Assignment 2: Critical review: Synthesising research evidence to inform practice

1. HAND IT IN ON TIME! because another reviewer student is depending on you. Please don’t make them late.

2. State only the assignment number only in the file name and document. Do not use a cover page.

3. Absolutely do not put your name inside the document. This WORD document will be read by both your marker (for assignment 2) and an anonymous student peer reviewer (for assignment 3). When submitting a paper for publishing, you need to ensure that this kind of blind review is possible. You will lose marks if your name appears inside the assignment or filename. In the real world, your work would automatically be rejected if your name appears inside the submission.

Synthesising evidence for practice: Integrative Review Completion (Approximately 3,000-4,000 words, as needed, since there will be many citations taking up word count)

Students must complete an Integrative literature review of primary research evidence on a topic of choice. This is a first rough draft of what will be your assignment 4.

***You will NOT be doing a Systematic Review (it must have more than one author for ‘peer review’ element) and NOT a Scoping Review (recent changes in methodology prohibit the critical appraisal/synthesis/thematic analysis steps, thus you cannot answer the marking rubric later).***

Students will identify an issue of controversy or interest from current or past professional practice. Students will then conduct a literature review involving findings from published primary research studies. Concentrate on qualitative and mixed methods research. This excludes Systematic Reviews and other literature reviews being used as evidence. Students will be required to make recommendations for practice change based on their review. You will reuse Assignment 1 for this assignment, and then reuse the writing in this assignment 2, with changes based on the feedback, for Assignment 4. You will need a minimum of 8-10 articles for your work, but you will find it easier to get better marks if you have up to 20 articles.

Please find attached documents you may find helpful as you prepare your assignment. The examples from previous students are of their final versions of the critical review for the topic. I have included these, rather than their initial critical review versions, to provide clear examples of each of the sections that are required in the review. Please also find included an Assignment 2 marking guide and  a video commentary of the Assignment 2 marking guide. Submit a Word document, not pdf, so you can receive comments.