Missed opportunities in health care education evidence synthesis

Enhancing the connection between the classroom and the clinical workplace: A systematic review

“…It is recognized that secondary research ought to extend beyond evaluating the effectiveness of interventions into richer descriptions about why, when, where and how educational interventions work [19]. However, before this can occur, primary research needs to incorporate the relevant details that give shape and context to their findings, which in turn will provide the firm ground upon which secondary research can construct a synthesis of ‘clarification research’ [20].…”

“…The urge to answer questions about why, when, where and how educational interventions work guided this systematic review [18, 19]. Those systematic reviews which solely focus on ‘whether’ an educational intervention was effective have been criticized for their limited relevance within medical education [18].…”

Enhancing the impact of BEME systematic reviews on educational practice

“…(Gordon et al 2014). In medical education systematic reviews focussed on a type of teaching or learning, focussing on whether teaching works (justification) and completely ignoring what works, for whom, in what circumstances (description of factors associated to positive or negative outcomes) (Cook et al 2008) risks under-utilising the significant investment of time and resource needed to complete such reviews.…”

New opportunities in health care education evidence synthesis

“…Editor-We would like to join the conversation started by Gordon et al 1 about theoretical and conceptual developments in systematic review by drawing readers' attention to a suite of qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) methodologies. These, we suggest, offer a toolbox which takes medical educationalists into areas of education in which randomised controlled trials, with their methodological restrictions, cannot go.…”

“…They have in common the systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of results from diverse studies. Qualitative evidence synthesis addresses the concerns of Gordon et al 1 by including research evidence that is typically disqualified from quantitative-only methodologies.…”