Call for papers: Leveraging systematic review databases to illuminate psychological phenomena

• Blair T. Johnsonopens in new window

The past decade has seen an increase in the number and scope of systematic reviews alongside syntheses of larger and more complex sources of evidence. Fortunately, a growing emphasis on open science practices has led to greater availability of the source data from published systematic reviews, often including meta-analytic databases. Psychological Bulletin announces an ongoing special section for creative extensions of archived databases that use developments in the methodology for systematic review and research synthesis (including not only statistical or quantitative methods for meta-analysis, but also qualitative and mixed methods evidence synthesis) to illuminate psychological phenomena. Submissions must clearly demonstrate the relevance of methods discussed for researchers conducting a systematic review of psychological constructs, such as by reanalyzing data from a previously published review or supplementing an existing database by coding further variables. Submissions must provide clear and broadly accessible explanations of methodology, suitable for a reader with basic statistical training. Generally, we will not accept submissions that propose novel analytic methods or present work that is primarily methodological in its focus (e.g., simulation studies evaluating/comparing different statistical techniques). Such work is better suited for Psychological Methods or similar journal outlets.

Otherwise, we expect submissions for this special section to fall within Psychological Bulletin’s aims and scope. Briefly, the Bulletin publishes evidence syntheses of research in scientific psychology. Evidence syntheses seek to summarize past research by drawing overall conclusions from many separate investigations that address related or identical hypotheses.

A research synthesis typically presents the authors’ assessments:

• (a) of the state of knowledge concerning the relations of interest;
• (b) of critical assessments of the strengths and weaknesses in past research; and
• (c) of important issues that research has left unresolved, thereby directing future research so it can yield the most valuable knowledge about psychological phenomena.

Authors should examine recent articles published as part of this special section to judge whether to request that a submission be considered for it. All articles should consider how past reviews' conclusions change and/or are enriched when a new approach is taken.

In the first years of this special section, reviewers have pursued strategies such as:

• (a) adding additional moderators not considered by the original authorship teams;
• (b) employing new methods that permit inferences that older methods could not reach;
• (c) comparing and contrasting outcomes as a function of a particular intervention or set of interventions;
• (d) creating a mixed-methods systematic review by combining results from reviews both of quantitative and of qualitative results;
• (e) updating a literature with new studies (and usually with new moderator dimensions); and
• (f) other strategies (including more than one of the above).

Prospective authors should note that the older a leveraged database is, the less likely it is to give results of contemporary value; nonetheless, even older databases might be of substantive value if the reanalysis is coupled somehow with more contemporary databases focused on the phenomenon of interest. Submissions are handled following the same process as regular submissions to the journal.