Abstract
A taxonomy of literature reviews in education and psychology is presented. The taxonomy categorizes reviews according to: (a) focus; (b) goal; (c) perspective; (d) coverage; (e) organization; and (f) audience. The seven winners of the American Educational Research Association’s Research Review Award are used to illustrate the taxonomy’s categories. Data on the reliability of taxonomy codings when applied by readers is presented. Results of a survey of review authors provides baseline data on how frequently different types of reviews appear in the education and psychology literature. How the taxonomy might help in judging the quality of literature reviews is discussed, along with more general standards for evaluating reviews.
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He has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, and a visiting professor at the University of Oregon. He has published articles on numerous facets of research integration and has coauthored nearly a dozen substantive reviews. He has recently completed a research synthesis on homework sponsored by the NSF. In addition to research reviewing, he does research on teacher expectation effects. Dr. Cooper was the first recipient of the American Educational Research Association’s Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award for Programmatic Research.
This paper was presented as an invited address to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1985, under the title “The Literature Review: Knowledge Synthesis Activities in Education and Psychology.” Preparation of the paper was supported by National Institute of Education grant #NIE-G-82-0022, though the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of NIE.
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Cooper, H.M. Organizing knowledge syntheses: A taxonomy of literature reviews. Knowledge in Society 1, 104 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03177550
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03177550