Conference Agenda

Systematic reviews have become a flagship output in educational sciences—highly cited and increasingly expected as the route to evidence-informed decisions. Yet education-focused meta-research shows that many published “systematic” reviews still fall short on core standards (risk of bias safeguards, transparency, reproducibility), raising the question of how systematic they truly are (Fromm et al., 2025). Within this dynamic field, researchers employ a diverse array of methods to investigate a wide range of educational facets, from classroom dynamics and teacher-student interactions to the far-reaching consequences of education policies and practices on student outcomes (Creswell & Poth, 2019). Education research is typically divided into qualitative and quantitative paradigms, with mixed-method research forming a distinctive paradigm of its own. This integrative approach offers unique perspectives on social reality, distinct ontological and epistemological foundations, and specialised methodologies. Despite its value, synthesising qualitative research evidence in systematic reviews presents significant theoretical and methodological challenges throughout the process, from formulating research questions to making evidence claims. In education, where variables are complex and outcomes are deeply contextual, synthesising qualitative studies has long been a shared challenge. Unlike quantitative meta-analyses, qualitative synthesis cannot rely on straightforward effect size calculations (Borenstein, 2009). However, qualitative syntheses provide profound insights, revealing not just whether a practice succeeded but why it did, offering valuable perspectives on educational contexts. Yet, the variability in how qualitative studies are conducted and reported complicates their synthesis (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2006). While there's a prevailing belief that qualitative research can be systematically reviewed and synthesised, distinguishing methodically conducted qualitative research from those lacking rigour remains a necessity. Furthermore, a consensus on various aspects of the research process and its reporting still eludes the field (Garside, 2014). Qualitative systematic reviews in Education provide valuable insights into the characteristics of knowledge claims made within the field. These reviews are designed to synthesise and analyse qualitative research studies to generate comprehensive and nuanced understandings of educational phenomena. Within the context of a systematic review, this process takes on added significance. Here, it is not only essential to deliberate on the review methodology but also to scrutinise the studies incorporated into the review and dissect the resultant findings (Gough et al., 2017). This interconnected triplet – the research question, research methods, and research data – serves as the linchpin for constructing knowledge claims within the purview of qualitative systematic reviews in Education. The research question, central to this study, shaped and guided the entire heuristic process:

What are the characteristics of the knowledge claims made in qualitative systematic reviews in the field of education, and how do the authors of these reviews support them?

Building on this foundation, this study is organised into two distinct phases:

Phase 1: Systematic Review of Reviews. Conduct a systematic review of existing qualitative systematic reviews in the education field, focusing on subjective experiences, beliefs, opinions, and attitudes of students and teachers.

Phase two: Framework Development and Application. Develop and apply a comprehensive conceptual framework by integrating Toulmin's Argumentation Model (Toulmin, 1958) with Gough's Fitness for Purpose of an Evidence Claim Framework (Gough, 2022). This framework is used to analyse the systematic reviews in the purposive sample, aiming to identify their methodological characteristics and reporting practices

Research syntheses have gained increasing importance in educational research as they systematically summarize and evaluate existing empirical evidence and are expected to inform evidence-oriented practice (Sutton et al., 2019). However, despite this expectation, it remains unclear to what extent research syntheses are actually capable of supporting the uptake, transfer and use of research knowledge in practical context (Gorard et al., 2020; Green et al., 2016). This uncertainty is particularly salient given longstanding findings which indicate that educational research in general is only selectively taken up by practitioners (e.g. Bauer & Koller, 2023). Reasons are manifolded and include individual characteristics, structural conditions in research and practice as well as insufficient practical relevance (e.g. Brühwiler & Leutwyler, 2020). Against this backdrop, it would be implausible to assume that research syntheses despite their integrative and summarising character are per se more likely to be used or reused than primary research findings.

As scientific products, research syntheses primarily follow the logics, standards, and objectives of the academic system and are not inherently aligned with the action-oriented logics of educational practice (Kerres et al., 2022; Knight, 2025; von Grünberg & Lange, 2025). Consequently, they may be difficult to access, interpret, and apply for practitioners, particularly when findings are complex, ambiguous, or require advanced methodological expertise (White, 2024; Voss et al., 2020). However, the limited use cannot be explained solely by deficits on the side of practitioners, but must also be understood in relation to how research syntheses are designed, communicated, and positioned as scientific artefacts (Knight, 2025).

This paper addresses the tension between scientific rigor, openness and practical relevance of research syntheses by examining the extent to which syntheses provide practice-oriented implications and which characteristics enhance their relevance, accessibility and usability for educational practitioners. Rather than assessing the impact of research syntheses on practice, the study focuses on design-related conditions that may enable or constrain their comprehension and use. It investigates content-related aspects as well as formal and procedural features that shape how research syntheses can be understood, reused, and translated into practice. Specifically, the paper addresses three research questions (1) which formal features (e.g. boxes, visual elements) are provided to improve comprehensibility for practitioners? (2) to what extent research syntheses address practical goals and practice-relevant questions and formulate actionable recommendations? and (3) whether and how practitioners are considered as addressees or actively involved in the production of research syntheses?

Research activities often comprise complex processes, which can involve inputs from various stakeholders at different stages. Understanding, recognising, encouraging and supporting diverse contributions to research can lead to healthier and collaborative research cultures, which acknowledge and credit individuals’ contributions fairly; support and incentivise collaborations and sharing; as well as reduce disputes among different stakeholders when crediting contributions (Brand, et al. 2015).  Traditionally, contributions to research have been recognised through references to ‘authorship’. Yet, the framing of such contributions in this way is limited. Firstly, there exist ambiguities regarding whether ‘the contribution(s) of a co-author to a paper extends well beyond whether there was a contribution to the writing’ (Holcombe, 2019), authorship conventions often differ throughout different institutions, cultures and disciplines (McNutt et al., 2017) and authorship cannot adequately capture the many complex roles and contributions that stakeholders may have in the research process (Holcombe, 2019).  Given those limitations, Brand and colleagues (2015) proposed to move away from ‘authorship’ to ‘contributorship’ and use CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to report and record individuals’ contributions. CRediT has been supported and adopted by an increasing number of scholars, publishers, journals, and funders across the world (e.g. McNutt, et al., 2017; Holcombe, 2019). The CRediT framework is however limited in its application to many of the social sciences, and specifically educational research, initially having been ‘developed and tested as a taxonomy for life and physical sciences’ (Allen et al., 2018, p73).

Prior studies have revealed hierarchies, inequalities and injustice among contributors to research. Larivière, Pontille, and Sugimoto (2016) analysed data from PLOS (Public Library of Science) journals and found that ‘conceptual’ contributions are more often associated with senior authors, while ‘technical’ contributions (such as experimental work) are often associated with junior authors. Meanwhile, Macaluso and colleagues’ (2016, p. 1140) conducted an investigation of science and medical journals which revealed that women were often associated with the ‘physical’ labour – performing experiments, while men were most likely associated with resource contributions and ‘conceptual’ contributions.  

Previous studies have therefore predominantly focused on subjects and disciplines within the life sciences, and there is a lack of research which currently examines the landscape of attributing contributions within educational research. As a community, we do not yet understand concretely how contributions to the field of education are fully made and acknowledged, including for example, the work of librarians, IT technical staff, researchers of different career stages, research students, professional services staff or administrators. Further, existing research tends to highlight one form of research output – journal articles, despite the notion that many research outputs form more diverse outlets (e.g. Larivière et al., 2016; Thompson, et al., 2022). There is a current lack of research evidence on how contributions to educational research are understood and acknowledged, and of on the adaptability and utility of existing crediting frameworks and practices frameworks in educational research. Thompson and colleagues (2022) touched upon this issue in an editorial, where they argued that further investigation of the utility of CRediT is needed for the field of educational technology. Considering the differences across various sub-fields in educational research, there is also a need to investigate the notions and frameworks of ‘contributorship’ in educational research across different sub-fields. 

The project is therefore guided by the central research question of ‘How are contributions to research understood and recognised in the field of educational research?’