what is the importance of literature review in educational research

McCombes, S. (2023, January 02). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Shona McCombes

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Need, Importance and 5 Sources of Review of Related Literature in Educational Research

Back to: Introduction to Educational Research Methodology

Educational research means the organized collection and examination of the data related to education. It is a scientific study that examines the learning and teaching methods for better understanding of the education system. It is an observation and investigation in the field of education. Research is done in search of new knowledge or to use the existing knowledge in a better way. It helps to acquire useful knowledge and solve the challenges faced in education. Research tries to get a better understanding of education.

Literature review means the overview of the works published previously on a subject matter. It is the summary of the work done by other authors on a topic. Literature review will help a researcher in understanding how to carry on the research and what needs to be covered.

Need of Reviewing Related Literature

i. Avoid repetition and duplication of the study.

ii. Find out the gaps in research.

iii. Identify the additional research needed to be done.

iv. Gain extensive knowledge on a particular topic.

v. Help understand what has already been covered about a topic and the findings need to be done for future research.

Importance of Review of Related Literature

i. Help researchers to understand their topic of interest in-depth.

ii. Help to identify the gaps uncovered by previous authors on a topic and collect relevant data.

iii. Get an understanding of how to carry on the research.

Five Sources to Review Related Literature

Scholarly journal articles.

Journal articles are an important source of literature review. It helps to understand how to carry out the research and the findings to be done.

Government websites

To collect statistical data, government websites can be very beneficial as it can provide a lot of information. Government websites are another important source of literature review.

Academic books

Academic books consist of works written by several authors. It contains original work which will be very helpful in literature review.

Conference pages

Conference and seminar reports are also an important source of literature review to understand the thoughts of authors and works previously published in a field of study.

Libraries contain numerous books and works on a topic by different authors. Plenty of information and facts can be obtained from this source of literature review.

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Importance of Literature Review

research proposal as a problem to investigate, it usually has to be fairly narrow and focused, and because of this it can be difficult to appreciate how one's research subject is connected to other related areas. Therefore, the overall purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate this, and to help the reader to understand how your study fits into a broader context. This paper seeks to examine this topic of literature review, its significance and role in research proposal and report. It will start by explaining in detail what literature is; by citation of different scholars and its constituent components, such as the theoretical framework. Thereafter, it will look at the importance of literature review and its role in research proposals and reports. Finally, a conclusion will be written based on this topic. A Literature Review is a critical review of existing knowledge on areas such as theories, critiques, methodologies, research findings, assessment and evaluations on a particular topic. A literature review involves a critical evaluation identifying similarities and differences between existing literatures and the work being undertaken. It reviews what have already been done in the context of a topic. Therefore, on the basis of the existing knowledge, people can build up innovative idea and concept for further research purpose (Cooper, 1998). In doing empirical literature review is reading reports of other relevant studies conducted by different researchers. In doing so, a researcher gets knowledge and experiences that were established by other researchers when conducting their studies. While Conceptual framework is a set of coherent ideas or concepts organised in a manner that makes them easy to communicate to others. It represents less formal structure and used for specific concepts and propositions derived from empirical observation and intuition (ibid). According Aveyard, H. (2010) Theoretical framework is a theoretical perspective. It can be simply a theory, but can also be more general a basic approach to understanding something. Typically, a theoretical framework consists of concepts, together with their definitions, and existing framework must demonstrate an understanding of theories, and existing framework demonstrate an understanding of theories and concepts that are relevant to the topic of your research proposal and that will relate it to the broader fields of knowledge in the class you are taking.

The quality and success of scholarly work depends in large measure on the quality of the literature review process. This paper advances conceptual understanding of the literature review process and extends earlier guidelines on literature reviews. It proposes a hermeneutic framework that integrates the analysis and interpretation of literature and the search for literature. This hermeneutic framework describes the literature review process as fundamentally a process of developing understanding that is iterative in nature. Using the hermeneutic circle it describes the literature review process as being constituted by literature searching, classifying and mapping, critical assessment, and argument development. The hermeneutic approach emphasizes continuous engagement with and gradual development of a body of literature during which increased understanding and insights are developed. The paper contributes to better understanding of the literature review process and provides guidelines to assist researchers in conducting high quality reviews. Approaches for efficient searching are included in an Appendix.

• Learning outcomes • The nature of a literature review • Identifying the main subject and themes • Reviewing previous research • Emphasizing leading research studies • Exploring trends in the literature • Summarizing key ideas in a subject area • Summary A literature review is usually regarded as being an essential part of student projects, research studies and dissertations. This chapter examines the reasons for the importance of the literature review, and the things which it tries to achieve. It also explores the main strategies which you can use to write a good literature review.

Chitu Okoli

Spyros Kitsiou

In this article we develop a typology of review types and provide a descriptive insight into the most common reviews found in top IS journals. Our assessment reveals that the number of IS reviews has increased over the years. The majority of the 139 reviews are theoretical in nature, followed by narrative reviews, meta-analyses, descriptive reviews, hybrid reviews, critical reviews, and scoping reviews. Considering the calls for IS research to develop a cumulative tradition, we hope more review articles will be published in the future and encourage researchers who start a review to use our typology to position their contribution.

Proceedings of the International Conference …

Fernando Almeida

The systematic review of the literature is a fundamental methodology for analyzing critically the existing literature on a given research theme. They are designed to be methodical, replicable and guide the author in identifying the main lines of investigation and conclusions in each scientific domain and, in addition, help them in the identification of new directions of research. However, the systematic review process is typically viewed as too heterogeneous, complex and time-consuming. In this sense, it is pertinent to propose a new approach for conducting systematic reviews that may be more agile, not only in terms of development, but also in the analysis of the results of a systematic review process. This article presents a canvas framework for conducting a systematic review composed of nine blocks and based on a set of identified good practices found in the literature, in which it is possible to easily identify all the steps of the process, options taken, and main results.

Rebekka Tunombili

rahman london

Omed Bapir Sabir Sadq

PhD Thesis @uO Research

Baha Abu-Shaqra

research methodology

Musangamfura Vincent

Journal of Asian Development

Erni Murniarti

Nur Azaliah Abu Bakar

Dr Haradhan K U M A R Mohajan

Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology

Pantaleo Rwelamila

David Ahlstrom

UNISA UNIVERSITY (UNISA)

Dr Dr Motsamai John Modise MJ

Elvis Nguelela , Marie Ferru-Clément

Wan Mohd Farid Wan Yusof

Steven Van Hook

shadreck phiri chisulo

khaleel Roberts

Shaofeng Li

CC The Journal: A Multidisciplinary Research Review

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Systematic review article, developing a cvtae-based conceptual framework for examining emotions in higher education teaching: a systematic literature review.

A number of studies on higher education (HE) teachers' emotions have been carried out, but overall, the literature on this issue is relatively limited, even though HE teaching can be regarded as an emotional endeavor and represents an important topic in HE research. The main goal of this article was to develop a conceptual framework for examining teaching-related emotions of HE teachers by revising and extending the control-value theory of achievement emotions (CVTAE) developed to systematically classify existing findings on emotions in HE teachers and to identify a research agenda for future studies in this field. Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review on empirical studies investigating HE teachers' teaching-related emotions to gain insights into (1) the theoretical concepts and approaches used to study HE teachers' emotions as well as the (2) antecedents and (3) consequences of experienced emotions identified in the existing studies. By applying a systematic literature review, 37 studies were found. Based on the conducted systematic review, we propose a CVTAE-based conceptual framework for examining HE teachers' emotions in HE teaching with additional components relating to both antecedents and consequences of HE teachers' experienced emotions. We discuss the proposed conceptual framework from the theoretical perspective, pointing out new aspects that should be considered in future research on HE teachers' emotions. From the methodological perspective, we address aspects related to research designs and mixed-method approaches. Finally, we list implications for future higher education development programs.

1. Introduction

Although a growing body of research concerning the emotions of schoolteachers has been conducted over the last 20 years, the emotions of teachers in higher education (HE) have been of little interest to researchers thus far. In 2007, Pekrun stated, “To date, next to nothing is known about professors' emotions experienced in classroom teaching, and the role these emotions play in the quality of their teaching, their professional development, and their wellbeing, burnout, and physical health” (p. 604) ( Pekrun, 2007 ). We argue that HE teachers' emotions should be acknowledged in research because emotions guide behavior and are thus likely to influence the quality of teaching and, as a result, the learning outcomes of HE students. In addition, emotions are linked to personal wellbeing. These associations have been repeatedly confirmed for schoolteachers ( Frenzel, 2014 ), but research on HE teachers is comparatively scarce. We further propose that teaching-related emotions of HE teachers could be particularly salient, as academics must negotiate the demands of multiple roles simultaneously (e.g., Lai et al., 2014 ), which could be especially emotionally taxing owing to the potential tensions arising between the different roles (e.g., Avargues Navarro et al., 2010 ). Additionally, HE teachers frequently do not have (much) professional education in the teaching domain and are thus, at best, loosely formally guided in their professionalization processes. It should also be noted that the pressure on HE teachers due to (mandatory) student evaluations is intense and unrelenting (e.g., Roxå and Mårtensson, 2011 ), in particular when such evaluations co-determine a teacher's academic career. This is likely to cause various negative emotional side effects and tensions, especially for those who have a strong teaching orientation, but are compelled to enhance their research at the same time. In sum, the above-mentioned studies underline the variability of factors linked to teaching-related emotions of HE teachers and make the systematic examination of theoretical approaches and empirical findings touching upon the emotional experiences of HE teachers an important agenda in HE research.

Among existing theoretical models that have been used for examining emotions experienced in achievement and academic settings (e.g., Fredrickson, 2001 ; Scherer, 2005 ; Gross, 2010 ), the most prominent one is the control-value theory of academics emotions (CVTAE, Pekrun, 2006 ). This theory was developed based on appraisal-orientated approaches to emotions ( Moors et al., 2013 ). It explains (achievement) emotions in educational settings and has been frequently applied in conjunction with the emotions of school students and HE students. This theory states that emotions are evoked based on two antecedent appraisals, namely control and value appraisals. If learners perceive the environment as controllable and (intrinsically) valuable , positive emotions typically occur (e.g., enjoyment). Conversely, if an environment or learning activity is experienced as uncontrollable and relevant, negative emotions usually result (e.g., anxiety or hopelessness). As a consequence, these emotions influence attitudinal changes, motivational, cognitive, and regulatory processes, implying different types of attempts to manage the emerging emotions.

Although CVTAE provides a solid basis for studying emotions in academic contexts and for classifying antecedents and consequences of affective experiences, it focuses predominantly on the affective phenomena of learners. Therefore, a specification and elaboration of a modified conceptual framework including the revision of existing theoretical approaches such as CVTAE seem to be necessary for a systematic examination of various factors connected to the emergence and processing as well as the consequences of emotions experienced by HE teachers. Consequently, we seek to review the existing empirical studies on teaching-related emotions of HE teachers systematically, considering both theoretical approaches and findings in order to extend the CVTAE into a modified conceptual framework that reflects aspects specific to teaching-related emotions within the HE context. Based on the modified conceptual framework, a broader picture can be painted to obtain a systematic and holistic overview of what is already known about HE teachers' emotions and what aspects of teaching-related emotions of HE teachers are still underrepresented in the current studies. Furthermore, methodological issues of research on teaching-related emotions of HE teachers could be analyzed and implications for teaching development programs could be derived.

2. Research questions and aim of the study

The main goal of this review was to revise the CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) to modify the conceptual framework for examining HE teachers' teaching-related emotions by classifying antecedents and consequences specific to HE teachers' emotions. For this purpose, we identified the following research questions for our systematic literature review, including both theoretical issues and empirical findings touching upon HE teachers' teaching-related emotions.

First, we sought to gain insight into the theories and models of emotions used to study the emotions of HE teachers and to check for CVTAE in particular ( Pekrun, 2006 ).

RQ 1: How widely is CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) used as a theoretical framework for studying HE teachers' teaching-related emotions? What other theoretical concepts and approaches were used in existing studies?

Second, we were interested in antecedents linked to HE teachers' teaching-related emotional experiences.

RQ 2: What kinds of antecedents specific to teaching-related emotions experienced by HE teachers were identified in the existing research and how can the revealed antecedents be classified?

Third, we sought to investigate the consequences of the emotions experienced by HE teachers.

RQ3: What kinds of consequences were reported as being linked to the experienced teaching-related emotions in HE teachers, and how can the revealed consequences be classified?

In order to answer the research questions outlined above, we conducted a systematic literature search and a stepwise analysis of the selected studies.

3.1. Search terms and databases

An initial systematic literature search was undertaken by the main author in May 2020 in selected databases in education and psychology (ERIC, PubPsych, PsycINFO, Web of Science), following the current standards defined in the PRISMA statement ( Page et al., 2021 ). The keywords in their diverse combinations, linked with Boolean Operators (AND/OR), were “emotion,” “affect,” “emotion regulation,” “emotion management,” “HE teaching,” “HE teachers,” “higher education teaching,” “higher education teachers,” “university teaching,” “university teachers,” “university lecturers,” and “university instructors.” Furthermore, following the “standard systematic review practice” ( Petticrew and Roberts, 2006 , p. 104), experienced researchers in this research field were contacted and asked for further literature suggestions (in this case: the co-authors).

3.2. Selection criteria

Formal criteria included that articles (1) were written in English or German and (2) were published between 2000 and 2020. Several researchers around the turn of the millennium emphasized the role of emotions in school teaching as well as in HE teaching (e.g., Hargreaves, 1998 , 2000 ), but also stressed that especially the latter was a largely under-researched area ( Martin and Lueckenhausen, 2005 ). In recent years, there has been a slight increase in publications, which is why we considered it promising to investigate publications within this timespan. Regarding the study design, we picked only studies that (3) were empirical (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed method), as the aim was to provide an evidence-based overview of HE teachers' emotions. Furthermore, we selected only studies (4) whose subjects were HE teachers (and not, e.g., tutors). Regarding the content of the studies, we were solely and explicitly interested in HE teachers' teaching-related emotions. Consequently, we selected studies that (5) examined HE teachers' emotions regarding teaching and excluded studies that addressed constructs other than teaching-related emotions, such as profession-related emotions such as work satisfaction, wellbeing, stress, or burnout (e.g., Azeem and Nazir, 2008 ; Abdullah and Akhtar, 2016 ). To ensure the quality of the articles, we included only studies published in (6) peer-reviewed journals due to their trustworthiness in academia and their rigorous review processes ( Nicholas et al., 2015 ).

3.3. Study collection process and data extraction

The study collection process is graphically illustrated in a flow chart (see Figure 1 ). Altogether, 679 records were identified (239 in ERIC, 51 in PubPsych, 212 in PsycINFO, and 177 in Web of Science [including the SSCI, the SCI, and the A & HCI]). A total of 145 duplicates were removed. The examination for formal criteria lead to the exclusion of four articles (three articles were not written in English or German, and one article was published before 2000). By screening the titles and abstracts of the remaining 530 titles, 482 articles were sorted out gradually: 252 studies did not take place in an educational setting, the subjects of a further 106 articles were not HE teachers (but students or [preservice] teachers, tutors, or other faculty), 116 articles did not focus on HE teachers' emotions, and an additional eight articles were sorted out because they did not appear in peer-reviewed journals ( N = 3) or were not empirical in nature ( N = 5). The main author examined full texts of the remaining 48 articles as well as of 39 further articles that experts in this research field recommended for closer examination. If there were doubts regarding the inclusion of articles, at least two authors discussed the respective articles until a consensus was reached. A total of 50 out of these 87 studies were eventually excluded (21 from among the expert recommendations and 29 of the further articles): 26 articles only focused on related constructs (such as identity or wellbeing), 21 articles did not focus on HE teachers' teaching-related emotions, and in three other studies, no systematic observation took place. No further studies could be identified by cross-referencing the included studies. In total, 37 studies were included in this literature review. A summary of the included studies is presented in Table 1 , providing information on the research objective, sample and country, empirical approach, and data collection strategy.

Figure 1 . Flowchart of systematic literature search results, number of hits, and reasons for study exclusion.

Table 1 . Summary of empirical studies on emotions in HE teaching.

4.1. RQ 1: How widely is CVTAE used as a theoretical framework for studying HE teachers' teaching-related emotions? What other theoretical concepts and approaches were used in existing studies?

To answer RQ 1, we analyzed the theoretical concepts and approaches of emotions used in the included studies (see Table 2 ). The results showed that CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) was referred to in 10 out of the 37 included studies.

Table 2 . Theoretical concepts and approaches of emotions, indicating study authors, years of study, and the number of studies that used this concept/approach.

Regarding the understanding of what emotions are, the analysis revealed that six out of the 37 included studies that explicitly stressed their multi-componential understanding of emotions. “Multi-componential” refers to the assumption that emotions consist of various emotion components (e.g., Kleinginna and Kleinginna, 1981 ; Scherer, 2005 ), which are presumed to interact during an emotional episode. They include cognitive processes (e.g., appraisals and judgments), experiential or affective processes (e.g., positive or negative feelings), physiological processes (e.g., peripheral arousal and central nervous activation), expression (e.g., gestures and facial expressions), and behavioral tendencies (e.g., preparations for action), whereby the affective component is particularly characteristic of emotions ( Frenzel et al., 2015 ). In contrast, one of the included studies referred to a dichotomous understanding of emotions, following Kemper's theory (1978 ), which divides emotions into positive and negative emotions ( Zhang et al., 2019 ).

Two studies referred to Fredrickson's (2001) broaden-and-build theory of emotion ( Lutovac et al., 2017 ; Thies and Kordts-Freudinger, 2019a ). This theory states that experiencing positive emotions broadens one's momentary thought-action repertoires, resulting in the construction of persistent individual resources on different levels (physical, intellectual, social, and psychological). A social-psychological-orientated approach to emotions was used in three studies, insofar that the social nature of teachers' emotions was emphasized (e.g., Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne, 2011 ; Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ; Zhang et al., 2019 ). Teaching can be regarded as a social practice ( Zembylas, 2005 ), and thus teachers' emotions are not only influenced by their own individual reality but also by the social context and the relationships which are formed within it.

Thirteen studies focused on approaches related to different aspects of emotion regulation after experiencing teaching-related emotions, namely emotion regulation strategies (five studies), emotional labor or emotion work (eight studies), and emotion display rules (four studies) [note that two studies made use of all three approaches]. Emotion regulation can be described as an attempt to “influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience [them]” ( Gross, 2010 , p. 497). This includes a set of different processes on physiological, behavioral, and cognitive levels ( Gross and Thompson, 2007 ; Gross, 2010 ), in accordance with the multi-component understanding of emotions described above. These strategies include, e.g., cognitive strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal (i.e., to reinterpret or re-evaluate an emotional situation), or response-focused strategies, such as suppressing the expression of emotions. In a similar vein, emotional labor or emotion work is defined as the effort to display the emotion that is perceived as being the expected emotion (e.g., Hochschild, 1983 ). This can be achieved through one of the following coping strategies: (1) surface acting (i.e., displaying emotions that are not felt but are perceived as appropriate) or (2) deep acting (i.e., attempting to truly experience the expected emotions). The appropriate display of emotion in specific contexts and interaction settings can be defined using Ekman and Friesen's (1969) concept of “emotion display rules.” These cognitively represented rules influence the individual display of emotion in accordance with cultural and/or professional definitions of acceptable display modes for emotions (e.g., Matsumoto et al., 2008 ; Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ).

Regarding the emergence of emotions, six studies made use of appraisal theories. According to appraisal theories, an emotion is triggered by an individual's evaluation of a corresponding situation. Consequently, the same situation can cause different emotions in different people, depending on their respective appraisals (for an overview, see Moors et al., 2013 ).

No assignment to any emotion theory could be made in 10 studies. This means that the authors did not point out in an explicit manner what emotion theory or approach is applied as a theoretical framework in their studies.

In sum, 27 out of 37 included studies made use of one or more theoretical approaches when examining HE teachers' emotions. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that 10 studies used CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) as the theoretical model for investigating the emotions of HE teachers. This renders it the most widely used theory when examining HE teachers' emotions within the included studies.

Control-value theory of achievement emotions is considered a further development of frequently referenced appraisal theories with an underlying multi-componential understanding of emotions. Additionally, CVTAE allows for a precise subdivision into antecedents and consequences of emotions. On this basis, the results of studies dealing with both antecedents and consequences of HE teachers' emotions can be classified systematically, and the new dimensions specific to emotional experiences in the HE context could be added to the existing components of CVTAE. The undertaken classification of involved studies and identification of new aspects relating to antecedents and consequences of HE teachers' emotions resulted in the proposed conceptual framework ( Figure 2 ). The proposed framework demonstrates how components of the CVTAE can be extended by additional factors connected to antecedents of emotions, affective responses, and consequences of the experienced emotions for a better understanding of the unique characteristics of HE teachers' teaching-related emotions.

Figure 2 . Proposed conceptual framework on studying HE teachers' teaching-related emotions.

4.2. RQ 2: What kinds of antecedents specific to teaching-related emotions experienced by HE teachers were identified in the existing research and how can the revealed antecedents be classified?

Following the proposed framework which extends Pekrun's CVTAE (2006 ), this section is devoted to empirical results on antecedents of emotions. The findings are grouped according to the proposed conceptual framework within the section “antecedents” (cf. Figure 2 ). From the included studies, we identified different antecedents of HE teachers' emotions on the micro, macro, and meso levels (for an overview, see Fend, 2008 ) that are related to value and control appraisals of varying intensity. First, we present studies that shed light on individual factors of HE teachers on the micro level (see Section 4.2.1) because the majority of the included studies considered these factors to be relevant variables (or covariates) when analyzing HE teachers' teaching-related experienced emotions, their antecedents, and their consequences. In Section 4.2.2, we analyze results from studies focusing on environmental factors on the micro level (classroom factors on the student and interpersonal levels, see Section 4.2.2.1) and meso level (classroom factors on the structural level, see Section 4.2.2.2). According to CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ), the factors named above influence value and control appraisals and play an important role in the emergence of emotions. We additionally describe broader context factors identified in the studies as antecedents of emotions on the macro level (see Section 4.2.3).

4.2.1. Individual level of HE teachers

Flodén (2017) showed that teaching experience plays a role in the perception of feedback, indicating that HE teachers with less teaching experience were more nervous about receiving feedback and reported more negative emotions pertaining to student feedback compared to more experienced teachers. An emotion that often accompanies limited teaching experience is anxiety, or its less intensive forms reflecting fear and insecurity ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ; Meanwell and Kleiner, 2014 ), which could be explained by a lower perception of one's own control over the environment. In line with this, performance anxiety can be triggered by other emotions, such as worries about a lack of preparedness ( Quinlan, 2019 ). Related to teaching experiences in general, novel situations of any kind (e.g., teaching in a new position, applying a new teaching method or new technology, teaching a new group of students, and teaching in a new country) can evoke positive emotions (e.g., anticipatory joy), but these typically also go hand-in-hand with feelings of insecurity ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ). Comparable findings were reported by Lahtinen (2008) , who stressed that negative experiences are related to unpredictable and uncertain conditions of teaching and discrepancies in expectations and beliefs that cannot be easily managed. Regarding the use of information and communication technology (ICT), Wang (2014) found that teachers who are less familiar with technology were more nervous and anxious about using ICT in the learning context (e.g., if they were not able to fix the system by themselves). Difficulties encountered with equipment and the resulting loss of time caused frustration. In a similar vein, Bennett (2014) found some HE teachers to be frustrated, infuriated, or desperate if they perceived situations as being out of their control (e.g., if the university's system was not reliable). Furthermore, they experienced fear of exposure if they felt that their own knowledge regarding the technology was not adequate. Regan et al. (2012) confirmed these results by outlining that HE teachers felt disconnected, uncertain, and frustrated because they experienced a lack of control and sufficient technology-based knowledge. Further sources of frustration included HE teachers not being able to adapt their teaching based on students' gestures, questions, or behavior.

Attempting to enhance one's teaching practice can also be regarded as a novel situation, which also can influence the perceived control of HE teachers over their environments. Martin and Lueckenhausen (2005) explored the emotions of Australian HE teachers in one institution who were willing to adopt new teaching practices or rethink their teaching roles. Approaching new practices and roles was accompanied by a mixture of emotions, especially negative ones, such as confusion and anxiety. The emotional impact was particularly observable when the teachers adopted a more student-centered teaching approach. Moving toward a more student-centered teaching approach is a source of insecurity in terms of the more unpredictable nature of student behavior in the classroom.

In an intersectional view, Harlow (2003) showed an interaction between HE teachers' race and teaching experience: Less experienced HE teachers with an African American background reported fear, nervousness, and concern regarding “making a mistake” (p. 355). In addition to anxiety, limited teaching experience can also lead to surprising moments that may be either negatively or positively perceived. In general, first-time teachers were surprised by the high emotionality of first-time teaching ( Meanwell and Kleiner, 2014 ). However, “surprise,” but with less negativity, seems to be an emotion also prevalent in the accounts of more experienced teachers ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ; Kordts-Freudinger, 2017 ). In general, perceiving oneself as an expert in the field triggers positive emotions, such as enjoyment ( Löfström and Nevgi, 2014 ).

In some studies, a gender effect was revealed, e.g., with female teachers reporting more negative emotions associated with feedback from students ( Flodén, 2017 ). Furthermore, male HE teachers reported a slightly higher level of pleasure derived from online teaching as compared to their female counterparts ( Badia et al., 2019 ), and “new” (pre-tenured) female faculty members reported overall higher values for teaching ( Stupnisky et al., 2016 ).

Regarding the value for teaching compared to research , there are a few studies that report in part contradictory results: Thies and Kordts-Freudinger (2019b) investigated university instructors' discrete emotions and appraisal antecedents several times a day in a sample of 50 academic staff members in Germany to analyze the state-related emotion-appraisal associations throughout the workday. Their results show that enjoyment, pride, and relief were experienced with a higher intensity in the domain of teaching as compared to the domain of research. More specifically, teaching-related activities such as preparing or holding lectures seem to provoke stronger positive emotions as compared to research-related activities (e.g., the implementation and analyzing of research content). Stupnisky et al. (2019) tested a model of university instructors' discrete emotions for perceived teaching and research success using a single-measurement, retrospective questionnaire. It was shown that the sample of 312 assistant professors on the tenure track in the U.S. and Canada reported overall high levels of enjoyment, moderate levels of anxiety, and low levels of boredom in teaching and research. Furthermore, value appraisals of teaching and research were positively associated with enjoyment and negatively associated with anxiety and boredom. Differing from the results obtained by Thies and Kordts-Freudinger (2019a) , HE teachers in this study reported significantly more enjoyment in research than in teaching. However, they experienced less success in research as compared to teaching, which could also explain why faculty reported slightly more anxiety in research. Nevertheless, HE teachers in this study attributed more value to research than to teaching ( Stupnisky et al., 2019 ). Furthermore, the results of a study by Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne (2011) showed that their sample of Finnish HE teachers typically enjoyed teaching more than marking exams, theses, or doing preparation or post-processing work for their courses ( Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne, 2011 ). HE teachers in this study disliked lecturing as a particular teaching form most of all, but some teachers also disliked group methods that were activating in nature.

Teachers who express a high identification with the teaching role and who are highly committed to teaching typically express very positive emotions with regard to teaching, including passion and “love” for teaching itself, as well as for the subject they are teaching ( Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne, 2011 ; Bennett, 2014 ; Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ). In contrast, when HE scholars do not identify with the teaching role but view themselves solely as researchers, they typically experience more emotions that are negative or do not feel emotionally involved at all ( Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne, 2011 ). More specifically, Vannini (2006) found in his qualitative study on the (emotional) experience of authenticity in teaching that moments of authenticity occurred if teachers valued their teaching roles. However, only minority of the professors in the study stated that teaching was important for their identity. Furthermore, he found that mixed emotions regarding authenticity can occur if professors navigate between their different roles as researcher and teacher. If the professors in the study perceived themselves more as a researcher than a teacher, teaching could feel like a burden, accompanied by frustrated authenticity, boredom, apathy, or even disdain toward students. Regarding the teaching role in online teaching, Badia et al. (2019) associated appropriate emotions in online teaching with teachers' roles. Their results showed that satisfaction and pleasure are associated with teachers who are concerned with ensuring that learners acquire and retain knowledge. In contrast, when the acquisition of content is paramount to the teaching approach, a significant negative relationship between these two emotions was found. Hence, the understanding of roles is important in that teachers who intend to develop students' skills and want to support them find online teaching satisfactory and enjoyable. In contrast, teachers who are instead focused on content and technology aspects are more likely to feel fear and stress.

4.2.2. Environmental factors

The following two sections refer to environmental factors as antecedents of emotions, namely classroom factors. First, study results that we have assigned to classroom factors on the structural level are presented (see Section 4.2.2.1). This is followed by results on classroom factors on the student and interpersonal level (see Section 4.2.2.2).

4.2.2.1. Classroom factors on the structural level

Most important classroom factors considered from a structural perspective cover the aspects of course formats and settings including novel technology-based formats. Regarding the influence of the course format on HE teachers' emotions, Löfström and Nevgi (2014) made use of a creative approach in their study. They explored drawings by HE teachers in order to obtain an understanding of their emotions in teaching. Most of the drawings depicted positive emotions ( n = 40), followed by neutral drawings ( n = 30), drawings of mixed emotions ( n = 12), and drawings of negative emotions ( n = 4). The results showed that emotions in teaching are contextual. While positive emotions (e.g., enjoyment, contemplation, and curiosity) are mostly experienced in small group settings with engaged students and a learner-focused teaching approach, negative emotions (e.g., isolation, anxiety, and discontentment) are more likely to be experienced in lectures with a more content-focused approach due to students' lack of engagement or interest.

The course setting , i.e., teaching with new technology, was found to cause mixed emotions, with negative emotions dominating ( Regan et al., 2012 ; Bennett, 2014 ). In her study on the effect of change processes on HE teachers' emotions, Bennett (2014) found an increased fear of exposure (e.g., not knowing the correct answers to students' online questions), negative emotions due to dependence on technical systems, and fear of humiliation and ridicule (e.g., being laughed at). Potential failure to meet the institution's standards, as evidenced by negative reactions from colleagues, caused an emotional burden on those who applied technology-based teaching methods. Such a change in teaching practice may also require teachers to overcome potentially contrary institutional-cultural norms. The negative emotions found in a study by Regan et al. (2012) on distance learning included that some lecturers felt restricted because everything that they said was recorded, which was perceived as “unnerving” (p. 208); others felt isolated, supporting the importance of social interaction for HE teaching. There were also reported feelings of helplessness or insecurity when lecturers sought to adapt to the role of a “conveyor of information” (p. 210) in the distance-learning setting.

Almost all lecturers in a study on HE teachers' role changes due to the use of an asynchronous web-based learning platform reported that teaching online requires more time and effort, which in turn leads to dissatisfaction or frustration ( Coppola et al., 2002 ). However, the fact that online teaching was experienced as challenging was by no means perceived only in a negative sense. It was precisely this circumstance that stimulated enthusiasm and fascination and challenged creativity ( Coppola et al., 2002 ). Furthermore, teaching with new technology was experienced as convenient and efficient ( Coppola et al., 2002 ; Wang, 2014 ), e.g., because questions did not have to be answered multiple times ( Coppola et al., 2002 ). Wang (2014) found that HE teachers are generally satisfied when using ICT because they perceive students as more motivated and concentrated as well as being better in interactions and more willing to give answers.

4.2.2.2. Classroom factors on the student and interpersonal level

Students' behavior can have an important impact on HE teachers' emotions. In total, eight of the studies included in this review provide insights into this antecedent of emotions. Disruptive behavior in the classroom and students being late or absent were reported as sources of anger by Japanese HE teachers ( Cowie, 2011 ). In particular, students blaming the teacher in an aggressive way (e.g., for their grading) causes negative feelings in HE teachers and is perceived as a professional identity threat ( Lahtinen, 2008 ). Hagenauer and Volet (2014a) found that limited student engagement (e.g., lack of interest), as well as over-engagement (e.g., being too dominant, not willing to discuss fixed opinions in a constructive manner), can be a source of negative emotions, mainly annoyance. Similarly, Gates (2000) found that HE teachers felt irritated or angry if students behaved in a disruptive manner (e.g., arriving to class late or leaving early without notification, talking to other students instead of listening, and complaining about grades or assignments).

On the other side, students making progress or seeing students succeed was reported as a source of pleasure ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ), joy ( Myyry et al., 2020 ), satisfaction, and pride ( Vannini, 2006 ). Overall, students and their classroom behavior can challenge a teacher's feeling of passion for teaching. This is reflected in the fact that teachers' joy/passion for teaching varies across different classrooms of students ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ).

A specific emotional challenge for HE teachers arises from interactions with students who are in personal crisis ( Quinlan, 2019 ) or who exhibit mental health issues, as shown in the study by Storrie et al. (2012) on teachers mentoring a clinical practicum. Dealing with such students can evoke feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, but also fear-related feelings (e.g., due to offensive behavior).

Lahtinen (2008) argues that unrealistic expectations in teacher–student interaction can lead to negative feelings. More generally, she notes that the management of relationships between the teacher and students but also among students triggers many emotions in HE teachers (see also Cowie, 2011 ). In a similar vein, Hagenauer and Volet (2014a) determined that negative emotions arise when expectations with regard to positive teacher–student interactions (e.g., student engagement in class) are not fulfilled (see also Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ) or if students cross boundaries of the teacher–student relationship (e.g., phoning HE teachers during the weekend). Positive emotions of delight or pleasure result if expectations are fulfilled (e.g., motivated students who contribute constructively in class). Harlow (2003) showed that the quality of the teacher–student interaction and ultimately also teachers' emotions differed based on U.S. HE teachers' race, and the interaction between race and gender. HE teachers with an African American background teaching at an American university with a 90% white student population reported greater frustration but also anxiety because they perceived that their intellectual authority (competence and qualification) was more frequently challenged by student behavior (referred to as the “racial double standard”).

Both receiving feedback from students and delivering feedback to students can be regarded as an emotional issue in the teacher–student interaction. Delivering feedback to students can cause negative feedback for HE teachers if they fear that their pedagogical expertise might be questioned; such an experience can be regarded as a threat to a teacher's identity (e.g., Lahtinen, 2008 ). Furthermore, grading was experienced less joyful compared to giving formative feedback ( Myyry et al., 2020 ). Boredom was triggered by monotonous assessment methods, whereas joy was experienced if novel summative assessment methods (e.g., learning diaries) were implemented and if students or colleagues supported the assessment practice. Relief was experienced when working together with colleagues, as it enhanced constructive alignment and justice ( Myyry et al., 2020 ).

Higher education teachers reported receiving direct positive feedback from students as a source of positive emotions ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ). Furthermore, Lutovac et al. (2017) provided evidence of the relevance of student feedback for HE teachers' emotions and their professional development. Positive student feedback was experienced as encouraging, whereas negative feedback was typically perceived as emotionally daunting. Similarly, in an experimental set-up with German HE teachers, Nowakowski and Hannover (2015) determined that qualitative feedback in student evaluations had a stronger influence on emotions than the quantitative data; this was especially true when the students' remarks were negative. Using a vignette approach, Kowai-Bell et al. (2012) found correlations between anonymous ratings on the “Rate My Professors” platform and U.S. professors' (anticipated) emotions, with positive ratings leading to a positive mood and negative ratings, respectively, to a negative mood.

4.2.3. Context factors

As mentioned above, we identified broader context factors on the macro level in the included studies. These factors are related to cognitive appraisals but are also linked to the experiencing of emotions and their consequences (e.g., the expression of emotions). For this reason, the contextual factors are listed as antecedents of emotions but are separated from the environmental factors within the proposed conceptual framework.

Hagenauer et al. (2016) found cultural differences in understanding which HE teachers' emotions are appropriate to express while communicating with students. Especially, the role of cultural-pedagogical context is evident regarding the display of negative emotions ( Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, it was found that the perception of the characteristics of quality teacher–student relationships is likely to vary across cultural-educational contexts, depending on underlying institutional and cultural norms, values, and practices ( Hagenauer et al., 2016 ).

The institutional context played a role in the following four studies: Cowie (2011) found that negative emotions were evoked if HE teachers perceived a strong hierarchy or a lack of trust in their institution. In contrast, positive emotions were evoked if the HE teachers had the impression of improvement taking place within the institution. In an interview study by Ramezanzadeh et al. (2016) , 20 Iranian adjunct teachers reported on their emotional lives in connection to their perceived authenticity in teaching. In particular, anger was related to attempts to challenge the expectations of the educational system, low salaries, and the inadequate quality of teaching due to existing policies. Quinlan (2019) used poems in order to gain access to teachers' emotions in teaching. She found that emotions can be triggered by institutional rules that should be followed (e.g., no food allowed in the classroom) as well as by self-disclosure (how much of myself should I reveal?). Furthermore, negative emotions might be triggered if the purity of the research subject is violated (e.g., due to the demand of giving “sexy presentations,” p. 1670). Bahia et al. (2017) demonstrated for a sample of Portuguese HE teachers that the Bologna process, i.e., higher education reforms in Europe, triggered ambivalent emotions in HE teachers, but with negative emotions dominating. Many of the interviewed HE teachers described the Bologna process as a threat to their professional identity. Specifically, they experienced their professional autonomy as being threatened, which ultimately caused a decrease in teaching enthusiasm and an increase in sadness, in part because the extended teaching load resulted in less time for individual students. In addition, the HE teachers reported concern and dissatisfaction due to publication pressure, which was experienced as a limitation on their academic freedom. Other emotions that were mentioned were fear and anger. Both dissatisfaction and pressure were experienced as a result of the increasing impact of evaluations, particularly student evaluations.

Higher education teachers interact not only with students but also with their colleagues. This collegial surrounding also forms a part of the context. Cowie (2011) study on Japanese HE teachers revealed that interactions with colleagues were often a source of positive emotions, but in case of differences in educational values, could also engender negative emotions. Stupnisky et al. (2016) , too, confirmed the relevance of perceived collegiality in the department for HE teachers' emotions in teaching: HE teachers experienced more positive emotions in teaching when collegiality was perceived as better, and when the teachers exhibited personal balance between work and leisure. Moreover, the results of a more recent study by Stupnisky et al. (2019) showed that perceived collegiality predicted value, which in turn negatively predicted teaching anxiety and positively predicted teaching enjoyment.

4.3. RQ 3: What kinds of consequences were reported as being linked to the experienced teaching-related emotions in HE teachers, and how can the revealed consequences be classified?

Adopting the well-known proposition of the CVTAE that “achievement emotions affect the cognitive, motivational, and regulatory processes mediating learning and achievement[…]” ( Pekrun, 2006 , p. 326) for the context of HE teaching, we consider HE teachers' emotional experiences as associated with cognitive, motivational, and regulatory processes linked to teaching practices. CVTAE refers to the so-called consequences of experiencing achievement emotions, stressing the causality and the impact of experienced emotions on individual's cognitive, motivational, and behavioral changes. At the same time, due to the correlative designs applied predominantly in the reviewed studies, it is not possible in each case to infer causal relationships between the analyzed variables from the perspective of the interferential statistics. Therefore, we followed the considerations of the authors regarding the possible effect directions as well as the propositions of the CVTAE concerning the consequences of experienced emotion while summarizing and grouping the research results within our framework into aspects relating to attitudinal changes (Section 4.3.1), motivational changes (Section 4.3.2), changes in cognitive-affective regulation processes (Section 4.3.3), and changes in behavioral regulation processes (Section 4.3.4).

4.3.1. Attitudinal changes

The analysis of the included studies revealed that attitudinal changes as a consequence of HE teachers' teaching-related emotions mainly refer to HE teachers' teaching roles and approaches.

Although research has shown that teaching approaches are significant for teaching behavior and student learning, little is known about the link between HE teachers' emotions and teaching approaches or between HE teachers' emotions and emotion regulation ( Kordts-Freudinger, 2017 ). The few available studies have consistently found a positive correlation between HE teachers' positive emotions or affect and a student-centered approach to teaching, which also includes the establishment of a positive climate in the classroom ( Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne, 2011 ; Trigwell, 2012 ; Badia Gargante et al., 2014 ; Meanwell and Kleiner, 2014 ; Kordts-Freudinger, 2017 ; Kordts-Freudinger and Thies, 2018 ).

The pattern of the interrelationship between HE teachers' negative emotions and their teaching approaches is less clear. Generally speaking, no correlation between negative emotions or affect and a teaching-centered approach has been found (e.g., Trigwell, 2012 ; Badia Gargante et al., 2014 ; Kordts-Freudinger, 2017 ). However, with regard to distinct negative emotions, Kordts-Freudinger (2017) detected a positive correlation between anger and boredom and a teacher-centered teaching approach, whereas Trigwell (2012) revealed a positive association between anxiety and embarrassment and this orientation. Additionally, teachers employing a more teacher-centered approach to teaching exhibited lower levels of pride. The missing overall interrelation between negative emotions and a teacher-centered teaching approach might be traced back to the varying functions of negative emotions in terms of activation or deactivation. Furthermore, the beliefs of teachers regarding professional behavior likely interfere with the direct link between negative emotions and classroom behavior, indicating emotional management. Zhang et al. (2019) found that HE teachers' emotions in teaching, assessed by the Emotions in Teaching Inventory ( Trigwell, 2012 ), can directly predict HE teachers' teaching styles. They focused on two so-called “Type-I-teaching styles,” including a legislative and a liberal style, and two “Type-II-teaching styles,” including an executive and a conservative one (see Appendix 1 of the study by Zhang et al., 2019 for key characteristics of the teaching styles). More precisely, the results showed that HE teachers scoring higher on positive emotions tended to use Type I and Type II teaching styles with Type I styles prevailing, whereas HE teachers scoring higher on negative emotions used more Type II teaching styles. They further found that HE teachers' teaching-related emotions indirectly influence their teaching styles through the mediating role of academics' self-efficacy in teaching and research.

The reconsideration of a teacher's role can be a response to their experiencing negative feelings while teaching. Lahtinen (2008) stressed that more intensive reflection on whether the role of the learning facilitator or the role of the learning evaluator is dominant in a teacher's behavior is evoked by unpleasant emotional experiences.

4.3.2. Motivational changes

We found in our analysis that motivational changes as consequences of emotions have only been examined in a few studies, predominantly focusing on the effects of students' feedback or rethinking teachers' roles. The results of the existing research on this matter include the investigation of approach tendencies and readiness to change or improve one's own teaching practice as a consequence of the experienced emotions. Nowakowski and Hannover (2015) showed in a German sample of HE teachers that positive feedback from students' course evaluations was positively connected with an emotional experience of positive valence and negatively linked to the motivation to improve one's future teaching.

Furthermore, if receiving positive student feedback was important to HE teachers, i.e., the value of feedback was high, it influenced the improvement of their teaching ( Flodén, 2017 ). The results of Flodén's study also indicated that HE teachers who reported positive feelings toward receiving student feedback used the feedback more to improve their teaching, as compared to teachers with more negative feelings associated with student feedback. Instead, the latter group rather introduced unnecessary elements in their teaching in order to avoid negative feedback by pleasing students. Next, emotions of anxiety and discomfort experienced while adopting new teaching practices and teaching roles are connected to conceptual change in lecturers' mindsets, including rethinking not only their own but also the students' roles in the teaching-learning process and reflecting on the nature of knowledge and knowledge construction in the subject/discipline ( Postareff and Lindblom-Ylanne, 2011 ).

4.3.3. Cognitive-affective changes

The use of response-focused emotion regulation strategies , such as sharing negative emotions with friends or colleagues after negative emotional experiences, was reported by HE teachers in interviews ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ). Other response-focused regulation strategies reported as reactions to negative emotions experienced were rationalization or acceptance of the situation by the adaptation of expectations ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ).

Further strategies for dealing with emotions in teaching were observed by Gates (2000) , including HE teachers' hiding their emotions or using cognitive strategies such as redefining a situation by holding particular definitions of students or responding selectively to stimuli (e.g., by remembering positive interactions). Another way for HE teachers to prevent the emergence of negative emotions caused by unfavorable student feedback and evaluations is by distancing themselves from these emotions ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ). Distancing oneself from student evaluation seems to become easier as the teaching experience increases, as demonstrated by Kowai-Bell et al. (2012) . This phenomenon is reflected in the words of an experienced professor: “After 30 years and tons of reviews, anonymous comments (are) not a big deal” (p. 347).

Some studies highlighted that HE teachers became aware that dealing with emotions associated with student feedback required professional support. Lutovac et al. (2017) showed, for instance, that distancing oneself from students' feedback and reflecting on it more rationally can be learned through pedagogical training and social exchange. The authors note that lecturers are frequently isolated within their departments, amplifying the need for out-of-department pedagogical training opportunities for HE teachers, especially for those at the beginning of their teaching careers (see also Meanwell and Kleiner, 2014 ).

Few authors considered further factors influencing emotion regulation after experiencing challenging emotions in HE teachers. For example, Bennett (2014) derived from the results of her study that more intensive emotional work is required when difficulties occur external to HE teachers' control as compared to difficulties internal to one's control. Kordts-Freudinger (2017) and Kordts-Freudinger and Thies (2018) found a positive correlation between adaptive emotion regulation (high cognitive reappraisal and low expressive suppression) and a student-centered teaching approach, which is linked to the experience of positive emotions. In comparison, HE teachers with a more teacher-centered approach reported a higher level of emotion suppression.

4.3.4. Behavioral changes

We categorized behavioral changes due to experienced emotions into display rules and adopting new behavior .

4.3.4.1. Display of emotions

In general, the display of positive emotions as a consequence of experiencing positive emotions occurs often ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ; Hagenauer et al., 2016 ; Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ). How teachers communicate their emotions in the classroom can be regarded as a part of their professionalism, as the appropriate communication of emotions fulfills relevant pedagogical functions, including its importance in the shaping of the teacher–student relationships ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014b ). Gates (2000) argues that HE teachers also manage their emotions “to model for students particular affective norms” (p. 502) and to use the expression of emotions for socializing students into the preferred role as “questioning, reflective, and responsible learner” (p. 502).

Kordts-Freudinger and Thies (2018) revealed an interrelation between the emotional display and domination teaching approaches. The findings demonstrated a positive link between a student-centered teaching approach and both the controlled display of positive and negative emotions and an uncontrolled display of positive emotions ( Kordts-Freudinger and Thies, 2018 ).

Ramezanzadeh et al. (2016) identified the physical display of emotions as one strategy for dealing with ambivalent emotions. However, other studies found that HE teachers tend to suppress negative emotions due to the belief that the open expression of negative emotions is unprofessional and would interfere with communication and learning ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014a ; Hagenauer et al., 2016 ; Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ). Cultural differences regarding the display rules of HE teachers were examined in a few studies (e.g., Hagenauer and Volet, 2014b ; Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ), indicating, e.g., that lecturers in Germany expressed their anger more openly in class compared to their Australian counterparts ( Hagenauer and Volet, 2014b ), and that Russian lecturers claimed to express their emotions more genuinely than German instructors did ( Mendzheritskaya et al., 2018 ). In addition to cultural differences, there seem to be differences in displaying emotions by the status of faculty members. More specifically, Tunguz (2016) reported that untenured, “low-power” American male faculty reported putting more effort into displaying authoritative emotions (such as anger) when experiencing classroom incivility (e.g., chatting and using mobile phones) in comparison to male faculty who were tenured. Interestingly, this difference was not observed for female faculty. The author traces this finding back to the buffering role of job autonomy in the experience of emotional labor: the traditional gender role (whereby female lecturers are not expected to express authoritative emotions) seemed to impede this effect for female tenured faculty.

4.3.4.2. Adopting new behavior

Coppola et al. (2002) shifted the perspective from the consequences of experiencing emotions to the consequences of expressing emotions. The authors pointed out that the energy and humor that instructors normally experience in the classroom are difficult to convey in asynchronous learning. One consequence of teaching in asynchronous learning networks is that instructors need different tools to express emotions. From the results, it was concluded that online learning environments require better instructional skills, including communication, organization, and motivation ( Coppola et al., 2002 ). Regan et al. (2012) , in their study on distance learning, reported that HE teachers experiencing mixed emotions in digital environments use typical problem-oriented coping strategies such as participating in technological training, offering synchronous office hours, or phoning students to deal with their negative emotions.

Ramezanzadeh et al. (2016) found that, in order to deal with ambivalent emotions, faculty members sought dialogue with learners, colleagues, and administrators, and they held internal discourse. In Harlow's study (2003 ), female professors of color reported investing extensive energy in emotion management, reflecting the merging of two factors: blackness and femaleness. To cope with the fear of making a mistake in front of students, they used coping strategies—among others, overly preparing their lessons (“perfectionism”) and teaching more authoritatively ( Harlow, 2003 ).

5. Discussion and conclusion

We conducted the presented systematic literature review to develop a conceptual framework by expanding and revising CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) for studying teaching-related emotions of HE teachers based on the existing empirical literature. By applying for a systematic literature review, 37 studies were found. First, we analyzed what theoretical concepts and approaches were used in the identified studies for examining HE teachers' teaching-related emotions to gain insight into the approaches used and to explore how widely CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) was used in this research field (RQ 1). We found that the majority of the included studies (27 out of 37 included studies) made use of one or more theoretical approaches when examining HE teachers' emotions. These results are in line with observations made by Pekrun (2019) that there has been a shift from undertheorized research (see also Quinlan, 2016 ) toward research that is mostly theory-based. We support Pekrun's (2019) view that this is important for generating a more consistent body of research findings and interpretations. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that 10 out of 37 included studies used CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) as the theoretical model for investigating the emotions of HE teachers. This represents the highest number of studies applying one specific theory.

Therefore, the components of CVTAE were revised and extended for a new conceptual framework for examining antecedents (RQ 2) and consequences (RQ 3) of HE teachers' teaching-related emotions (see Figure 2 ). Specifically, additional groups of factors at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels (for an overview, see Fend, 2008 ) were integrated into the “antecedents”-component, and differentiated groups of consequences were identified within the “consequences”-component, separated into attitudinal, motivational, affective-cognitive, and behavioral aspects.

Thus, we deduced that environmental factors are antecedents of HE teachers' teaching-related emotions on different levels. We grouped antecedents of emotions into environmental factors on the micro level, i.e., classroom factors on the student and interpersonal level (e.g., students' characteristics and behavior, quality of teacher–student interaction/relationship, quality of feedback to and from students), and on the meso level, i.e., classroom factors on the structural level, including, e.g., the course format (e.g., lecture, seminar) and the setting (e.g., distant teaching / online teaching). Furthermore, the above-mentioned environmental aspects were often analyzed in relation to individual factors of HE teachers on the micro level, such as their demographic variables (e.g., gender, teaching experience). Next, we found that identified factors not only to be related to cognitive appraisals as antecedents of emotions but also to directly influence (to some extent) the experiencing of emotions and their consequences (e.g., the expression of emotions). Additionally, we found broader context factors on the macro level as an antecedent of emotions, i.e., the cultural-educational context (e.g., different cultures), the institutional context (e.g., Bologna process, institutional rules), and the collegial surrounding (e.g., interaction with colleagues). Regarding consequences of experienced emotions in HE teachers, we defined four groups of factors reflecting attitudinal changes relating to teaching roles and approaches, motivational changes linked to readiness to change own teaching practices, cognitive-affective changes associated with emotion regulation, and behavioral changes including the emotional display and adopting new behavior.

Examining the included studies of the systematic review, it can be seen that some areas of the framework have been more addressed in existing studies than others. Much of the reviewed studies cover individual factors and classroom factors on the student and interpersonal levels as well as cognitive-affective changes and behavioral changes in emotions. However, research gaps exist in the area of classroom factors on the structural level, more precisely on course formats. There is also little research on motivational and attitudinal changes due to emotions, which should be addressed more in future studies.

Furthermore, due to the complexity and context specificity of the phenomenon of HE teachers' emotions and emotion regulation, an adequate research methodology is required. Most of the reviewed studies applied a cross-sectional design (generally relying on non-representative samples) and have used either interviews (in various forms) or questionnaires as data collection methods to assess emotions retrospectively. Only Thies and Kordts-Freudinger (2019a , b ) assessed in two studies emotions at the moment they occurred and conducted intra-individual analysis. Overall, qualitative studies were more common than quantitative ones (see Table 1 ). Future research is needed that goes beyond these qualitative and correlational research designs. We would also like to suggest that researchers take advantage of the complementary nature of qualitative and quantitative research on HE teachers' emotions and their regulation by applying mixed-methods designs, including experimental, longitudinal, and within-person research, as suggested as well by Pekrun (2019) . This could contribute to gaining a deeper understanding of underlying temporal and causal relations when studying HE teachers' emotions.

In addition, the multi-component nature of emotions permits the use of assessment methods that capture other components, such as physiological, expressive, or motivational aspects of emotion. To the best of our knowledge, no study on HE teaching has yet directly assessed such components. We recommend their inclusion in addition to the methods already employed, to validate past results and to integrate the multi-component perspective upon which current theorizing on emotions is built.

Overcoming the aforementioned methodological issues can provide researchers in the field of HE teachers' emotions with research designs allowing for a more profound examination of causal associations between the different components of the proposed conceptual framework. For instance, the predominantly correlative investigated links between experienced emotions and motivational, cognitive-affective, or behavioral changes in HE teachers could be tested with other research designs including other research and statistical methods.

Future research could also be complemented by social-psychological approaches to emotions ( Manstead and Fischer, 2001 ). They do not only highlight the core role of relationships in emotional interactions ( Boiger and Mesquita, 2012 ), but also suggest an additional appraisal category—namely “social appraisal,” reflecting the fact that “behaviors, thoughts, or feelings of one or more other persons in the emotional situation are appraised in addition to the appraisal of the event per se ” ( Manstead and Fischer, 2001 , p. 222).

Furthermore, it would be beneficial to examine the interplay of various antecedent factors identified for the proposed conceptual framework while studying HE teachers' emotions. For instance, when research on HE teachers' emotions and emotion regulation is conducted, the complexity and context specificity of the HE field must be thoroughly considered. Considering the interrelations between cultural factors and pedagogical practices ( Volet, 2001 ) represents a promising approach for investigating the influence of cultural context on the affective phenomena of HE teachers. Following this approach, we have argued that what is perceived as an “appropriate” teaching practice in HE (including appropriate emotion display) varies across cultural-educational contexts. Thus, the possibility of generalizing results to other cultural-educational contexts (e.g., disciplines, institutions, and countries) is limited; if attempted, it must be approached with caution and restraint.

The classification of antecedents into micro-, meso-, and macro-levels demonstrated the complementarity of some factors such as classroom factors. Accordingly, we suggest including both the individual perspective focusing on relationships and interaction between teachers and students and the institutional perspective relating to teaching and organizational culture while investigating the role of the classroom factors in the emotional experience of HE teachers. As mentioned above, it should also be kept in mind that academics must negotiate the demands of multiple roles simultaneously (e.g., Lai et al., 2014 ; Thies and Kordts-Freudinger, 2019a ), which might be especially emotionally challenging owing to the potential tensions arising between the different roles (e.g., Avargues Navarro et al., 2010 ). It should also be noted that due to educational reforms in Europe, i.e., the Bologna process, there is considerable publication pressure and an extended teaching load ( Bahia et al., 2017 ). This is likely to cause various negative emotional side effects and tensions, especially for those who have a strong teaching orientation but are compelled to enhance their personal research qualifications and output as well (e.g., Wilson and Holligan, 2013 ). This potential conflict provides a battleground for competing emotions. Thus, future research has to take into account the complexity of the institutional field in which HE teachers are placed, with its multiple demands that ultimately could also affect teaching-related emotions (e.g., addressed in the study by Bahia et al., 2017 ).

As far as the complexity of HE is concerned, not only the Bologna process and other effects of neoliberal policies but also the COVID-19 pandemic have led to sudden changes in the teaching practices of HE teachers. This review has only considered publications until May 2020 and also includes studies that investigated HE teachers' emotions in the context of online teaching/teaching with technology; however, recent research has shown that emergency remote teaching has been experienced as highly emotional by HE teachers ( Okoye et al., 2021 ) and has increased the speed with which digital media and forms of online teaching have been integrated into university teaching in general. This rapid change raises concerns but also hopes in HE teachers ( Eringfeld, 2021 ) and needs further exploration. Considering that only a few studies are addressing the role of teaching format in HE teachers' affective experiences, future studies must take the impact of new technologies and subsequent changes in the HE teaching and learning environment into account.

Based on the results obtained, we would also like to point out some implications for teaching praxis and programs for teaching support. Accordingly, findings connected to different components of the proposed framework (e.g., display rules as a behavioral consequence) should be considered and included when designing professional development programs for HE teachers. This is also important because, e.g., the way HE teachers display their emotions can have an impact on students' learning ( Mendzheritskaya and Hansen, 2019 ). Furthermore, opportunities for social reflection should be created, as sharing and discussing one's teaching-related experiences and emotions can support teachers' development ( Pekkarinen et al., 2023 ). Professional development programs could also contribute to higher levels of perceived control when HE teachers are faced, e.g., with new situations in teaching (especially for HE teachers with little teaching experience), which could in turn lead to the experiencing of more positive teaching-related emotions.

However, this literature review has some limitations. Our database search failed to find articles that experts in this research field recommended for further analysis. Possible explanations could be that we used general search terms such as emotions and affect and did not include specific types of emotions, such as anxiety or physiological reactions such as arousal, and that we only searched four databases. In order to avoid missing relevant articles, the search scope should be expanded in future literature searches. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that we categorized consequences of emotions (e.g., motivational changes due to emotions) based on study results originating from correlational designs that do not allow causal conclusions from the statistical point of view. As noted above, the increased use of mixed-method designs would be fruitful in allowing causal interpretations.

To sum up, CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ) seems to provide a fruitful theoretical foundation to explain not only students' achievement emotions but also teachers' emotions, as teaching in HE can also be regarded as an achievement-related situation. We expanded and revised it for the context of HE teachers. Thereby, we identified additional groups of antecedents that go beyond the environmental factors, i.e., individual factors of HE teachers on the micro level and broader context factors on the macro level, e.g., institutional context factors. Thus, the proposed framework takes specifics of HE teachers (such as the different roles as teachers and researchers) into account that were not addressed in the CVTAE ( Pekrun, 2006 ). We suggest that the proposed CTVAE-based conceptual framework (see Figure 2 ) could be a productive avenue when examining HE teachers' emotions with new theoretical, methodological, and practical perspectives. With its theoretical and empirical foundation, it could aid in building a starting point for research attempts in this field and could help to close existing research gaps.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

NM reviewed the literature and extracted the data. NM and JM decided on the inclusion of articles and took the lead in writing the manuscript. MH, GH, MS, and KT wrote sections of the manuscript. GH, MH, RK, MS, and KT provided critical feedback and contributed to the discussion. All authors contributed to the conception of the literature review. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

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Keywords: higher education teachers, systematic review, teaching related emotions, emotion regulation, antecedents and consequences of emotions

Citation: Maier NA, Mendzheritskaya J, Hagenauer G, Hansen M, Kordts R, Stephan M and Thies K (2023) Developing a CVTAE-based conceptual framework for examining emotions in higher education teaching: a systematic literature review. Front. Psychol. 14:1142506. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1142506

Received: 11 January 2023; Accepted: 30 March 2023; Published: 05 May 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Maier, Mendzheritskaya, Hagenauer, Hansen, Kordts, Stephan and Thies. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Nicola A. Maier, n.maier@psych.uni-frankfurt.de

This article is part of the Research Topic

Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: The Role of Emotion and Cognition

Schools & departments

Literature review

A general guide on how to conduct and write a literature review.

Please check course or programme information and materials provided by teaching staff , including your project supervisor, for subject-specific guidance.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a piece of academic writing demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the academic literature on a specific topic placed in context. A literature review also includes a critical evaluation of the material; this is why it is called a literature review rather than a literature report. It is a process of reviewing the literature, as well as a form of writing.

To illustrate the difference between reporting and reviewing, think about television or film review articles. These articles include content such as a brief synopsis or the key points of the film or programme plus the critic’s own evaluation. Similarly the two main objectives of a literature review are firstly the content covering existing research, theories and evidence, and secondly your own critical evaluation and discussion of this content.

Usually a literature review forms a section or part of a dissertation, research project or long essay. However, it can also be set and assessed as a standalone piece of work.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

…your task is to build an argument, not a library. Rudestam, K.E. and Newton, R.R. (1992) Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process. California: Sage, p49.

In a larger piece of written work, such as a dissertation or project, a literature review is usually one of the first tasks carried out after deciding on a topic. Reading combined with critical analysis can help to refine a topic and frame research questions. Conducting a literature review establishes your familiarity with and understanding of current research in a particular field before carrying out a new investigation. After doing a literature review, you should know what research has already been done and be able to identify what is unknown within your topic.

When doing and writing a literature review, it is good practice to:

Conducting a literature review

Focusing on different aspects of your literature review can be useful to help plan, develop, refine and write it. You can use and adapt the prompt questions in our worksheet below at different points in the process of researching and writing your review. These are suggestions to get you thinking and writing.

Developing and refining your literature review (pdf)

Developing and refining your literature review (Word)

Developing and refining your literature review (Word rtf)

Writing a literature review has a lot in common with other assignment tasks. There is advice on our other pages about thinking critically, reading strategies and academic writing. Our literature review top tips suggest some specific things you can do to help you submit a successful review.

Literature review top tips (pdf)

Literature review top tips (Word rtf)

Our reading page includes strategies and advice on using books and articles and a notes record sheet grid you can use.

Reading at university

The Academic writing page suggests ways to organise and structure information from a range of sources and how you can develop your argument as you read and write.

Academic writing

The Critical thinking page has advice on how to be a more critical researcher and a form you can use to help you think and break down the stages of developing your argument.

Critical thinking

As with other forms of academic writing, your literature review needs to demonstrate good academic practice by following the Code of Student Conduct and acknowledging the work of others through citing and referencing your sources.

Good academic practice

As with any writing task, you will need to review, edit and rewrite sections of your literature review. The Editing and proofreading page includes tips on how to do this and strategies for standing back and thinking about your structure and checking the flow of your argument.

Editing and proofreading

Guidance on literature searching from the University Library

The Academic Support Librarians have developed LibSmart I and II, Learn courses to help you develop and enhance your digital research skills and capabilities; from getting started with the Library to managing data for your dissertation.

Searching using the library’s DiscoverEd tool: DiscoverEd

Finding resources in your subject: Subject guides

The Academic Support Librarians also provide one-to-one appointments to help you develop your research strategies.

1 to 1 support for literature searching and systematic reviews

Advice to help you optimise use of Google Scholar, Google Books and Google for your research and study: Using Google

Managing and curating your references

A referencing management tool can help you to collect and organise and your source material to produce a bibliography or reference list.

Referencing and reference management

Information Services provide access to Cite them right online which is a guide to the main referencing systems and tells you how to reference just about any source (EASE log-in may be required).

Cite them right

Published study guides

There are a number of scholarship skills books and guides available which can help with writing a literature review. Our Resource List of study skills guides includes sections on Referencing, Dissertation and project writing and Literature reviews.

Study skills guides

About this guide

This research guide was developed for students at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

If you are a student from another school, you are welcome to peruse the guide, using the links above, but please know that our librarians can only provide general help to non-BU students. Contact the librarians at your own institution for help in using the resources available to you.

-Andruss Library

A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. The literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of research. The review should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate and clarify this previous research. It should give a theoretical base for the research and help you (the author) determine the nature of your research. The literature review acknowledges the work of previous researchers, and in so doing, assures the reader that your work has been well conceived. It is assumed that by mentioning a previous work in the field of study, that the author has read, evaluated, and assimiliated that work into the work at hand.

A literature review creates a "landscape" for the reader, giving her or him a full understanding of the developments in the field. This landscape informs the reader that the author has indeed assimilated all (or the vast majority of) previous, significant works in the field into her or his research.

"In writing the literature review, the purpose is to convey to the reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. The literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (eg. your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries.( http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review )

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Kate Houston and Libbie Blanchard of CQ University Libraries, (Queensland, Australia) whose LibGuide on the Literature Review served as a framework for this guide.

Designed and updated by Michael Coffta

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Purpose of Guide
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A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews." Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I. Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II. Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1. Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2. Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3. Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4. Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1. Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2. What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3. Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4. Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5. Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III. Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. However, progression of time may still be an important factor in a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it will still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The only difference here between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note however that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point made. Note that this is the most common approach in the social and behavioral sciences. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
History : The chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.
Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV. Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information but that are not key to understanding the research problem can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V. Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

How are they organizing their ideas?
What methods have they used to study the problem?
What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research? Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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Last Updated: May 8, 2023 10:39 AM
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Open Access
Published: 13 April 2023

Challenges and opportunities for increasing patient involvement in heart failure self-care programs and self-care in the post–hospital discharge period

Javed Butler 1 , 2 ,
Mark C. Petrie 3 ,
Marc Bains 4 ,
Tracy Bawtinheimer 4 ,
Jillianne Code 4 , 5 ,
Teresa Levitch 6 ,
Elmas Malvolti 7 ,
Pasquale Monteleone 8 ,
Petrina Stevens 9 ,
Jenny Vafeiadou 10 &
Carolyn S. P. Lam 11

Research Involvement and Engagement volume 9 , Article number: 23 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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People living with heart failure (HF) are particularly vulnerable after hospital discharge. An alliance between patient authors, clinicians, industry, and co-developers of HF programs can represent an effective way to address the unique concerns and obstacles people living with HF face during this period. The aim of this narrative review article is to discuss challenges and opportunities of this approach, with the goal of improving participation and clinical outcomes of people living with HF.

This article was co-authored by people living with HF, heart transplant recipients, patient advocacy representatives, cardiologists with expertise in HF care, and industry representatives specializing in patient engagement and cardiovascular medicine, and reviews opportunities and challenges for people living with HF in the post–hospital discharge period to be more integrally involved in their care. A literature search was conducted, and the authors collaborated through two virtual roundtables and via email to develop the content for this review article.

Numerous transitional-care programs exist to ease the transition from the hospital to the home and to provide needed education and support for people living with HF, to avoid rehospitalizations and other adverse outcomes. However, many programs have limitations and do not integrally involve patients in the design and co-development of the intervention. There are thus opportunities for improvement. This can enable patients to better care for themselves with less of the worry and fear that typically accompany the transition from the hospital. We discuss the importance of including people living with HF in the development of such programs and offer suggestions for strategies that can help achieve these goals. An underlying theme of the literature reviewed is that education and engagement of people living with HF after hospitalization are critical. However, while clinical trial evidence on existing approaches to transitions in HF care indicates numerous benefits, such approaches also have limitations.

Numerous challenges continue to affect people living with HF in the post–hospital discharge period. Strategies that involve patients are needed, and should be encouraged, to optimally address these challenges.

Plain English Summary

Heart failure (HF) is a common, serious condition that causes debilitating symptoms. HF results in an enormous burden on individuals and society. For many people living with HF, the transition to the home after hospital discharge is filled with uncertainty, fear, miscommunication, feelings of vulnerability, loss of control, high rates of being hospitalized again, and the need for education about HF self-care. People living with HF need reliable support, personalized education, and encouragement to minimize disruption to their lives and to enable them to participate in and take ownership of their health. Interventions after hospitalization focused on self-care and education have been shown to improve confidence, medication adherence rates, quality of life, and self-care, and to reduce the risk of death or being hospitalized again. However, not all studies have found benefits. Many interventions do not include patients in their co-design and co-development, and/or co-authorship of the study publications. In this review article, we discuss challenges and opportunities for better involving people living with HF in self-care HF programs, both as co-creators and as participants. A literature search was conducted and the authors collaborated through email and two remote discussions to develop the article’s content. We discuss the burden of HF and existing approaches to care after hospitalization. We also provide an overview of some of the challenges and opportunities in involving people living with HF more closely in their care. We conclude that patient-focused solutions aligned with behavioral approaches and education related to self-care may help overcome these challenges.

Peer Review reports

Epidemiology and burden of heart failure

Heart failure (HF) is a clinical syndrome characterized by current or prior symptoms and/or signs caused by a structural and/or functional cardiac abnormality, corroborated by elevated levels of natriuretic peptide or objective evidence of cardiogenic pulmonary or systemic congestion, such as indicative echocardiography findings [ 1 ]. Typical symptoms include breathlessness, fatigue, swelling, and reduced exercise tolerance [ 1 ]. Globally, approximately 64 million cases of HF were reported in 2017 [ 2 , 3 ]. Prevalence rates of HF in Europe have been estimated at 1%–2% and in the United States at 2%, whereas substantially higher rates have been reported in Southeast Asia, such as in Taiwan (6%) and Indonesia (5%) [ 4 ]. In Canada, approximately 669,600 adults aged 40 years and older are living with diagnosed HF, and 92,900 Canadians of this age group are diagnosed with HF each year [ 5 ]. In the United States, approximately 6 million adults have HF (based on data from 2015 to 2018); this number is estimated to increase by 46% from 2012 to 2030 [ 6 ]. Although HF is typically a disease of older adults, HF affects younger people as well [ 7 ]. The heterogeneity of HF in terms of who it affects, its causes, and its clinical and personal manifestations underscores the idea that each person is affected by HF in a unique way.

Globally, the economic and societal burden of HF is enormous [ 3 ], exerting a major toll on patients. The global annual cost of HF in 2012 was estimated at US$108 billion [ 8 ]. Total direct costs of HF in the United States have been calculated at US$60.2 billion [ 9 ], whereas in Canada HF costs more than C$2.8 billion annually [ 10 ]. The high burden of HF is due to its many negative outcomes, such as death, hospitalizations, and reduced quality of life [ 11 ]. The first few months after hospital discharge is a particularly vulnerable time for people living with HF [ 12 ]. Approximately 21% of patients with HF are rehospitalized within 30 days of discharge [ 13 ], approximately 29% during the 60- to 90-day post-discharge period [ 14 ], and 61% within 1 year of discharge [ 15 ]. This has resulted in a substantial and growing global public health burden [ 16 ]. Subsequent rehospitalizations for HF are associated with an increased risk of death [ 17 , 18 ] and reduced quality of life [ 19 ] and are frequently associated with poor self-care management and confidence [ 20 ].

For many people living with HF, rehospitalization requires absence from work, finding appropriate transportation, and dealing with other major personal setbacks (as well as those of their caregivers and loved ones) that are not always accounted for in clinical trials or guideline consensus statements. Indeed, the social isolation and psychological and existential issues [ 21 ] experienced by people living with HF are often overlooked by health care professionals [ 22 ]. Many people living with HF are confused about HF, and they and their caregivers feel fearful and lack awareness about HF [ 23 ]. There are low levels of health literacy among people living with HF and their caregivers, related to lack of awareness of HF, its symptoms, and how HF is characterized [ 23 ]. The high levels of fatigue and anxiety experienced by both parties owing to the effects of HF itself can also make it difficult to understand educational material about HF.

For many people living with HF, the consequences of HF are a major change from their usual life, for example, by not being able to work as much [ 23 ]. A high rate of HF undertreatment is in turn associated with a high risk of hospital admission and death [ 24 , 25 ]. The high rate of undertreatment and poor adherence to guidelines by both patients and physicians represent opportunities to improve HF management [ 26 ]. Other opportunities and obstacles to HF care are shown in the infographic (see Additional file 1 ).

The importance of person-centered care for people living with heart failure

Person-centered care affirms the patient as an active partner in their care and decision-making and fundamentally respects their subjectivity, strengths, and preferences, not reducing them to or defining them by their disease or as mere recipients of medical services [ 27 ]. The right panel of the infographic (see Additional file 1 ) summarizes this, emphasizing the importance of patients actively participating in their care and of person-centered, co-designed, and co-developed HF programs (see also Additional files 2 and 3 ). A literature review showed many benefits of people living with HF receiving person-centered care, including improved quality of life, self-care, and clinical status; lower symptom burden; and shorter hospital stays [ 28 ]. Person-centered care involves using outcomes in clinical studies that are important to people living with HF, such as health-related quality of life, symptoms, functional status, decision-making, and process measures, such as patient self-efficacy measures and post-discharge follow-up metrics [ 29 ]. Such outcomes are commonly reported in transitional-care studies that integrally involve patients in the research process [ 30 ]. Nonetheless, a significant challenge to implementing person-centered care in patients with long-term illness includes relegation of the patient narrative to a subsidiary role in favor of objective biological markers [ 27 ]. For example, hospital readmission rates are considered an important outcome by which the effectiveness of transitional-care interventions can be assessed [ 31 ], and are the primary outcome measure used in many studies. Yet for some patients, a variety of emotion-, symptom-, and disease-related factors aggravate a cycle of despair that contributes to making hospital readmission a rational choice [ 32 ]. Moreover, “hard outcomes” such as readmission rates and adherence to medication neglect attention to the journey people living with HF take after being discharged from the hospital and the person-centered outcomes that may be difficult to quantify but that are immensely important to people living with HF. Other outcomes that could help optimize HF management include measures of psychological and social support, complex care coordination, and assistance with treatment decision-making [ 32 ]. Ultimately, the journey/learning pathway of an individual living with HF is more important than the clinical outcome measures used in trials involving groups of people living with HF. This is underscored by the idea that people living with HF want to know what it will be like to get to the outcomes and what to expect along the way, including how hard it will be and what it is like to take the recommended medications.

Motivation and aims of this article

Collectively, these and other data discussed later in this article suggest that effective transition and education of people living with HF after hospital discharge are extremely important for improving HF management. Because of the personal nature of each HF patient’s experience after hospital discharge, this transition and the time thereafter can be considered a journey, the goals of which are to engage people living with HF to advance from being novices to becoming skilled self-advocates in their care (see Additional file 1 ).

This article is based on several patient-centered principles and ideals. First, people living with HF who want to learn about their possible life journey ahead and feel confident in taking ownership of their health should be given the tools to do so. After diagnosis in the hospital, people living with HF need reliable psychological and physical support, personalized education, and practical tools and resources that they can implement to minimize disruption to their lives and facilitate more active participation in and ownership of their health. Second, caregivers and family members can be vital to the journey of a person living with HF, and the impact on these stakeholders can also be substantial and involve isolation and poor mental and physical health [ 33 , 34 ]. Caregivers and family members may also want to understand the challenges, management, and opportunities faced by people living with HF. Third, holistic patient interventions jointly created by people living with HF along with other stakeholders can be an important method within the HF health care environment to educate and better drive the quality of care in the critical period after hospitalization. Finally, patient-focused solutions aligned with behavioral approaches and education related to self-care and guideline-recommended treatment may improve the confidence of people living with HF, help them participate in their health care, recognize when to seek help, and potentially avoid rehospitalization. In this review article, we examine the evidence for these claims. Our principal aim is to highlight opportunities for improvement with respect to the co-design of meaningful solutions for transitions in care, particularly within the first few months after hospital discharge for HF. The motivation behind this article is to help people living with HF to actively and effectively participate in their care, with the ultimate goal of people living with HF benefiting from improved symptom management and quality of life.

Methodology

This article is co-authored by people living with HF, heart transplant recipients, patient advocacy representatives, cardiologists with expertise in HF care, and industry representatives specializing in patient engagement and cardiovascular medicine. The authors collaborated through two virtual roundtables and via email to agree on the content for this article. A targeted literature search was conducted in PubMed, with no filters or date limits, using various combinations of the following terms: "epidemiology", "prevalence", "cost", "burden", "heart failure", "patient experience", "patient education", "patient self-management", "co-design", "self-care", "person-centered care", "post-hospital discharge period", "transitional programs", "patient involvement". Articles retrieved from the literature searches were screened for relevance for inclusion. From the reference lists of relevant articles that were retrieved, further articles were identified. Some of the authors also suggested articles for inclusion based on their detailed knowledge of the subject. Relevant articles were included in the current narrative review article.

Challenges in the post–hospital discharge period

Although many HF treatments exist, for people living with HF the transition from the hospital to the home can be fraught with feelings of fear, vulnerability, anxiety, isolation, and depression; a disconnect from medical support (by no longer having clinicians and nurses on hand to consult); information overload and possibilities for miscommunication; and uncertainty regarding actionable next steps. Multidisciplinary care that includes the support of cardiologists, nurses, physician assistants, and other professionals can be critical to helping people living with HF during this time. During this time of uncertainty, people living with HF can feel a loss of control. This feeling of a loss of control can be compounded by changes in functional status and medication regimens and variable confidence in reaching out to clinicians for clarifications or support. Ideally, people living with HF should have access to cardiac rehabilitation that includes an exercise component. In addition to this, nutritional programs, devices, and various pharmacologic therapies exist for the treatment of HF [ 35 ]. However, after hospital discharge, people living with HF can become overwhelmed by the number of medications. They may lack an understanding of how they work (in simple terms) and why they are taking them. Some HF medications require complex scheduling (e.g., various times throughout the day, some with food, and some without food). Some medications cause adverse effects that can add to the physical and mental burden of chronic illness and contribute to lower adherence to treatment plans. Lack of access to certain HF medications is an issue in some locations and among certain populations [ 36 ]. Many patients eligible for effective treatments are not prescribed optimal doses during their follow-up [ 37 ]. This undertreatment highlights a significant lapse in the degree to which evidence-based guidelines are followed [ 38 , 39 ].

Consistent adherence to HF medications is important to avoid hospitalization or death [ 40 ]. Yet for some people living with HF, adherence to general HF medical recommendations is not viewed as an either/or proposition [ 32 ]. Instead, adherence is viewed as a question of adapting recommendations to their individual circumstances [ 32 ]. Adherence to HF medication varies widely and depends on the medication [ 41 ]. Adherence could also depend on patients’ awareness of alternative treatments that might have fewer adverse effects. Patients may be unaware of these alternatives and simply stop taking their current medication when faced with intolerable adverse effects or with a delay in the provision of health care support to explore viable alternatives. The costs of HF medications can also vary widely, influence adherence, and be prohibitive for some patients. Awareness of the consequences of nonadherence could vary depending on the patient’s health literacy and interactions with clinicians. Low adherence to HF medication is associated with an increased risk of mortality and hospitalization related to cardiovascular events [ 41 ]. Strategies to improve adherence and facilitate the transition from the hospital to the home are therefore needed.

Addressing the needs of people living with heart failure in the post–hospital discharge period

A wide variety of transitional-care programs have been developed to address the challenges faced by patients with HF in the post–hospital discharge period. Many of them include educational components. Overall, the programs have had varying degrees of success. For example, self-care interventions have been shown to improve adherence rates and reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death [ 42 ]. In addition to improving these and other clinical outcomes, the importance of transitional care is underscored by the need to emotionally support patients, validate the individuality of their HF journey, and provide relevant self-care information in an easy-to-understand format. Along with the mandate for patient education comes attention to the ways in which people living with HF prefer to learn and receive information. These ways are diverse and can be affected by many factors including individual preferences, education level, digital savviness, and culture. People living with HF have expressed a preference for multimodal learning that focuses on information about symptoms, prognosis, risk factors, and medications [ 43 ]. Despite some progress, there are important gaps in education for people living with HF. A recent analysis of mobile health apps targeting patients with HF found lapses in readability, functionality, and linkage to authoritative sources for evidence on HF care [ 44 ]. Additionally, self-care behaviors for HF vary markedly across countries and cultures and have been shown to be suboptimal in people living with HF [ 45 ]. There are also numerous challenges in the home management of HF. For instance, although telemonitoring has been shown to have a positive effect on self-care in people living with HF [ 46 ], utilization and adoption of telehealth by people living with HF in the pre–COVID-19 era have been limited. There are several reasons for this finding. These include a preference for direct consultation with health care providers, a limited understanding of the advantage and benefits of technology over existing care, physical or mental impairments, and a lack of confidence and willingness in using new technology [ 47 ]. With the considerations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth for people living with HF has rapidly expanded and evolved [ 48 ]. By involving patients in the design and testing of digital health and telemedicine applications, we can expect a better uptake of such technologies compared to those developed without effectively acknowledging patient needs and preferences. It is also worth noting that the utilization and “application of, and reporting on, behaviour change theories in the design of self-care interventions is needed to progress this field” [ 49 ].

People living with HF at various times also experience suboptimal understanding of HF and self-care, ongoing anxiety and concern about their condition, feelings of frustration due to treatment changes, being exhausted by their symptoms, poor communication with health care providers, and a sense of being controlled by their symptoms of HF [ 50 ]. Some people living with HF have also been shown to have low levels of confidence regarding self-care and difficulty in implementing self-care knowledge [ 51 ]. Collectively, these factors in the post–hospital discharge period emphasize an important need that should be a call for action in the HF community.

Existing approaches to transitions in heart failure care

Globally, there is a wide disparity in how people living with HF are followed up after a hospital admission. For example, in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark, follow-up is conducted by an HF team involving specialist nurses and pharmacists, whereas in other countries hospitalized patients are discharged to primary care with no or minimal follow-up [ 52 ]. The European Society of Cardiology guidelines for acute and chronic HF recommend “that evidence-based oral medical treatment be administered before discharge” and that a follow-up visit occur 1–2 weeks after discharge [ 53 ]. Transitional-care programs for people living with HF are recommended by European [ 53 ], Canadian [ 54 ], and American [ 11 ] cardiology guidelines. There are numerous approaches to HF transitional programs, which involve teaching people living with HF various self-management and symptom recognition strategies. We present some illustrative examples of the benefits and limitations of some of the existing approaches. Our intention is not to be exhaustive, as that would constitute a systematic review, which is outside the scope of the present article.

Table 1 shows examples of prominent randomized controlled trials of transitional-care interventions for HF.

Systematic reviews of transitional-care heart failure interventions

As with systematic reviews of randomized and uncontrolled trials, some trials have shown benefits, whereas others have not. A review of 25 studies of transitional-care interventions for people living with HF found that for the studies that measured rehospitalizations, the interventions led to a reduction in the rate of rehospitalizations in approximately half of those studies [ 59 ]. Patient-related outcomes, such as measures of quality of life, self-care, self-efficacy for self-care, discharge preparedness, and satisfaction, were measured by some of the studies. However, 13 of the 25 studies did not measure patient-related outcomes. While interventions such as patient health education and counseling were planned, only 20% of the studies reported early assessment of patients for hospital transition. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 47 studies reported the success of home-visiting programs and multidisciplinary HF clinics in reducing all-cause readmission and mortality, and of structured telephone support in reducing HF-specific readmission and mortality [ 60 ]. Similarly, results from another systematic review and meta-analysis highlight the importance of educational interventions on HF in reducing readmissions and length of hospital stay in adults with HF [ 61 ]. Many of these educational interventions, however, were implemented by experienced cardiovascular nurses. Thus, while the review emphasizes the importance of nurse participation in multidisciplinary transitional care of people living with HF, the need for self-driven education and care is also apparent, especially in contexts where health care providers are unavailable, due to resource limitations, for example. There was a large degree of heterogeneity in the outcome measures, study designs, and methods of the studies included in the systematic reviews. Nonetheless, a key message derived from many of the studies included in these systematic reviews is that many transitional-care interventions for people living with HF do not integrally include patient participation, such as through the co-design and development of the intervention and/or co-authorship of the study publications.

Many approaches to transitions in HF care involve the use of mobile-based apps. A Cochrane review of mobile health education interventions for HF conducted in 2019 did not find evidence for a difference in the use of interventions for people living with HF on their knowledge of HF; the evidence was uncertain regarding self-care, self-efficacy, and health-related quality of life [ 62 ]. Nonetheless, the results of individual trials have shown benefit to people living with HF. For example, the use of web- or mobile-based interventions has indicated improvement in self-care and quality of life [ 63 , 64 , 65 ], reduction in all-cause unplanned readmission [ 66 ], and increase in HF knowledge [ 67 ] among people living with HF.

Although self-care programs have been shown to benefit a variety of outcomes in people living with HF, because such programs are complex interventions consisting of multiple components, identifying the elements responsible for positive benefits has been challenging [ 49 ]. A tentative conclusion arising from these studies is that person-centered interventions, including those using mobile health technology, may play an important role in improving self-care in chronic conditions such as HF. Further study, however, is warranted to better understand the pathways and points along the patient journey and the role of behavioral elements in this journey.

Engaging patients through person-centered care and the co-design of educational programs

Examples of patient co-designed transitional-care heart failure interventions.

A basic tenet of the present article is that improving patient self-management and outcomes through education and engagement could benefit from person-centered and patient co-designed transitional-care HF programs. This is reflected by some patient co-designed interventions that show benefit in people living with HF. For example, a mobile health app, ThessHF, was shown to improve quality of life, self-care, and the rate of hospitalization in people living with HF [ 68 ]. The app was co-designed with patients to the extent that the opinions of people living with HF on the app’s features were sought in the development phase, and people living with HF were involved in the usability study of the app. A pilot randomized controlled study of another mobile health app, HeartMapp, demonstrated trends in improvements in self-care confidence, self-care management, and HF knowledge [ 67 ]. This app was also developed with input from people living with HF. The feasibility of a discharge tool co-designed by patients to increase confidence for the self-management of people transitioning to home after a hospitalization for HF has also been demonstrated [ 69 ]. A mobile health app, Care4myHeart, was co-designed by patients, clinicians, and caregivers, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach [ 70 , 71 ], including the perceived relevance of the app to people living with HF [ 72 ]. A usability study of the app revealed the lack of integration of technology into everyday life in patients’ already established HF self-care routines as a significant barrier to adoption of the app [ 73 ]. Nonetheless, a diverse group of stakeholders, including patients involved in the co-design process, gave positive feedback about the design process; suggestions were made that the design team should be sufficiently diverse and that patients should be involved from an early stage [ 72 ]. Overall, an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and user-centered approach to the design of mobile health apps could enhance usability, feasibility, and acceptability [ 74 ].

The importance of the patient’s voice in heart failure educational programs

A common theme running through many of the interventions discussed in the previous sections is the importance of understanding key challenges, barriers, and expectations in patients’ journeys/experiences, and including patient participation for improving the management of HF. Patient participation, however, is a complex phenomenon that is not necessarily viewed the same way by patients and clinicians. Nonetheless, patient participation generally involves the exchange of information with health care professionals, the exercise of a sense of confidence and control, and engaging in decision-making [ 75 ]. Shared decision-making is recognized as a crucial element of HF care [ 76 ]. Shared decision-making involves patients and clinicians working together on treatment decisions in a way aligned with the patient’s goals, values, and preferences [ 76 , 77 ]. However, the opportunity for patients to participate in the management of their disease in a way that delivers against the health care professional’s expectations and intended outcomes can be remarkably hindered by factors such as a patient’s overall level of health literacy, a patient’s ability to ask questions (having the knowledge and time to do it) during consultations, the clarity of a clinician’s input, and a clinician’s appreciation of a patient’s emotional dimension. For example, while the extent of patient engagement in the development of best-practice reports related to transitions from the hospital to the home increased over time, only half of these reports actively involved patients in their development. Furthermore, only a few organizations involved patients in shared leadership [ 78 ]. There are thus opportunities for patients to be more involved in transitional-care interventions for HF—as is true for transitional-care programs in general.

Strategies to improve patient involvement in transitional-care programs for heart failure

Involving patients in the planning, administration, and evaluation stages can improve outcomes, reduce patient engagement barriers, and avert the perception of patients being involved in merely perfunctory or symbolic roles [ 78 ]. Early involvement of patients could also catalyze researchers and other stakeholders to engage in optimally designed programs and could reduce research waste by focusing on topics patients care about most [ 79 ]. Involving patients as authors of peer-reviewed medical publications is also a good way to critically involve the patient’s voice; in the video (see Additional file 2 ) one of the authors (Teresa Levitch) discusses her experience living with HF and co-creating HF programs and co-authoring the present article. Factors that have been shown to facilitate partnerships with patients include identifying a shared purpose and well-defined guidance for participation [ 80 ], effective communication (involving sharing information and providing compassionate care), building relationships with patients and their families, and being sensitive to patients’ needs [ 81 ]. In the podcast (see Additional file 3 ) three of the authors (Javed Butler, Petrina Stevens, and Teresa Levitch) discuss the importance of the patient’s voice in HF educational interventions.

Several considerations when integrally involving people living with HF in programs should be kept in mind. Learning materials should reflect patients’ needs and could therefore benefit from patient input given that some differences exist in the learning needs and priorities of people living with HF and health care providers [ 82 ]. To reach a broad audience, the perspectives of as many types of patients as possible should be covered in transitional-care programs for people living with HF, including patients with varying levels of formal education, those whose primary language is not English, and those with different abilities to comprehend information. How information about transitional-care programs is disseminated is important. In addition to more frequent use of plain-language summaries in journal articles involving the care of people living with HF, involving patients as co-authors can make articles more attractive to other patients, who may perceive the article as more relevant to themselves. Not providing full details with respect to the specific nature of the co-design process, as well as not including minority and indigenous groups, have been cited as limitations of mobile health interventions (specifically those aimed at improving nutrition and physical activity that have been co-designed by patients) [ 83 ]. Future co-designed programs aiming for greater transparency and inclusiveness could overcome these limitations.

Collaborating with patient advocacy organizations can also be a way to integrally involve the patient’s voice. This is exemplified by the HeartLife Foundation [ 84 ], a patient-driven charity. Their mission is to transform the quality of life of people living with HF by engaging, educating, and empowering a global community to create lasting solutions and build healthier lives. Another way to advance patient-driven research and programs is through collaboration with industry and clinicians, which can leverage the resources of each stakeholder.

Conclusions

For people living with HF, the period after hospitalization and the transition to the home carry a heightened risk of adverse health outcomes. Nonetheless, this period also offers an opportunity to foster self-care knowledge and behavior that can help avoid negative outcomes and mitigate the burden of living with HF. There is potentially great value in bringing forth the lived experience of people living with HF in the design and authorship of HF programs, studies, and articles via collaborative/co-designed approaches that fully involve people living with HF from the outset. Even minor progress on the journey for people living with HF to become thriving self-care advocates could improve their quality of life and reduce HF rehospitalizations. Establishing these principles and goals as the benchmark for transitional-care HF programs can strengthen the program structure and goals and could contribute to the evolution of medical research and clinical care.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Care Optimization Through Patient and Hospital Engagement Clinical Trial for Heart Failure

Heart failure

Electronically Delivered, Patient-Activation Tool for Intensification of Medications for Chronic Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction

Patient-Centered Care Transitions in HF

Rehabilitation Enablement in Chronic Heart Failure

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HeartLife Foundation. https://heartlife.ca/ . Accessed 1 December 2022.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Steven Tresker of Cactus Life Sciences (part of Cactus Communications) for medical writing, which was funded by AstraZeneca. MB gratefully acknowledges that he lives and works on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

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JB has consulted for Abbott, Adrenomed AG, Amgen, Array BioPharma, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, CVRx, G3 Pharmaceuticals, Impulse Dynamics, Innolife, Janssen, LivaNova, Luitpold Pharmaceuticals, Medtronic, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Roche, and Vifor. TB is a volunteer patient advocate with the HeartLife Foundation and, as a patient with lived experience, has provided consultation on an AstraZeneca-sponsored heart failure patient engagement program. MB is a co-founder of the HeartLife Foundation and, as a patient with lived experience, has provided consultation to Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca. JC is a co-founder of the HeartLife Foundation and, as a patient with lived experience, has participated in advisory boards for Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca. TL is a patient with lived experience and has nothing to disclose. MCP has received research funding from Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche, SQ Innovations, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Pharmacosmos, and 3R LifeScience; served in consultancy roles and on clinical trial committees for Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis, Roche, Corvia Medical, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, Medtronic, AbbVie, Bayer, Takeda, Cardiorentis, Pharmacosmos, and Siemens; and is supported by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Centre of Research Excellence Award (RE/13/5/30177 and RE/18/6/34217+). CSL is supported by a Clinician Scientist Award from the National Medical Research Council of Singapore; has received research support from Bayer and Roche Diagnostics; has served as consultant or on the Advisory Board/Steering Committee/Executive Committee for Abbott, Actelion, Allysta Pharma, Amgen, AnaCardio AB, Applied Therapeutics, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Boston Scientific, Cytokinetics, Darma Inc., EchoNous Inc, Impulse Dynamics, Ionis Pharmaceutical, Janssen Research & Development LLC, Medscape/WebMD Global LLC, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Prosciento Inc, Radcliffe Group Ltd., Roche Diagnostics, Sanofi, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, and Us2.ai; and serves as co-founder and non-Executive Director of Us2.ai. EM and PS are employees of AstraZeneca, and PM and JV were employees of AstraZeneca at the time the study was conducted.

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Published: 10 March 2020

Research and trends in STEM education: a systematic review of journal publications

Yeping Li 1 ,
Ke Wang 2 ,
Yu Xiao 1 &
Jeffrey E. Froyd 3

International Journal of STEM Education volume 7 , Article number: 11 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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With the rapid increase in the number of scholarly publications on STEM education in recent years, reviews of the status and trends in STEM education research internationally support the development of the field. For this review, we conducted a systematic analysis of 798 articles in STEM education published between 2000 and the end of 2018 in 36 journals to get an overview about developments in STEM education scholarship. We examined those selected journal publications both quantitatively and qualitatively, including the number of articles published, journals in which the articles were published, authorship nationality, and research topic and methods over the years. The results show that research in STEM education is increasing in importance internationally and that the identity of STEM education journals is becoming clearer over time.

Introduction

A recent review of 144 publications in the International Journal of STEM Education ( IJ - STEM ) showed how scholarship in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education developed between August 2014 and the end of 2018 through the lens of one journal (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). The review of articles published in only one journal over a short period of time prompted the need to review the status and trends in STEM education research internationally by analyzing articles published in a wider range of journals over a longer period of time.

With global recognition of the growing importance of STEM education, we have witnessed the urgent need to support research and scholarship in STEM education (Li, 2014 , 2018a ). Researchers and educators have responded to this on-going call and published their scholarly work through many different publication outlets including journals, books, and conference proceedings. A simple Google search with the term “STEM,” “STEM education,” or “STEM education research” all returned more than 450,000,000 items. Such voluminous information shows the rapidly evolving and vibrant field of STEM education and sheds light on the volume of STEM education research. In any field, it is important to know and understand the status and trends in scholarship for the field to develop and be appropriately supported. This applies to STEM education.

Conducting systematic reviews to explore the status and trends in specific disciplines is common in educational research. For example, researchers surveyed the historical development of research in mathematics education (Kilpatrick, 1992 ) and studied patterns in technology usage in mathematics education (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ; Sokolowski, Li, & Willson, 2015 ). In science education, Tsai and his colleagues have conducted a sequence of reviews of journal articles to synthesize research trends in every 5 years since 1998 (i.e., 1998–2002, 2003–2007, 2008–2012, and 2013–2017), based on publications in three main science education journals including, Science Education , the International Journal of Science Education , and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (e.g., Lin, Lin, Potvin, & Tsai, 2019 ; Tsai & Wen, 2005 ). Erduran, Ozdem, and Park ( 2015 ) reviewed argumentation in science education research from 1998 to 2014 and Minner, Levy, and Century ( 2010 ) reviewed inquiry-based science instruction between 1984 and 2002. There are also many literature reviews and syntheses in engineering and technology education (e.g., Borrego, Foster, & Froyd, 2015 ; Xu, Williams, Gu, & Zhang, 2019 ). All of these reviews have been well received in different fields of traditional disciplinary education as they critically appraise and summarize the state-of-art of relevant research in a field in general or with a specific focus. Both types of reviews have been conducted with different methods for identifying, collecting, and analyzing relevant publications, and they differ in terms of review aim and topic scope, time period, and ways of literature selection. In this review, we systematically analyze journal publications in STEM education research to overview STEM education scholarship development broadly and globally.

The complexity and ambiguity of examining the status and trends in STEM education research

A review of research development in a field is relatively straight forward, when the field is mature and its scope can be well defined. Unlike discipline-based education research (DBER, National Research Council, 2012 ), STEM education is not a well-defined field. Conducting a comprehensive literature review of STEM education research require careful thought and clearly specified scope to tackle the complexity naturally associated with STEM education. In the following sub-sections, we provide some further discussion.

Diverse perspectives about STEM and STEM education

STEM education as explicated by the term does not have a long history. The interest in helping students learn across STEM fields can be traced back to the 1990s when the US National Science Foundation (NSF) formally included engineering and technology with science and mathematics in undergraduate and K-12 school education (e.g., National Science Foundation, 1998 ). It coined the acronym SMET (science, mathematics, engineering, and technology) that was subsequently used by other agencies including the US Congress (e.g., United States Congress House Committee on Science, 1998 ). NSF also coined the acronym STEM to replace SMET (e.g., Christenson, 2011 ; Chute, 2009 ) and it has become the acronym of choice. However, a consensus has not been reached on the disciplines included within STEM.

To clarify its intent, NSF published a list of approved fields it considered under the umbrella of STEM (see http://bit.ly/2Bk1Yp5 ). The list not only includes disciplines widely considered under the STEM tent (called “core” disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, and materials research), but also includes disciplines in psychology and social sciences (e.g., political science, economics). However, NSF’s list of STEM fields is inconsistent with other federal agencies. Gonzalez and Kuenzi ( 2012 ) noted that at least two US agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, use a narrower definition that excludes social sciences. Researchers also view integration across different disciplines of STEM differently using various terms such as, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary (Vasquez, Sneider, & Comer, 2013 ). These are only two examples of the ambiguity and complexity in describing and specifying what constitutes STEM.

Multiple perspectives about the meaning of STEM education adds further complexity to determining the extent to which scholarly activity can be categorized as STEM education. For example, STEM education can be viewed with a broad and inclusive perspective to include education in the individual disciplines of STEM, i.e., science education, technology education, engineering education, and mathematics education, as well as interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary combinations of the individual STEM disciplines (English, 2016 ; Li, 2014 ). On the other hand, STEM education can be viewed by others as referring only to interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary combinations of the individual STEM disciplines (Honey, Pearson, & Schweingruber, 2014 ; Johnson, Peters-Burton, & Moore, 2015 ; Kelley & Knowles, 2016 ; Li, 2018a ). These multiple perspectives allow scholars to publish articles in a vast array and diverse journals, as long as journals are willing to take the position as connected with STEM education. At the same time, however, the situation presents considerable challenges for researchers intending to locate, identify, and classify publications as STEM education research. To tackle such challenges, we tried to find out what we can learn from prior reviews related to STEM education.

Guidance from prior reviews related to STEM education

A search for reviews of STEM education research found multiple reviews that could suggest approaches for identifying publications (e.g., Brown, 2012 ; Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011 ; Kim, Sinatra, & Seyranian, 2018 ; Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Minichiello, Hood, & Harkness, 2018 ; Mizell & Brown, 2016 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ; Wu & Rau, 2019 ). The review conducted by Brown ( 2012 ) examined the research base of STEM education. He addressed the complexity and ambiguity by confining the review with publications in eight journals, two in each individual discipline, one academic research journal (e.g., the Journal of Research in Science Teaching ) and one practitioner journal (e.g., Science Teacher ). Journals were selected based on suggestions from some faculty members and K-12 teachers. Out of 1100 articles published in these eight journals from January 1, 2007, to October 1, 2010, Brown located 60 articles that authors self-identified as connected to STEM education. He found that the vast majority of these 60 articles focused on issues beyond an individual discipline and there was a research base forming for STEM education. In a follow-up study, Mizell and Brown ( 2016 ) reviewed articles published from January 2013 to October 2015 in the same eight journals plus two additional journals. Mizell and Brown used the same criteria to identify and include articles that authors self-identified as connected to STEM education, i.e., if the authors included STEM in the title or author-supplied keywords. In comparison to Brown’s findings, they found that many more STEM articles were published in a shorter time period and by scholars from many more different academic institutions. Taking together, both Brown ( 2012 ) and Mizell and Brown ( 2016 ) tended to suggest that STEM education mainly consists of interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary combinations of the individual STEM disciplines, but their approach consisted of selecting a limited number of individual discipline-based journals and then selecting articles that authors self-identified as connected to STEM education.

In contrast to reviews on STEM education, in general, other reviews focused on specific issues in STEM education (e.g., Henderson et al., 2011 ; Kim et al., 2018 ; Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Minichiello et al., 2018 ; Schreffler, Vasquez III, Chini, & James, 2019 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ; Wu & Rau, 2019 ). For example, the review by Henderson et al. ( 2011 ) focused on instructional change in undergraduate STEM courses based on 191 conceptual and empirical journal articles published between 1995 and 2008. Margot and Kettler ( 2019 ) focused on what is known about teachers’ values, beliefs, perceived barriers, and needed support related to STEM education based on 25 empirical journal articles published between 2000 and 2016. The focus of these reviews allowed the researchers to limit the number of articles considered, and they typically used keyword searches of selected databases to identify articles on STEM education. Some researchers used this approach to identify publications from journals only (e.g., Henderson et al., 2011 ; Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Schreffler et al., 2019 ), and others selected and reviewed publications beyond journals (e.g., Minichiello et al., 2018 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ; Wu & Rau, 2019 ).

The discussion in this section suggests possible reasons contributing to the absence of a general literature review of STEM education research and development: (1) diverse perspectives in existence about STEM and STEM education that contribute to the difficulty of specifying a scope of literature review, (2) its short but rapid development history in comparison to other discipline-based education (e.g., science education), and (3) difficulties in deciding how to establish the scope of the literature review. With respect to the third reason, prior reviews have used one of two approaches to identify and select articles: (a) identifying specific journals first and then searching and selecting specific articles from these journals (e.g., Brown, 2012 ; Erduran et al., 2015 ; Mizell & Brown, 2016 ) and (b) conducting selected database searches with keywords based on a specific focus (e.g., Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ). However, neither the first approach of selecting a limited number of individual discipline-based journals nor the second approach of selecting a specific focus for the review leads to an approach that provides a general overview of STEM education scholarship development based on existing journal publications.

Current review

Two issues were identified in setting the scope for this review.

What time period should be considered?

What publications will be selected for review?

Time period

We start with the easy one first. As discussed above, the acronym STEM did exist until the early 2000s. Although the existence of the acronym does not generate scholarship on student learning in STEM disciplines, it is symbolic and helps focus attention to efforts in STEM education. Since we want to examine the status and trends in STEM education, it is reasonable to start with the year 2000. Then, we can use the acronym of STEM as an identifier in locating specific research articles in a way as done by others (e.g., Brown, 2012 ; Mizell & Brown, 2016 ). We chose the end of 2018 as the end of the time period for our review that began during 2019.

Focusing on publications beyond individual discipline-based journals

As mentioned before, scholars responded to the call for scholarship development in STEM education with publications that appeared in various outlets and diverse languages, including journals, books, and conference proceedings. However, journal publications are typically credited and valued as one of the most important outlets for research exchange (e.g., Erduran et al., 2015 ; Henderson et al., 2011 ; Lin et al., 2019 ; Xu et al., 2019 ). Thus, in this review, we will also focus on articles published in journals in English.

The discourse above on the complexity and ambiguity regarding STEM education suggests that scholars may publish their research in a wide range of journals beyond individual discipline-based journals. To search and select articles from a wide range of journals, we thought about the approach of searching selected databases with keywords as other scholars used in reviewing STEM education with a specific focus. However, existing journals in STEM education do not have a long history. In fact, IJ-STEM is the first journal in STEM education that has just been accepted into the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) (Li, 2019a ). Publications in many STEM education journals are practically not available in several important and popular databases, such as the Web of Science and Scopus. Moreover, some journals in STEM education were not normalized due to a journal’s name change or irregular publication schedule. For example, the Journal of STEM Education was named as Journal of SMET Education when it started in 2000 in a print format, and the journal’s name was not changed until 2003, Vol 4 (3 and 4), and also went fully on-line starting 2004 (Raju & Sankar, 2003 ). A simple Google Scholar search with keywords will not be able to provide accurate information, unless you visit the journal’s website to check all publications over the years. Those added complexities prevented us from taking the database search as a viable approach. Thus, we decided to identify journals first and then search and select articles from these journals. Further details about the approach are provided in the “ Method ” section.

Research questions

Given a broader range of journals and a longer period of time to be covered in this review, we can examine some of the same questions as the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ), but we do not have access to data on readership, articles accessed, or articles cited for the other journals selected for this review. Specifically, we are interested in addressing the following six research questions:

What were the status and trends in STEM education research from 2000 to the end of 2018 based on journal publications?

What were the patterns of publications in STEM education research across different journals?

Which countries or regions, based on the countries or regions in which authors were located, contributed to journal publications in STEM education?

What were the patterns of single-author and multiple-author publications in STEM education?

What main topics had emerged in STEM education research based on the journal publications?

What research methods did authors tend to use in conducting STEM education research?

Based on the above discussion, we developed the methods for this literature review to follow careful sequential steps to identify journals first and then identify and select STEM education research articles published in these journals from January 2000 to the end of 2018. The methods should allow us to obtain a comprehensive overview about the status and trends of STEM education research based on a systematic analysis of related publications from a broad range of journals and over a longer period of time.

Identifying journals

We used the following three steps to search and identify journals for inclusion:

We assumed articles on research in STEM education have been published in journals that involve more than one traditional discipline. Thus, we used Google to search and identify all education journals with their titles containing either two, three, or all four disciplines of STEM. For example, we did Google search of all the different combinations of three areas of science, mathematics, technology Footnote 1 , and engineering as contained in a journal’s title. In addition, we also searched possible journals containing the word STEAM in the title.

Since STEM education may be viewed as encompassing discipline-based education research, articles on STEM education research may have been published in traditional discipline-based education journals, such as the Journal of Research in Science Teaching . However, there are too many such journals. Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning has listed 16 journals that publish articles spanning across undergraduate STEM education disciplines (see https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/FacultyResources/STEMjournals ). Thus, we selected from the list some individual discipline-based education research journals, and also added a few more common ones such as the Journal of Engineering Education .

Since articles on research in STEM education have appeared in some general education research journals, especially those well-established ones. Thus, we identified and selected a few of those journals that we noticed some publications in STEM education research.

Following the above three steps, we identified 45 journals (see Table 1 ).

Identifying articles

In this review, we will not discuss or define the meaning of STEM education. We used the acronym STEM (or STEAM, or written as the phrase of “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”) as a term in our search of publication titles and/or abstracts. To identify and select articles for review, we searched all items published in those 45 journals and selected only those articles that author(s) self-identified with the acronym STEM (or STEAM, or written as the phrase of “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”) in the title and/or abstract. We excluded publications in the sections of practices, letters to editors, corrections, and (guest) editorials. Our search found 798 publications that authors self-identified as in STEM education, identified from 36 journals. The remaining 9 journals either did not have publications that met our search terms or published in another language other than English (see the two separate lists in Table 1 ).

Data analysis

To address research question 3, we analyzed authorship to examine which countries/regions contributed to STEM education research over the years. Because each publication may have either one or multiple authors, we used two different methods to analyze authorship nationality that have been recognized as valuable from our review of IJ-STEM publications (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). The first method considers only the corresponding author’s (or the first author, if no specific indication is given about the corresponding author) nationality and his/her first institution affiliation, if multiple institution affiliations are listed. Method 2 considers every author of a publication, using the following formula (Howard, Cole, & Maxwell, 1987 ) to quantitatively assign and estimate each author’s contribution to a publication (and thus associated institution’s productivity), when multiple authors are included in a publication. As an example, each publication is given one credit point. For the publication co-authored by two, the first author would be given 0.6 and the second author 0.4 credit point. For an article contributed jointly by three authors, the three authors would be credited with scores of 0.47, 0.32, and 0.21, respectively.

After calculating all the scores for each author of each paper, we added all the credit scores together in terms of each author’s country/region. For brevity, we present only the top 10 countries/regions in terms of their total credit scores calculated using these two different methods, respectively.

To address research question 5, we used the same seven topic categories identified and used in our review of IJ-STEM publications (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). We tested coding 100 articles first to ensure the feasibility. Through test-coding and discussions, we found seven topic categories could be used to examine and classify all 798 items.

K-12 teaching, teacher, and teacher education in STEM (including both pre-service and in-service teacher education)

Post-secondary teacher and teaching in STEM (including faculty development, etc.)

K-12 STEM learner, learning, and learning environment

Post-secondary STEM learner, learning, and learning environments (excluding pre-service teacher education)

Policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment in STEM (including literature review about a field in general)

Culture and social and gender issues in STEM education

History, epistemology, and perspectives about STEM and STEM education

To address research question 6, we coded all 798 publications in terms of (1) qualitative methods, (2) quantitative methods, (3) mixed methods, and (4) non-empirical studies (including theoretical or conceptual papers, and literature reviews). We assigned each publication to only one research topic and one method, following the process used in the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). When there was more than one topic or method that could have been used for a publication, a decision was made in choosing and assigning a topic or a method. The agreement between two coders for all 798 publications was 89.5%. When topic and method coding discrepancies occurred, a final decision was reached after discussion.

Results and discussion

In the following sections, we report findings as corresponding to each of the six research questions.

The status and trends of journal publications in STEM education research from 2000 to 2018

Figure 1 shows the number of publications per year. As Fig. 1 shows, the number of publications increased each year beginning in 2010. There are noticeable jumps from 2015 to 2016 and from 2017 to 2018. The result shows that research in STEM education had grown significantly since 2010, and the most recent large number of STEM education publications also suggests that STEM education research gained its own recognition by many different journals for publication as a hot and important topic area.

The distribution of STEM education publications over the years

Among the 798 articles, there were 549 articles with the word “STEM” (or STEAM, or written with the phrase of “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”) included in the article’s title or both title and abstract and 249 articles without such identifiers included in the title but abstract only. The results suggest that many scholars tended to include STEM in the publications’ titles to highlight their research in or about STEM education. Figure 2 shows the number of publications per year where publications are distinguished depending on whether they used the term STEM in the title or only in the abstract. The number of publications in both categories had significant increases since 2010. Use of the acronym STEM in the title was growing at a faster rate than using the acronym only in the abstract.

The trends of STEM education publications with vs. without STEM included in the title

Not all the publications that used the acronym STEM in the title and/or abstract reported on a study involving all four STEM areas. For each publication, we further examined the number of the four areas involved in the reported study.

Figure 3 presents the number of publications categorized by the number of the four areas involved in the study, breaking down the distribution of these 798 publications in terms of the content scope being focused on. Studies involving all four STEM areas are the most numerous with 488 (61.2%) publications, followed by involving one area (141, 17.7%), then studies involving both STEM and non-STEM (84, 10.5%), and finally studies involving two or three areas of STEM (72, 9%; 13, 1.6%; respectively). Publications that used the acronym STEAM in either the title or abstract were classified as involving both STEM and non-STEM. For example, both of the following publications were included in this category.

Dika and D’Amico ( 2016 ). “Early experiences and integration in the persistence of first-generation college students in STEM and non-STEM majors.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 53 (3), 368–383. (Note: this article focused on early experience in both STEM and Non-STEM majors.)

Sochacka, Guyotte, and Walther ( 2016 ). “Learning together: A collaborative autoethnographic exploration of STEAM (STEM+ the Arts) education.” Journal of Engineering Education , 105 (1), 15–42. (Note: this article focused on STEAM (both STEM and Arts).)

Publication distribution in terms of content scope being focused on. (Note: 1=single subject of STEM, 2=two subjects of STEM, 3=three subjects of STEM, 4=four subjects of STEM, 5=topics related to both STEM and non-STEM)

Figure 4 presents the number of publications per year in each of the five categories described earlier (category 1, one area of STEM; category 2, two areas of STEM; category 3, three areas of STEM; category 4, four areas of STEM; category 5, STEM and non-STEM). The category that had grown most rapidly since 2010 is the one involving all four areas. Recent growth in the number of publications in category 1 likely reflected growing interest of traditional individual disciplinary based educators in developing and sharing multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship in STEM education, as what was noted recently by Li and Schoenfeld ( 2019 ) with publications in IJ-STEM.

Publication distribution in terms of content scope being focused on over the years

Patterns of publications across different journals

Among the 36 journals that published STEM education articles, two are general education research journals (referred to as “subject-0”), 12 with their titles containing one discipline of STEM (“subject-1”), eight with journal’s titles covering two disciplines of STEM (“subject-2”), six covering three disciplines of STEM (“subject-3”), seven containing the word STEM (“subject-4”), and one in STEAM education (“subject-5”).

Table 2 shows that both subject-0 and subject-1 journals were usually mature journals with a long history, and they were all traditional subscription-based journals, except the Journal of Pre - College Engineering Education Research , a subject-1 journal established in 2011 that provided open access (OA). In comparison to subject-0 and subject-1 journals, subject-2 and subject-3 journals were relatively newer but still had quite many years of history on average. There are also some more journals in these two categories that provided OA. Subject-4 and subject-5 journals had a short history, and most provided OA. The results show that well-established journals had tended to focus on individual disciplines or education research in general. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary education journals were started some years later, followed by the recent establishment of several STEM or STEAM journals.

Table 2 also shows that subject-1, subject-2, and subject-4 journals published approximately a quarter each of the publications. The number of publications in subject-1 journals is interested, because we selected a relatively limited number of journals in this category. There are many other journals in the subject-1 category (as well as subject-0 journals) that we did not select, and thus it is very likely that we did not include some STEM education articles published in subject-0 or subject-1 journals that we did not include in our study.

Figure 5 shows the number of publications per year in each of the five categories described earlier (subject-0 through subject-5). The number of publications per year in subject-5 and subject-0 journals did not change much over the time period of the study. On the other hand, the number of publications per year in subject-4 (all 4 areas), subject-1 (single area), and subject-2 journals were all over 40 by the end of the study period. The number of publications per year in subject-3 journals increased but remained less than 30. At first sight, it may be a bit surprising that the number of publications in STEM education per year in subject-1 journals increased much faster than those in subject-2 journals over the past few years. However, as Table 2 indicates these journals had long been established with great reputations, and scholars would like to publish their research in such journals. In contrast to the trend in subject-1 journals, the trend in subject-4 journals suggests that STEM education journals collectively started to gain its own identity for publishing and sharing STEM education research.

STEM education publication distribution across different journal categories over the years. (Note: 0=subject-0; 1=subject-1; 2=subject-2; 3=subject-3; 4=subject-4; 5=subject-5)

Figure 6 shows the number of STEM education publications in each journal where the bars are color-coded (yellow, subject-0; light blue, subject-1; green, subject-2; purple, subject-3; dark blue, subject-4; and black, subject-5). There is no clear pattern shown in terms of the overall number of STEM education publications across categories or journals, but very much individual journal-based performance. The result indicates that the number of STEM education publications might heavily rely on the individual journal’s willingness and capability of attracting STEM education research work and thus suggests the potential value of examining individual journal’s performance.

Publication distribution across all 36 individual journals across different categories with the same color-coded for journals in the same subject category

The top five journals in terms of the number of STEM education publications are Journal of Science Education and Technology (80 publications, journal number 25 in Fig. 6 ), Journal of STEM Education (65 publications, journal number 26), International Journal of STEM Education (64 publications, journal number 17), International Journal of Engineering Education (54 publications, journal number 12), and School Science and Mathematics (41 publications, journal number 31). Among these five journals, two journals are specifically on STEM education (J26, J17), two on two subjects of STEM (J25, J31), and one on one subject of STEM (J12).

Figure 7 shows the number of STEM education publications per year in each of these top five journals. As expected, based on earlier trends, the number of publications per year increased over the study period. The largest increase was in the International Journal of STEM Education (J17) that was established in 2014. As the other four journals were all established in or before 2000, J17’s short history further suggests its outstanding performance in attracting and publishing STEM education articles since 2014 (Li, 2018b ; Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). The increase was consistent with the journal’s recognition as the first STEM education journal for inclusion in SSCI starting in 2019 (Li, 2019a ).

Publication distribution of selected five journals over the years. (Note: J12: International Journal of Engineering Education; J17: International Journal of STEM Education; J25: Journal of Science Education and Technology; J26: Journal of STEM Education; J31: School Science and Mathematics)

Top 10 countries/regions where scholars contributed journal publications in STEM education

Table 3 shows top countries/regions in terms of the number of publications, where the country/region was established by the authorship using the two different methods presented above. About 75% (depending on the method) of contributions were made by authors from the USA, followed by Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and UK. Only Africa as a continent was not represented among the top 10 countries/regions. The results are relatively consistent with patterns reported in the IJ-STEM study (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 )

Further examination of Table 3 reveals that the two methods provide not only fairly consistent results but also yield some differences. For example, Israel and Germany had more publication credit if only the corresponding author was considered, but South Korea and Turkey had more publication credit when co-authors were considered. The results in Table 3 show that each method has value when analyzing and comparing publications by country/region or institution based on authorship.

Recognizing that, as shown in Fig. 1 , the number of publications per year increased rapidly since 2010, Table 4 shows the number of publications by country/region over a 10-year period (2009–2018) and Table 5 shows the number of publications by country/region over a 5-year period (2014–2018). The ranks in Tables 3 , 4 , and 5 are fairly consistent, but that would be expected since the larger numbers of publications in STEM education had occurred in recent years. At the same time, it is interesting to note in Table 5 some changes over the recent several years with Malaysia, but not Israel, entering the top 10 list when either method was used to calculate author's credit.

Patterns of single-author and multiple-author publications in STEM education

Since STEM education differs from traditional individual disciplinary education, we are interested in determining how common joint co-authorship with collaborations was in STEM education articles. Figure 8 shows that joint co-authorship was very common among these 798 STEM education publications, with 83.7% publications with two or more co-authors. Publications with two, three, or at least five co-authors were highest, with 204, 181, and 157 publications, respectively.

Number of publications with single or different joint authorship. (Note: 1=single author; 2=two co-authors; 3=three co-authors; 4=four co-authors; 5=five or more co-authors)

Figure 9 shows the number of publications per year using the joint authorship categories in Fig. 8 . Each category shows an increase consistent with the increase shown in Fig. 1 for all 798 publications. By the end of the time period, the number of publications with two, three, or at least five co-authors was the largest, which might suggest an increase in collaborations in STEM education research.

Publication distribution with single or different joint authorship over the years. (Note: 1=single author; 2=two co-authors; 3=three co-authors; 4=four co-authors; 5=five or more co-authors)

Co-authors can be from the same or different countries/regions. Figure 10 shows the number of publications per year by single authors (no collaboration), co-authors from the same country (collaboration in a country/region), and co-authors from different countries (collaboration across countries/regions). Each year the largest number of publications was by co-authors from the same country, and the number increased dramatically during the period of the study. Although the number of publications in the other two categories increased, the numbers of publications were noticeably fewer than the number of publications by co-authors from the same country.

Publication distribution in authorship across different categories in terms of collaboration over the years

Published articles by research topics

Figure 11 shows the number of publications in each of the seven topic categories. The topic category of goals, policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment had almost half of publications (375, 47%). Literature reviews were included in this topic category, as providing an overview assessment of education and research development in a topic area or a field. Sample publications included in this category are listed as follows:

DeCoito ( 2016 ). “STEM education in Canada: A knowledge synthesis.” Canadian Journal of Science , Mathematics and Technology Education , 16 (2), 114–128. (Note: this article provides a national overview of STEM initiatives and programs, including success, criteria for effective programs and current research in STEM education.)

Ring-Whalen, Dare, Roehrig, Titu, and Crotty ( 2018 ). “From conception to curricula: The role of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in integrated STEM units.” International Journal of Education in Mathematics Science and Technology , 6 (4), 343–362. (Note: this article investigates the conceptions of integrated STEM education held by in-service science teachers through the use of photo-elicitation interviews and examines how those conceptions were reflected in teacher-created integrated STEM curricula.)

Schwab et al. ( 2018 ). “A summer STEM outreach program run by graduate students: Successes, challenges, and recommendations for implementation.” Journal of Research in STEM Education , 4 (2), 117–129. (Note: the article details the organization and scope of the Foundation in Science and Mathematics Program and evaluates this program.)

Frequencies of publications’ research topic distributions. (Note: 1=K-12 teaching, teacher and teacher education; 2=Post-secondary teacher and teaching; 3=K-12 STEM learner, learning, and learning environment; 4=Post-secondary STEM learner, learning, and learning environments; 5=Goals and policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment (including literature review); 6=Culture, social, and gender issues; 7=History, philosophy, Epistemology, and nature of STEM and STEM education)

The topic with the second most publications was “K-12 teaching, teacher and teacher education” (103, 12.9%), followed closely by “K-12 learner, learning, and learning environment” (97, 12.2%). The results likely suggest the research community had a broad interest in both teaching and learning in K-12 STEM education. The top three topics were the same in the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ).

Figure 11 also shows there was a virtual tie between two topics with the fourth most cumulative publications, “post-secondary STEM learner & learning” (76, 9.5%) and “culture, social, and gender issues in STEM” (78, 9.8%), such as STEM identity, students’ career choices in STEM, and inclusion. This result is different from the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ), where “post-secondary STEM teacher & teaching” and “post-secondary STEM learner & learning” were tied as the fourth most common topics. This difference is likely due to the scope of journals and the length of the time period being reviewed.

Figure 12 shows the number of publications per year in each topic category. As expected from the results in Fig. 11 the number of publications in topic category 5 (goals, policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment) was the largest each year. The numbers of publications in topic category 3 (K-12 learner, learning, and learning environment), 1 (K-12 teaching, teacher, and teacher education), 6 (culture, social, and gender issues in STEM), and 4 (post-secondary STEM learner and learning) were also increasing. Although Fig. 11 shows the number of publications in topic category 1 was slightly more than the number of publications in topic category 3 (see Fig. 11 ), the number of publications in topic category 3 was increasing more rapidly in recent years than its counterpart in topic category 1. This may suggest a more rapidly growing interest in K-12 STEM learner, learning, and learning environment. The numbers of publications in topic categories 2 and 7 were not increasing, but the number of publications in IJ-STEM in topic category 2 was notable (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). It will be interesting to follow trends in the seven topic categories in the future.

Publication distributions in terms of research topics over the years

Published articles by research methods

Figure 13 shows the number of publications per year by research methods in empirical studies. Publications with non-empirical studies are shown in a separate category. Although the number of publications in each of the four categories increased during the study period, there were many more publications presenting empirical studies than those without. For those with empirical studies, the number of publications using quantitative methods increased most rapidly in recent years, followed by qualitative and then mixed methods. Although there were quite many publications with non-empirical studies (e.g., theoretical or conceptual papers, literature reviews) during the study period, the increase of the number of publications in this category was noticeably less than empirical studies.

Publication distributions in terms of research methods over the years. (Note: 1=qualitative, 2=quantitative, 3=mixed, 4=Non-empirical)

Concluding remarks

The systematic analysis of publications that were considered to be in STEM education in 36 selected journals shows tremendous growth in scholarship in this field from 2000 to 2018, especially over the past 10 years. Our analysis indicates that STEM education research has been increasingly recognized as an important topic area and studies were being published across many different journals. Scholars still hold diverse perspectives about how research is designated as STEM education; however, authors have been increasingly distinguishing their articles with STEM, STEAM, or related words in the titles, abstracts, and lists of keywords during the past 10 years. Moreover, our systematic analysis shows a dramatic increase in the number of publications in STEM education journals in recent years, which indicates that these journals have been collectively developing their own professional identity. In addition, the International Journal of STEM Education has become the first STEM education journal to be accepted in SSCI in 2019 (Li, 2019a ). The achievement may mark an important milestone as STEM education journals develop their own identity for publishing and sharing STEM education research.

Consistent with our previous reviews (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ; Li, Wang, & Xiao, 2019 ), the vast majority of publications in STEM education research were contributed by authors from the USA, where STEM and STEAM education originated, followed by Australia, Canada, and Taiwan. At the same time, authors in some countries/regions in Asia were becoming very active in the field over the past several years. This trend is consistent with findings from the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). We certainly hope that STEM education scholarship continues its development across all five continents to support educational initiatives and programs in STEM worldwide.

Our analysis has shown that collaboration, as indicated by publications with multiple authors, has been very common among STEM education scholars, as that is often how STEM education distinguishes itself from the traditional individual disciplinary based education. Currently, most collaborations occurred among authors from the same country/region, although collaborations across cross-countries/regions were slowly increasing.

With the rapid changes in STEM education internationally (Li, 2019b ), it is often difficult for researchers to get an overall sense about possible hot topics in STEM education especially when STEM education publications appeared in a vast array of journals across different fields. Our systematic analysis of publications has shown that studies in the topic category of goals, policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment have been the most prevalent, by far. Our analysis also suggests that the research community had a broad interest in both teaching and learning in K-12 STEM education. These top three topic categories are the same as in the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). Work in STEM education will continue to evolve and it will be interesting to review the trends in another 5 years.

Encouraged by our recent IJ-STEM review, we began this review with an ambitious goal to provide an overview of the status and trends of STEM education research. In a way, this systematic review allowed us to achieve our initial goal with a larger scope of journal selection over a much longer period of publication time. At the same time, there are still limitations, such as the decision to limit the number of journals from which we would identify publications for analysis. We understand that there are many publications on STEM education research that were not included in our review. Also, we only identified publications in journals. Although this is one of the most important outlets for scholars to share their research work, future reviews could examine publications on STEM education research in other venues such as books, conference proceedings, and grant proposals.

Availability of data and materials

The data and materials used and analyzed for the report are publicly available at the various journal websites.

Journals containing the word "computers" or "ICT" appeared automatically when searching with the word "technology". Thus, the word of "computers" or "ICT" was taken as equivalent to "technology" if appeared in a journal's name.

Abbreviations

Information and Communications Technology

International Journal of STEM Education

Kindergarten–Grade 12

Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology

Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

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Importance of Literature Review

By Anthony M. Wanjohi:

Review of literature in any study is not a cup of tea; it requires scholarly maturity. Good review of literature is a sign of professional maturity; it shows one’s grasp of the field, one’s methodological sophistication in critiquing others’ research, and the breadth and depth of one’s reading (Krathwohl , 1988).

There are a number of reasons why review of related literature remains core component of any scientific study. These include but not limited to the following:

Firstly, review of literature acts as a stepping-stone towards achievement of the study objectives. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field.

Secondly, literature reviews provide a solid background to back one’s investigation. The review plays a critical role in analyzing the existing literature and giving justification as to how one’s research fits into the existing body of knowledge. This implies that the literature review provides the general understanding which gives meaning to the discussion of findings, conclusions, and recommendations. This allows the author to demonstrate how his / her research is linked to prior efforts and how it extends to build on better understanding.

Thirdly, literature reviews help the researcher to avoid duplication, identify the gaps in other studies with the goal of filling them, borrow from the research design and methodology used to investigate that particular problem and to interpret his or her own findings.

In general terms, the literature review helps to provide a context for the research, justify the research, ensure the research hasn’t been done, show where the research fits into the existing body of knowledge, enable the researcher to learn from previous theory on the subject, illustrate how the subject has previously been studied, highlight flaws in previous research, outline gaps in previous research, show that the work is adding to the understanding and knowledge of the field, help refine, refocus or even change the topic.

The temptation of being shallow, (and even to copy and paste) in review of literature is high. Thus, students of research, practitioners and scholars too are encouraged to shun away from being drawn into scholarly mediocrity.

Krathwohl , D.R. (1988). How to Prepare a Research Proposal: Guidelines for Funding and Dissertations in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Syracuse NY : Syracuse University Press.

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What is Literature Review?
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Reviews of Related Literature : Research Topic
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Education Literature Review
The Role of the Literature Review Your literature review gives your readers an understanding of the evolution of scholarly research on your topic. In your literature review you will: survey the scholarly landscape provide a synthesis of the issues, trends, and concepts possibly provide some historical background Review the literature in two ways:
Writing a Literature Review
In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they're interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later …
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review is important because it: Explains the background of research on a topic. Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area. Helps focus your own research questions or problems Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas. Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
Why is it important to do a literature review in research?
"A substantive, thorough, sophisticated literature review is a precondition for doing substantive, thorough, sophisticated research". Boote and Baile 2005 . Authors of manuscripts treat writing a literature review as a routine work or a mere formality. But a seasoned one knows the purpose and importance of a well-written literature review.
(PDF) Educational Research Literature Reviews: Understanding the
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide students of educational research with clear guidance on how to choose high quality sources for research papers and theses. Methods: Using an...
(PDF) Educational research: Reviewing the literature
The literature review is the informative, evaluative and critical synthesis of a particular topic and provides readers with a clear picture of the subject and its associated range of perspectives ...
Literature Review in Research Writing
A literature review is a study - or, more accurately, a survey - involving scholarly material, with the aim to discuss published information about a specific topic or research question. Therefore, to write a literature review, it is compulsory that you are a real expert in the object of study.
Chapter 1: Introduction
The purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate that your research question is meaningful. Additionally, you may review the literature of different disciplines to find deeper meaning and understanding of your topic. It is especially important to consider other disciplines when you do not find much on your topic in one discipline.
The Importance of Literature Review in Research Writing
A literature review helps you create a sense of rapport with your audience or readers so they can trust that you have done your homework. As a result, they can give you credit for your due diligence: you have done your fact-finding and fact-checking mission, one of the initial steps of any research writing.
Importance of the Literature Review in Research
The literature review is also crucial because it helps to detect knowledge gaps and provides an understanding of the direction in which the subsequent study of the problem should be developed. The topic described by Baker et al. (2015), as noted by the authors, is under-covered in the literature. For this reason, when reading the source review ...
PDF Six Step Process to Developing an Educational Research Plan
What is a literature review and why is it important? A literature review is a summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describes the past and current state of information on the topic of the research study. The purpose of the literature review is to document what the study adds to the existing literature and to ensure you
Why Is Literature Review Important? (3 Benefits Explained)
Writing a literature review is important for the following reasons: It demonstrates that you understand the issue you're investigating. A literature review allows you to develop a more theoretical framework for your research. It justifies your research and shows the gaps present in the current literature. Get Literature Review Writing Help
How to Write a Literature Review
The literature review gives you a chance to: Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
Need, Importance and 5 Sources of Review of Related Literature in
Need, Importance and 5 Sources of Review of Related Literature in Educational Research. Educational research means the organized collection and examination of the data related to education. It is a scientific study that examines the learning and teaching methods for better understanding of the education system.
(PDF) Importance of Literature Review
Importance of Literature Review. Bob mweetwa. 2020. research proposal as a problem to investigate, it usually has to be fairly narrow and focused, and because of this it can be difficult to appreciate how one's research subject is connected to other related areas. Therefore, the overall purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate this, and ...
Frontiers
A number of studies on higher education (HE) teachers' emotions have been carried out, but overall, the literature on this issue is relatively limited, even though HE teaching can be regarded as an emotional endeavor and represents an important topic in HE research. The main goal of this article was to develop a conceptual framework for examining teaching-related emotions of HE teachers by ...
Literature review
A literature review is a piece of academic writing demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the academic literature on a specific topic placed in context. A literature review also includes a critical evaluation of the material; this is why it is called a literature review rather than a literature report.
What is a literature review?
A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. The literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of research. The review should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate and clarify this previous research.
Trauma Informed Learning in the Classroom: A Literature Review
More than 3.1 million children a year are either abused or neglected (The State, 2022). During my student teaching this semester, I have seen first-hand the importance of trauma-informed learning in the classroom. How we teach our children has changed a lot throughout time, but change can be very important in making sure that students get the most out of their education and making sure that ...
5. The Literature Review
A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories.A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that ...
Challenges and opportunities for increasing patient involvement in
An underlying theme of the literature reviewed is that education and engagement of people living with HF after hospitalization are critical. ... Thus, while the review emphasizes the importance of nurse participation in multidisciplinary transitional care of people living with HF, the need for self-driven education and care is also apparent ...
Research and trends in STEM education: a systematic review of journal
A review of research development in a field is relatively straight forward, when the field is mature and its scope can be well defined. Unlike discipline-based education research (DBER, National Research Council, 2012), STEM education is not a well-defined field.Conducting a comprehensive literature review of STEM education research require careful thought and clearly specified scope to tackle ...
Importance of Literature Review
By Anthony M. Wanjohi: Review of literature in any study is not a cup of tea; it requires scholarly maturity. Good review of literature is a sign of professional maturity; it shows one's grasp of the field, one's methodological sophistication in critiquing others' research, and the breadth and depth of one's reading (Krathwohl , 1988). There […]
Using gamification to support learning in K‐12 education: A systematic
The review yielded rich findings concerning each dimension, providing K-12 teachers and scholars with a comprehensive overview of research findings on using gamification for educational purposes. Meanwhile, the findings indicated the lack of empirical studies regarding constructively aligned gamified courses, in which the different dimensions ...