Challenges of synthesizing medical education research

The expectation that the primary function of systematic reviews in medical education is to guide the development of professional practice requires basic standards to make the reports of these reviews more useful to evidence-based practice and to allow for further meta-syntheses. However, medical education research is a field rather than a discipline, one that brings together multiple methodological and philosophical approaches and one that struggles to establish coherence because of this plurality. Gordon and Gibbs have entered the fray with their common framework for reporting systematic reviews in medical education independent of their theoretical or methodological focus, which raises questions regarding the specificity of medical education research and how their framework differs from other systematic review reporting frameworks. The STORIES (STructured apprOach to the Reporting In healthcare education of Evidence Synthesis) framework will need to be tested in practice and potentially it will need to be adjusted to accommodate emerging issues and concerns. Nevertheless, as systematic reviews fulfill a greater role in evidence-based practice then STORIES or its successors should provide an essential infrastructure through which medical education syntheses can be translated into medical education practice.

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