By DalatTESOL
👉 This article walks you through each stage of conducting a systematic review—from formulating a clear research question to synthesizing findings—with real-world examples tailored for MA students in education and applied linguistics.
🧭 Why Systematic Reviews Matter
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of articles on a topic, you’re not alone. Reading widely is necessary, but synthesizing research methodically is a deeper academic practice. A systematic review does just that—it allows researchers to make sense of large bodies of evidence in a transparent, replicable, and focused way.
Systematic reviews are especially valued in evidence-informed fields such as TESOL, applied linguistics, and education. They go beyond personal judgment or anecdotal summaries by following a step-by-step protocol.
📌 What Makes It “Systematic”?
A systematic review:
- Follows a clearly defined research question
- Uses an explicit search strategy
- Sets predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria
- Screens and selects studies transparently
- Extracts data in a structured manner
- Synthesizes findings using consistent methods
1️⃣ Define a Clear Research Question
Begin with a focused, answerable question. Many researchers use frameworks like:
- PICOS: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Study design
- Or simpler WH-questions: What? Who? Where? When? How?
Example 1 (TESOL):
What interventions have improved EFL learners’ speaking fluency in Asian tertiary contexts from 2010 to 2024?
Example 2 (Applied Linguistics):
How is translanguaging theorized and implemented in classroom research from 2015–2025?
A good question avoids being too broad or too narrow and guides your entire process.
2️⃣ Build a Comprehensive Search Strategy
This is your roadmap to finding all relevant studies. You should:
- Select major academic databases (e.g., Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, ProQuest)
- Use Boolean operators like
AND,OR,NOTto combine keywords - Include synonyms and variations
Example Search String (Scopus):
TITLE-ABS-KEY ( "translanguaging" OR "multilingual practices" )
AND TITLE-ABS-KEY ( "classroom" OR "pedagogy" OR "teaching" )
AND PUBYEAR > 2014 AND PUBYEAR < 2026
🧠 What’s grey literature?
This refers to non-peer-reviewed work (e.g., theses, reports, conference papers). For student reviews, prioritize peer-reviewed articles, unless otherwise instructed.
3️⃣ Set Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Before reading the studies, decide what counts. This keeps your process objective and replicable.
Inclusion example (AI in TESOL):
- Empirical studies published 2022–2025
- Focus on ChatGPT or AI in ELT
- Peer-reviewed journal articles
Exclusion example:
- Non-empirical work (commentaries, editorials)
- Studies not involving learners directly
- Articles not in English
🎯 Make these criteria public in your method section.
4️⃣ Screen and Select Studies
Here’s where you start filtering:
- Remove duplicates
- Screen titles and abstracts
- Read full texts
- Keep a log of decisions (e.g., in Excel or Zotero)
You can use the PRISMA flow diagram to report this visually.
Example Flow:
- 325 articles found
- 88 duplicates removed
- 237 screened
- 45 read in full
- 20 retained for review
5️⃣ Extract Data and Evaluate Study Quality
Create a data extraction table like this:
| Author | Year | Context | Sample | Method | Key Findings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nguyen & Le | 2023 | Vietnam | 120 uni students | Mixed methods | ChatGPT helped improve writing fluency but hindered originality |
📋 For graduate-level work, a simplified quality appraisal might include:
- Clarity of research question
- Justified sampling
- Trustworthiness of methods
- Validity of conclusions
More advanced reviews may use tools like:
- CASP (qualitative)
- MMAT (mixed-methods)
- RoB-2 (quantitative bias risk)
6️⃣ Synthesize the Findings
Now comes the intellectual heavy lifting.
a. Narrative Synthesis
Most common in linguistics and education.
- Group findings by theme, context, or intervention
- Highlight patterns and gaps
Example:
“Of the 20 studies, 14 reported increased motivation when using AI for speaking tasks. However, only 2 used longitudinal designs, limiting our understanding of sustained impacts.”
b. Thematic Synthesis
Useful for reviews with qualitative studies. You can:
- Identify recurring themes
- Quote authors’ findings
- Link back to theory
c. Meta-analysis
This statistical method combines numerical data across studies (e.g., effect sizes).
💡 Rare in MA theses due to data demands.
📘 Reporting Structure
Structure your write-up clearly:
- Introduction
- Why this topic?
- Research question(s)
- Methodology
- Databases, search terms
- Inclusion/exclusion criteria
- PRISMA diagram
- Results
- Number of studies
- Summary tables
- Themes or findings
- Discussion
- Patterns
- Methodological issues
- Research gaps
- Conclusion
- What’s known?
- What’s missing?
- What should future studies do?
🪞Real Student Example
MA Student: Lan Phuong
Topic: Systematic review of translanguaging in Southeast Asian EMI classrooms
Findings:
- 15 empirical studies found (2015–2024)
- Most studies explored teacher beliefs; few explored learner agency
- No studies in Lao or Cambodian contexts
- Review helped her frame her own study on Vietnamese EMI learners’ translanguaging practices
🚫 Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- ❌ Research question too vague
- ❌ Inclusion/exclusion criteria unclear
- ❌ Poor tracking of excluded studies
- ❌ Overclaiming based on low-quality evidence
- ❌ Mixing systematic and narrative styles without transparency
🧠 Final Reflection Activity
Choose one topic you care about in applied linguistics. Draft:
- One focused research question
- Three keywords
- Basic inclusion/exclusion criteria
- Conduct a Google Scholar search
- What are your initial impressions?
📚 Further Reading
- Cong-Lem, N. (2024). A Comprehensive guide to conducting systematic reviews. In Considerations and Techniques for Applied Linguistics and Language Education Research (pp. 115-135). IGI Global.
- Siddaway, A. P., Wood, A. M., & Hedges, L. V. (2019). How to do a systematic review: a best practice guide for conducting and reporting narrative reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses. Annual review of psychology, 70(1), 747-770.
- Tricco, A. C., Lillie, E., Zarin, W., O’brien, K., Colquhoun, H., Kastner, M., … & Straus, S. E. (2016). A scoping review on the conduct and reporting of scoping reviews. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 16, 1-10.