Teaching Students to Write Literature Reviews: A Meta-Analytic Model

Abstract

We present an integrated model for teaching students to write psychology literature reviews. Students receive instruction in a sophomore-level research methods class about 5 writing tasks: (a) focusing research topics by linking several variables in a computer literature search, (b) systematically coding information from selected studies, (c) developing common measures to describe outcomes in the selected studies, (d) searching for potential variables that moderate those outcomes, and (e) evaluating research quality. We use these tasks, derived from meta-analysis, to teach students to write creative, integrated literature reviews. We argue that such instruction, presented early in undergraduates' training, prepares students to write formal papers in advanced courses.