You are expected to engage in independent study. This will take the form of undertaking follow-up tasks, reflecting on own practice, reading relevant literature, and engaging with online materials through the universities virtual learning environment (VLE), Blackboard. You will be expected to keep up to date with current business and management practices through various websites and academic journals.

This module introduces you to the practice of systematic review of existing evidence, offering a detailed account of the design challenges that inform this method of practice evaluation. It will help you to:

Critically evaluate the foundations of an effective question for a systematic review.

Understand the steps of systematic review as part of your research design

Define inclusion and exclusion criteria and the surveying of literature.

Undertake different types of meta-analysis and synthesis of literature.

Understand the reporting demands of systematic reviews.

Produce a written assignment that confirms the formulation of a search criterion describing key steps of a search protocol, inclusion and deletion of related papers and assess the quality of included studies.



This assessment will address Learning Outcomes 1 to 4

1. Demonstrate an understanding of how a systematic review can be integrated into your research design and the area of your professional practice

Knowledge and Understanding

2. Critically analyse steps of systematic review and how you would apply it in your own research project to inform the research aims & objectives

Analysis

3. Generate a critical evaluation of the process of systematic literature review and its underpinning assumptions..

Enquiry

4. Critically reflect on the subject position of the researcher, their own experiences and sense-making, in the process of systematic review.

Reflection

Books

Cherry, G., Boland, A., and Dickson, R. (2023). Doing a Systematic Review: A Student’s Guide, London: Sage.



Pursel, E. and McCrae, N. (2024) How to Perform a Systematic Literature Review, London: Springer.



Booth, A., Sutton, A., Clowes, M., Martyn-St. James, M. (2021) Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review, London: Sage.



Hart, C. (2025). Doing a literature review: Releasing the Research Imagination, 3rd edition, London: Sage


Gough, D., Oliver, S. & Thomas, J. (2017) An Introduction to Systematic Reviews, London: Sage.



Vaughan, L. (2019). Practice-based Design Research, Bloomsbury

At the end of this module, you will have the ability to undertake a systematic review of existing evidence, furthering your understanding of how to establish the boundaries of knowledge and practice. You will be provided with the skills and capabilities to undertake and critically analyse the steps and underpinning methodologies of a systematic review in relation to your identified research area.