statistically nonsignificant p -value of the Q test ( p  = 0.343) failed to reject the null hypothesis of no difference between mean effect sizes calculated from alternate designs. Therefore, effect sizes from different designs can be meaningfully combined (Delen & Sen, 2023 ; Morris & DeShon, 2002 ). Due to substantial variations in outcome measures and environments across studies, we employed the random-effects model to address RQ2 (a) and RQ3 (a) in this study by calculating overall and subgroup effect sizes (Borenstein et al., 2021 ; Xu et al., 2019 ).

Non-independence

We calculated one effect size per study to ensure the independence of the effect sizes; however, if a study reported multiple benefits that did not overlap, the effect size for each benefit was included in the analysis. Additionally, when a study reported effect sizes for separate groups of students (e.g., students in grades 1, 2, and 3) where the participants did not overlap, the effect sizes for each group were considered independent samples (Lipsey & Wilson, 2001 ). When a study reported multiple assessments (e.g., midterm and final exams) in one subject area, we selected the most comprehensive assessment (Bai et al., 2020 ).

Analyses of heterogeneity

Heterogeneity was detected using the I 2 test (i.e., there is a degree of inconsistency in the studies’ results), which was calculated to show the ratio of between-groups variance to the total variation across effect sizes, revealing the effect sizes variation stemming from the differences among studies (Shamseer et al., 2015 ). Then, we conducted a moderator analysis to pinpoint potential sources of variance in transfer effect sizes, including examining the overall, near, and far transfer effects, to address the RQ2 (b) and RQ3 (b).

Publication bias

We conducted three additional analyses to determine if publication bias affected the review results. They included a funnel plot, Egger’s test, and the classic fail-safe N. The funnel plot is a graphical tool that compares effect sizes to standard errors to check if publication bias distorted treatment effects (Egger et al., 1997 ). We used the Egger test to examine symmetry and quantify the amount of bias captured by the funnel plot (Bai et al., 2020 ; Borenstein, 2005 ). The classic fail-safe N was calculated to address the issue of publication bias affecting the effect size. Specifically, when the meta-analysis results are significant, it is essential to calculate the number of lost and unpublished studies that should be included to make the compound effect insignificant (Rosenthal, 1979 ). According to Rosenberg ( 2005 ), the fail-safe N (X) should reach 5 k + 10 to ensure that X is large relative to k (the number of independent effect sizes). The greater the fail-safe N value, the smaller the publication bias.

Cognitive and noncognitive benefits through CT-STEM’s transfer effect (RQ1)

Our investigation of CT-STEM transference revealed 36 benefits, detailed in Fig.  3 . This includes benefits from both near and far transfer: seventeen cognitive and eight noncognitive benefits were attributed to near transfer (CNT and NCNT, respectively), while nine cognitive and two noncognitive benefits resulted from far transfer (CFT and NCFT, respectively).

The measured frequency of documented benefits in selected publications

The top five benefits most frequently documented in empirical CT-STEM research were mathematics achievement ( f  = 9), CT knowledge/ concepts ( f  = 7), CT ( f  = 5), physics achievement ( f  = 5), and self-efficacy ( f  = 5). The notable medium frequency of certain NCNT, such as self-efficacy and motivation, highlights a dual focus in research: enhancing both cognitive skills and noncognitive gains in students involved in CT-STEM. There has been greater integration of CT into mathematics and science; however, other disciplines (e.g., biology, chemistry, social science, and culture) have received less attention. The limited observation of NCFT (only two identified) underscores the potential for broader research explorations.

CT-STEM’s overall transfer effects and moderator analysis (RQ2)

Overall transfer effects of ct-stem (rq2a).

In total, 37 primary studies involving 7832 students were included in the sample, yielding 96 effect sizes. Among these studies, 62% (23 studies) utilized an IGPP design, 35% (13 studies) adopted an SGPP design, and 3% (1 study) employed an IGP design. In this meta-analysis, we first analyzed 37 empirical studies using a random model. Our finding shows a significant overall effect size favoring the transfer effect of CT-STEM on both cognitive and noncognitive benefits for students ( g  = 0.601, 95% CI [0.510–0.691], Z  = 12.976, p  < 0.001) (see Fig.  4 ). The heterogeneity test results showed a significant Q value ( Q  = 853.052, I 2  = 88.864, p  < 0.001), suggesting substantial heterogeneity in the study effect sizes. Thus, a moderator analysis of different contextual variables would be required in subsequent analyses.

Forest plot of effect size (Hedges’ g ) in the random-effect model

To assess potential publication bias in our meta-analysis, we generated a funnel plot and performed the Classic Fail-safe N and Egger tests. As depicted in Fig.  5 , the studies were primarily evenly distributed on both sides of the funnel plot and located in the middle to upper effective areas (Egger et al., 1997 ). The Classic Fail-safe N value was 4702, significantly exceeding the conservative threshold of 5 k + 10 (490). Moreover, Egger’s Intercept was 1.01, [− 0.03–2.05] with a p -value of 0.06, which indicates no publication bias in our data set.

Funnel plot (Hedges’ g ) of overall transfer effects

Moderator analysis of overall transfer effects (RQ2b)

We examined six variables as potential moderators, including educational level , sample size , study design , subject , instructional strategy , and intervention duration , using the random model to identify the origins of heterogeneity (see Table  5 ). The moderator analysis indicated no significant differences in effect size among various study designs ( QB  = 2.142, df  = 2, p  = 0.343). This suggests that different designs estimate a similar treatment effect, allowing for a combined analysis of effect sizes across designs (Morris & DeShon, 2002 ). Further, the analysis showed that the subject did not significantly moderate the CT-STEM benefits ( QB  = 13.374, df  = 9, p  = 0.146), indicating effective CT integration across various STEM disciplines ( g  = 0.567, p  < 0.001). However, we observed a notable exception in social science ( g  = 0.727, p  = 0.185), where the integration effect was not significant, in contrast to significant effects in subjects like engineering ( g  = 0.883, p  < 0.001) and science ( g  = 0.875, p  < 0.001).

Significant moderator effects were found in educational level ( QB  = 13.679, df  = 3, p  = 0.003), sample size ( QB  = 48.032, df  = 3, p  < 0.001), instructional strategy ( QB  = 7.387, df  = 2, p  = 0.025), and intervention duration ( QB  = 22.950, df  = 3, p  < 0.001). Specifically, educational levels showed different effects: medium for kindergarten ( g  = 0.777, p  < 0.001), elementary ( g  = 0.613, p  < 0.001), and secondary students ( g  = 0.690, p  < 0.001), but lower for university students ( g  = 0.366, p  < 0.001). This indicates a stronger CT-STEM impact in the lower grades. Smaller sample size groups (less than 50 students) exhibited the highest effect size ( g  = 0.826, p  < 0.001), while larger groups (over 150 students) showed the lowest ( g  = 0.233, p  < 0.001), suggesting a decrease in effect with increasing class size. Instructional strategy was a significant moderator, indicating that the intervention strategy type significantly impacts CT-STEM’s transfer effects. Strategies involving topic contexts (e.g., modeling, simulation, robotics, programming) had the largest effect ( g  = 0.647, p  < 0.001), followed by scaffolding methods (e.g., (meta)cognitive scaffolding) ( g  = 0.492, p  < 0.001), with the instructional model strategy showing the smallest effect ( g  = 0.394, p  < 0.001). In addition, intervention duration was a critical moderator. The most significant effect was observed in interventions lasting between one week and one month ( g  = 0.736, p  < 0.001), with longer durations showing diminishing effects.

CT-STEM’s near and far transfer effects and moderator analysis (RQ3)

Near transfer effect by cognitive and noncognitive benefits (rq3a).

To further analyze the effect size of CT-STEM near-transfer, we focused on a subgroup encompassing both cognitive and noncognitive benefits, as detailed in Table  6 . We observed that the effect size for CT-STEM near-transfer is 0.645 (95% CI [0.536–0.753], Z  = 11.609, p  < 0.001), indicating a moderate impact on near-transfer benefits, with cognitive benefits demonstrating a larger effect size ( g  = 0.672, 95% CI [0.540–0.804], Z  = 9.978, p  < 0.001) compared to noncognitive benefits ( g  = 0.547, 95% CI [0.388–0.706], Z  = 6.735, p  < 0.001). This suggests that CT-STEM interventions are more impactful on cognitive aspects, e.g., CT skills, programming abilities, and algorithmic thinking, than noncognitive aspects, such as self-efficacy, learning motivation, and attitudes.

We utilized a funnel plot to assess and illustrate the publication bias of the study (see Fig.  6 ). The majority of the studies cluster in the effective area of the plot. The symmetric distribution of studies on the funnel plot’s left and right sides suggests a minimal publication bias. Furthermore, Egger’s test yielded a result of t (70) = 0.85 with a p -value of 0.40, reinforcing this indication. The Classic Fail-safe N was calculated to be 6539, substantially exceeding the estimated number of unpublished studies (5 k + 10 = 370). Therefore, these results collectively suggest that publication bias has a negligible impact on the CT-STEM’s near-transfer effects.

Funnel plot (Hedges’ g ) of near-transfer effect

Far transfer effect by cognitive and noncognitive benefits (RQ3a)

In examining CT-STEM far-transfer as a specific subgroup (see Table  6 ), we found a moderate effect size ( g  = 0.444, 95% CI [0.312–0.576], Z  = 6.596, p  < 0.001), indicating a significant positive impact of CT-STEM on students’ generic skills, including creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. A comparison of effect sizes between cognitive and noncognitive benefits revealed that cognitive benefits ( g  = 0.466, 95% CI [0.321–0.611], Z  = 6.289, p  < 0.001) were more pronounced than noncognitive benefits ( g  = 0.393, 95% CI [0.011–0.775], Z  = 1.833, p  = 0.044). The results show that CT-STEM effectively enhances cognitive and noncognitive skills in the far-transfer type. The far-transfer effect is more significant for cognitive abilities such as general thinking and problem-solving skills than noncognitive skills.

The funnel plot for far-transfer effects (see Fig.  7 ) shows some degree of asymmetry, which was further substantiated by Egger’s Test, yielding t (24) = 3.90 with a p -value of less than 0.001. Although the calculated Fail-safe N (N = 794) is considerably larger than the threshold of 5 k + 10 (130), this discrepancy does suggest the possibility of some publication bias in the far-transfer effects of our study.

Funnel plot (Hedges’ g ) of far-transfer effect

Heterogeneity and moderator analysis of near and far transfer effects (RQ3b)

We conducted heterogeneity assessments for each subgroup, focusing on near-transfer and far-transfer effects. The significant Q statistic values indicated high heterogeneity in both groups ( Q near  = 671.379, I 2  = 89.425%, p  < 0.001; Q fa r  = 93.552, I 2  = 75.415%, p  < 0.001). We then explored moderating effects based on educational level , sample size , subject , instructional strategy , and intervention duration . The results showed that the near-transfer effect of CT-STEM is moderated by educational level , sample size , instructional strategy , and intervention duration (see Table  7 ). In contrast, the far-transfer effect is moderated only by educational level and sample size (see Table  8 ). These findings suggest that the near-transfer effect is more susceptible to contextual factors variations than the far-transfer effect.

Discussion and implications

This study examined the transfer effects of CT-STEM on students’ cognitive and noncognitive skills. We conducted a systematic literature review and a meta-analysis approach. The main findings and implications of this study are discussed in the following sections.

Cognitive and noncognitive benefits through CT-STEM transfer effects

RQ1 asks what are the cognitive and noncognitive benefits derived from the transfer effects of CT-STEM. From 37 empirical studies, we identified 36 benefits, categorized into four types: CNT, CFT, NCNT, and NCFT. These benefits are consistent with findings in prior studies (e.g., Melro et al., 2023 ; Román-González et al., 2018 ; Scherer et al., 2019 ; Tsarava et al., 2022 ; Ye et al., 2022 ), indicating CT-STEM provides cognitive and noncognitive benefits but also fosters development of domain-specific and domain-general skills. Most prior research has focused on CT-STEM’s impact on students’ mathematics achievement, CT skills/concepts, self-efficacy, and cooperativity. Our results further suggest that CT-STEM enhances cognitive skills while significantly contributing to affective and social learning outcomes. This finding supports the view that while CT is primarily cognitive, akin to problem-solving abilities, it has a significant noncognitive aspect (Román-González et al., 2018 ). An illustrative example is the study by Wang et al. ( 2022b ), which developed a non-programming, unplugged-in CT program in mathematics, that effectively improved students’ CT skills, cooperation tendencies, and perceptions of CT.

Most transfer studies to date have primarily focused on students’ mathematics and science achievement, with less emphasis on other subjects like physics, biology, and chemistry. One reason is the overlap in thinking practices among these disciplines and CT (Rich et al., 2019 ; Ye et al. 2023 ). For example, modeling and simulating complex phenomena in these subjects foster problem decomposition skills, crucial in mathematics, science, and CS. Additionally, CT offers an analytical and systematic framework for problem-solving, a key aspect in tackling complex mathematical and scientific problems (Berland & Wilensky, 2015 ). Despite this, CT’s potential in a wider range of subjects remains underexplored (Ye et al., 2022 ). Previous studies have identified potential challenges in integrating CT into diverse STEM disciplines (Kite & Park, 2023 ; Li et al., 2020a ), and finding suitable curriculum topics that effectively utilize CT’s benefits can be difficult. Beyond mathematics, CT-STEM transfer studies have looked at topics like ecology (Christensen & Lombardi, 2023 ; Rachmatullah & Wiebe, 2022 ), force and motion (Aksit & Wiebe, 2020 ; Hutchins et al., 2020a , 2020b ), and chemical reactions (Chongo et al., 2021 ). This situation indicates a need for exploring a broader range of STEM topics to fully leverage the synergy between CT and STEM.

Our review identified only two far-noncognitive benefits of CT-STEM, suggesting these benefits may be harder to measure. Gutman and Schoon ( 2013 ) noted that far-noncognitive skills like perseverance and persistence have variable measurement robustness and are context-dependent. Mirroring the research methods of Israel-Fishelson and Hershkovitz ( 2021 ) and Falloon ( 2016 ), we recommend further capturing and analyzing students’ behaviors through recordings or log files from learning platforms. Additionally, few studies have focused on these competencies in CT-STEM, highlighting a promising direction for future CT-STEM integration efforts.

CT-STEM’s transfer effects

For RQ2 (a) and RQ3 (a), our meta-analysis indicates positive impacts on both cognitive ( g  = 0.628) and noncognitive benefits ( g  = 0.510), each showing moderate effect sizes. This finding supports the use of CT-STEM in enhancing students’ cognitive and noncognitive skills, as suggested by Lee et al. ( 2020 ), who argue that integrating CT in STEM encourages deeper engagement in authentic STEM practices, thereby developing a broad spectrum of skills, including cognitive and noncognitive aspects.

Our findings that cognitive benefits exhibit greater effect sizes than noncognitive benefits across both near-transfer and far-transfer, contrast with previous research by Kautz et al. ( 2014 ), which suggested noncognitive skills are more malleable. Two factors that might explain this disparity are gender and age. Gender may be a significant factor since CT-STEM requires students to utilize computational concepts, practices, and perspectives to solve complex, real-world problems, which can have inherent gender biases. For example, Czocher et al. ( 2019 ) found that female students often experience more frustration and lower engagement in CT-STEM, and similar studies report that they have lower interest, confidence, and self-efficacy than males (Wang et al., 2022b ). Jiang and Wong ( 2022 ) found no significant gender differences in cognitive skills like CT, indicating that the differences might lie in the affective skill domains, suggesting that students’ noncognitive skills might be less malleable than their cognitive skills in CT-STEM programs. As such, increasing students’ motivation, especially among girls, is a crucial issue for future studies (Tikva & Tambouris, 2021b ). Student age may be a contributing factor. Lechner et al. ( 2021 ) demonstrated that age influences skill adaptability, with younger individuals showing greater exploratory behavior and neural plasticity. Both characteristics are pivotal for cognitive development (e.g., reasoning skills and literacy) (Gualtieri & Finn, 2022 ), making cognitive skills more plastic than noncognitive skills. This aligns with our findings, where a significant proportion of studies (49%) focused on primary school settings, reinforcing the importance of early CT integration.

In comparing the near- and far-transfer effects, our analysis shows that the effect size for near-transfer is higher than that for far-transfer for both cognitive and noncognitive domains, aligning with previous findings that identified a strong effect of programming through near transfer ( g  = 0.75, 95% CI [0.39, 1.11]) and a moderate effect through far transfer ( g  = 0.47, 95% CI [0.35, 0.59]) (Scherer et al., 2019 ). One explanation is by the theory of “common elements” (Singley & Anderson, 1989 ), which suggests that skills developed through CT-STEM are more readily transferable to similar contexts due to shared conceptual commonalities and elements (Nouri et al., 2020 ; Scherer et al., 2019 ). Essentially, students proficient in a skill often find it easier to apply this proficiency to a related skill that shares foundational principles and strategies (Baldwin & Ford, 1988 ). Despite this, the far-transfer effects in CT-STEM do occur and are significant. We stress the importance of developing effective strategies that foster these far-transfer effects within the CT-STEM curriculum. One approach is identifying “common elements” and conceptual similarities between different discipline context and skills, thus promoting transference.

Contextual variables explaining variation in the CT-STEM’s transfer effects

In our meta-analysis (Q2 (b) and Q3 (b)), we examined the heterogeneity of CT-STEM’s overall, near-transfer, and far-transfer effects using moderators: educational level , sample size , study design , subject , instructional strategy , and intervention duration . For the overall transfer effects, we found significant variations in the effect size, with notably higher efficacy observed in grade school students than university students. This finding further advocates for the early integration of CT in STEM education (Nouri et al., 2020 ). This difference in CT-STEM’s impact can be attributed to two factors: (1) It correlates with students’ cognitive and noncognitive development, with early grades being crucial for acquiring these benefits (Jiang & Wong, 2022 ); (2) The hands-on, experiential nature of CT-STEM, utilizing tangible materials and interactive simulations, is particularly suited to the development and learning needs of young children (Thomas & Larwin, 2023 ). Also, class size emerged as a strong moderator (Li et al., 2022 ; Sun & Zhou, 2022 ; Sun et al., 2021 ), with smaller classes (under 50 students) showing more pronounced transfer effects. As class size increases, the impact of CT-STEM on skills development decreases, possibly due to logistical constraints e.g., space, equipment, and resources (Cheng et al., 2023 ). We also found significant differences due to instructional strategies . Learning activities involving computational modeling, simulation, and embodied learning yielded larger effect sizes. This supports constructivist educational methods like computational modeling for simulating complex phenomena and facilitating content learning (Basu et al., 2015 ; Sengupta et al., 2013 ). For intervention duration , we found that CT-STEM interventions of one week to one month are most effective in enhancing student’s learning outcomes, after which the effect size diminishes, in agreement with Sun et al. ( 2021 ). This time frame window may be due to the need to balance learning time and ongoing students’ interest and motivation, with extended durations leading to a decrease in motivation and interest as students adjust to the new learning method (Appleton et al., 2008 ; Cheng et al., 2023 ). Importantly, our analysis revealed that subject matter had little impact on CT-STEM benefits, suggesting broad applicability across various STEM subjects.

Our analysis of near- and far-transfer effects in CT-STEM shows that educational level , sample size , instructional strategy , and intervention duration significantly moderate near-transfer effects, while far-transfer effects are mainly moderated by educational level and sample size . One explanation is that near-transfer effects are linked to domain-specific skills, responding to particular instructional elements like strategies and duration (van Graaf et al., 2019 ). While far-transfer effects for domain-general skills like critical thinking show significant moderation primarily by educational level and sample size , rather than instructional design. This may be due to a predominant focus on domain-specific skills in current instructional designs (Geary et al., 2017 ). One attractive alternative is to consider CT as a transdisciplinary thinking practice and integrate it across various STEM subjects to enhance students’ domain-general skills development (Li et al., 2020b ).

The far-transfer effects are linked to cognitive development and social contexts, and thus influenced by educational level , which aligns with cognitive maturation and skill readiness (Jiang & Wong, 2021; Zhan et al., 2022 ). In addition, sample size also affects social skills and classroom dynamics (Sung et al., 2017 ; Yılmaz & Yılmaz, 2023 ). Therefore, in designing CT-STEM activities, it is crucial to consider age-appropriate objectives and learning content, as well as class size, for optimal development of cognitive and social skills. Future research should continue to explore these factors, particularly in developing social skills.

Theoretical and practical implications

This study provides new knowledge for CT-STEM research and informs CT-STEM instructional design and practice. This work extends the current understanding of CT-STEM’s transfer effects on students’ cognitive and noncognitive domains. Our findings support the premise that CT-STEM can significantly enhance the development of students’ cognitive and noncognitive skills through near and far transfer. In addition, we provide a simple hierarchical structure that integrates cognitive and noncognitive domains through a transfer perspective (see Table  3 ). This structure can guide researchers in systematically classifying and identifying measurable constructs, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of student learning in CT-STEM.

Analysis of moderators provides actionable guidance for CT-STEM instructional design to capitalize on positive transfer effects. For overall and near-transfer effects, we encourage early integration of CT into individual and iSTEM disciplines through informed designed activities. We show that smaller class sizes (under 50 students), interventions lasting one week to one month, and strategic selection of instructional methods like computational modeling promote more effective transference (see Tables 5 and 7 ). Consequently, we recommend that educators and instructional designers prioritize creating collaborative learning environments using both in-person, hybrid, and online collaborative platforms, reducing logistical issues and allowing for closer monitoring of group interactions and timely feedback. Flexible curriculum design, with durations ranging from intensive one-week modules to longer month-long projects, is key to maximizing transference learning effects. Given computational modeling’s central role in STEM (NGSS Lead States, 2013 ), we encourage educators looking to integrate CT into classroom teaching to consider it as a primary entry point. To support far-transfer, educators need to develop age-appropriate content and activities that align with students’ cognitive development progression (Zhang and Nouri, 2019 ), alongside fostering a collaborative culture that nurtures social skills. For instructional models that have shown the greatest effect sizes (see Table  8 ), we strongly encourage teachers, especially those with prior experience in CT integration, to develop instructional models based on engineering design processes (Wiebe et al., 2020 ) that engage students in problem-solving and the creation of creative artifacts to foster their higher-order thinking skills.

This systematic literature review and meta-analysis examined the cognitive and noncognitive benefits of CT-STEM’s transfer effects. Analyzing 96 effect sizes from 37 qualifying studies, we found: (a) 36 distinct CT-STEM benefits across four categories, namely, CNT, CFT, NCNT, and NCFT; (b) CT-STEM had overall medium and significant impacts on four categories of benefits ( g  = 0.601); (c) the effect size of near-transfer ( g  = 0.645) was greater than that of far-transfer ( g  = 0.444), and cognitive benefits ( g  = 0.628) consistently showed a larger effect size than noncognitive benefits ( g  = 0.510); (d) educational level, sample size, instructional strategy, and intervention duration significantly moderated both overall and near-transfer effects, while far-transfer effects were significantly moderated only by educational level and sample size. Our findings provide a roadmap for curriculum designers and teachers to more effectively and efficiently integrate CT into STEM education at all grade levels, enhancing student development of both cognitive and noncognitive skills.

This study has several limitations. Although it uses a comprehensive review of the literature across seven databases, some specialized sources might have been overlooked. This highlights the need for future research to include more specialized/professional databases for an additional understanding of CT-STEM’s transfer effects. While the standardization of effect sizes and moderator analysis helped to mitigate potential biases from diverse study designs, further methodological enhancements are warranted in future studies. The findings on noncognitive benefits through far transfer (NCFT), such as social competencies, are limited by the nature of the research dataset and the limited research available (Lai & Wong, 2022 ; Lai et al., 2023 ). This indicates a need for the rigorous development of measurement tools and instructional designs in this area. Finally, we investigated six moderators within CT-STEM but did not examine aspects like curriculum characteristics and teachers’ experience. These areas, due to their qualitative nature and infrequent reporting in our sample studies, were not included but are significant avenues for future research. Despite these limitations, the study’s contributions are significant, as it systematically elucidates the cognitive and noncognitive benefits from CT-STEM transfer effects and provides robust evidence. The identified moderators aid educators in facilitating the occurrence of transfer within classroom teaching.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Li, Z., Oon, P.T. The transfer effect of computational thinking (CT)-STEM: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. IJ STEM Ed 11 , 44 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-024-00498-z

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