Page 18 - TEST_MONOGRAPH 2018_+cover_Float

Table 1-2
Definitions of Different Types of Research Syntheses
Type of Research
Synthesis Definition

Narrative Reviews Narrative, or traditional literature reviews “attempt to identify what has been written
on a subject or topic, using which methodologies, on what sample or populations, and
what findings” (Davies, 2000, p. 367)
Summative Summative or state-of-the-art reviews include some type(s) of quantification of research
Reviews in terms of the number of studies or findings according to type of intervention, settings,
research designs, study participants, study results, or some other relevant intervention or
study feature (Grant & Booth, 2009)
Systematic Systematic reviews are research syntheses where “there is a comprehensive search
Reviews for relevant studies on a specific topic, and those identified are then appraised and
synthesized according to a predetermined explicit method” (Klassen, Jahad, & Moher,
1998, p. 701)
Meta-Analyses A meta-analysis is a particular type of systematic review where effect sizes are used
for assessing the relationship between a practice and outcome where the combined
effect size of results from a number of studies of the same or similar practice are used to
estimate the average effect of a practice (Shadish & Haddock, 2009)

4.3. Lack of Adherence to Product Design none of the 2014 recommended practices include head-
Considerations ings consistent with product design research evidence.
Crowder (2015), Kintsch (1998), and Schwartz
Research on written material indicates that different (2014) among others (e.g., Lohr & Gall, 2008) noted that
sets of materials organized and formatted in the same the way in which written material is formatted influences
way facilitates understanding, learning, memory, recall, text processing and understanding. Written material for-
and performance (e.g., Crowder, 2015; Druckman & matted in the same or a parallel manner facilitates text
Bjork, 1994; Schwartz, 2014). Research on product de- processing, understanding, and mastery (Kintsch, 1994).
sign indicates that the ways in which written material is According to Schwartz (2014), formatting written mate-
organized and formatted matters a great deal if written
information is easily to be understood and used (Lemarié
et al., 2012; Lohr & Gall, 2008). The 2014 DEC rec- 10
ommended practices fail to adhere to a number of basic 9 Meta-Analyses Systematic Reviews
design principles (Lidwell, Holden, & Butler, 2003). 8
Headings serve as signaling devices, where salient 7
headings function as cues that cause readers to attend to
and anticipate the content of written text (Lemarié et al., 6
2012). The more descriptive a heading, the more likely NUMBER OF CITATIONS 5
it will influence text processing. Single word headings 4
provide the least amount of descriptive information,
whereas multiword headings have increased commu- 3
nicative value. Except for Teaming and Collaboration, 2
all of the 2014 DEC recommended practices have single 1
word headings which is inconsistent with research on ef- 0
fective written material preparation (Lohr & Gall, 2008).
Consider, for example, Instruction vs. Instructional
Practices, a simple but important difference. As noted by
Lemarié et al. (2012), Instructional Practices is the type
of heading that is both visually salient and “more likely TOPIC AREAS
to have different effects on text processing” (p. 14). Par- Figure 1-3. Number of systematic reviews and meta-
enthetically, the 2000 DEC recommended practices all analyses cited as evidence for the 2014 DEC recom-
include visually salient headings (e.g., Recommended mended practices by each of the DEC Topic Area
Practices in Child-Focused Interventions), whereas Workgroup leaders.

10