Research: Scoping Reviews in Social Work: Types of Reviews

Types of Reviews

Reviews can have different structures and goals. The primary forms of reviews in our discipline are literature reviews and systematic reviews:

A literature review provides a reader with a critical overview of the sources relevant to a specific research subject, question, or idea. In writing a literature review, it is important to contextualize each resource, evaluate the content, and provide a critical analysis of the strengths, contributions, and issues. A guide to writing literature reviews is available here.

A scoping review is a more detailed review than a literature review using basic inclusion and exclusion criteria. We are providing a summary of scholarship related to a research topic or question, without providing a clinical analysis that a more rigorous scoping review tends to provide. A guide to writing scoping reviews is available here.

A systematic review uses a specific methodology to identify all relevant studies on a specific topic and then select appropriate studies based on very specific criteria for inclusion/exclusion. By having transparent frameworks, systematic reviews seek to be verifiable and reproducible. Systematic reviews in the discipline can often include statistical analysis techniques. A guide to writing systematic reviews is available here.

A comprehensive list of all the types of reviews you might encounter as a social science researcher and their search strategies is available here.

Literature Review vs. Systematic Review

The following chart can guide you through deciding if a literature review, scoping review, or systematic review is right for you.

	Literature Review	Scoping Review	Systematic Review
Definition	Can be a broad or topic of research Collect and interpret studies Qualitatively summarizes evidence on a topic using informal or subjective methods	Can be a broad or focused research question Overview of primary research Identifies the existing evidence relating to a topic without providing a clinical answer	Very focused research question High-level overview of primary research Identifies, selects, synthesizes, and appraises all high quality research evidence relevant to the research question
Goals	Provide a summary or overview of a topic	Crafts a detailed overview of the existing research on a topic	Answer a focused clinical question Eliminate all bias
Question	Can be a generated topic or a specific question	Can be narrow to broad	Clearly defined and answerable clinical question PICO (Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) framework often used as a guide
Number of Authors	One or more	One or more	At least two, ideally three Multiple authors aims to eliminate bias
Timeline	Days to months	Weeks to months	Months to years
Requirements	Demonstrate foundational understanding of topic Perform search of at least one database	Demonstrate understanding of big conversations surrounding your research topic Perform search of at least one database	Demonstrate advanced knowledge of topic Perform searches of all relevant databases Statistical analysis (for meta-analysis)
Value	Provides summary literature on a topic	Provides an understanding of existing scholarship and gaps surrounding a research question	Connects practitioners to high-quality evidence Supports evidence-based practice.

Adopted and reformatted for social science analysis purposes from: Kysh, Lynn (2013): Difference between a systematic review and a literature review. Figshare. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.766364.v1

A comprehensive list of all the types of reviews you might encounter as a social science researcher and their search strategies is available here.

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