The Quality and Credibility of Research Reviews: What the Editors Say

Abstract

This research examines the comments on research reviews of a group of editors of journals that focus on summaries and integrations of theoretical and empirical research in education and psychology. The issues that review editors find important in review manuscripts coincide with their beliefs about what makes reviews credible. Editors value clarity in all aspects of the research review and believe that the use of scholarly and replicable methods for summarizing primary research promotes the credibility of reviews. These same issues have also been identified as important in the evaluation of reports of primary research and are mentioned in the literature on methods for research reviews.