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When to rely on informal competence in synthesising research Date: Tuesday 31 January 2017 Speaker: Ingemar Bohlin, University of Gothenburg Location: Room 803, UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL Booking: Contact Ian Shemilt at [log in to unmask] to book your place Even before the term meta-analysis was coined, social scientists dissatisfied with established reviewing practices claimed that these failed to “integrate” research findings. Traditional narrative reviews, it was argued, summarised studies separately, rarely identifying patterns emerging in a body of literature as a whole. This criticism of narrative literature reviews is a recurrent one. It remains a standard argument used by advocates of meta-analysis and systematic reviews, and has been echoed by researchers developing methods for qualitative synthesis. If not to the same extent as the dominant research synthesis formats, methods for qualitative synthesis, too, rely on formalised, explicit procedures. The alleged lack of integration of research findings in informal reviews is a key argument for the entire domain of research synthesis. In this talk, I will argue that a high degree of integration is often achieved without formal tools. As an example, I will describe the use to which case studies are put in my own area, Science and Technology Studies. In this field, dominated by ethnography and other qualitative methods, conceptual frameworks are developed from case studies, then modified and refined as new cases are reported. Formal methods play no part in what is arguably a productive way of synthesising empirical findings.The extent to which similar strategies are adopted in areas producing knowledge that may be highly relevant to the practice disciplines is unclear. Practitioners of educational research, for instance, ought to be explicit about the strategies they are relying on for integrating qualitative research findings, discussing their strengths and weaknesses as compared to those of formalised methods. Part of the ongoing London Systematic Reviews and Research Use Seminars series at the UCL Institute of Education http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe [log in to unmask] Twitter @EPPICentre @IOE_SSRU These seminars aim to encourage discussion and information-sharing for those in the London area (though visitors welcome too) on methods issues in systematic reviews and the study of evidence use. Presentations will last for about 25-30 minutes to allow time for discussion.