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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. 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
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Factors Contributing to School Effectiveness: A Systematic Literature Review

Associated data.

No new data were created. Results are based on existing articles on the topic.

This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the literature on school effectiveness, with a focus on identifying the main factors that contribute to successful educational outcomes. The research question that this paper aimed to address is “what are the main factors of school effectiveness?”. We were interested in several descriptors such as school, effectiveness/efficiency theories, effectiveness/efficiency research and factors. Studies (published within the 2016–2022 period) were retrieved through two databases: JSTOR and ERIC. This paper defines several categories identified by school effectiveness research. Within these categories, various factors that affect the students’ outcomes and the defined effectiveness in school are listed. As the results show, the issue of school effectiveness is multifaceted, as the effectiveness of schools is a complex concept that can be measured through various indicators such as academic achievement, student engagement and teacher satisfaction. The review of school effectiveness revealed that several factors contribute to effective schools, such as strong leadership, effective teaching practices, a positive school culture and parental involvement. Additionally, school resources, such as funding and facilities, can impact school effectiveness, particularly in under-resourced communities.

1. Introduction

The answer to the question “what makes school effective?” is the Holy Grail of educational research [ 1 ]. School effectiveness has been a research topic for several decades, with scholars and policymakers seeking to identify the key factors that contribute to successful educational outcomes. The concept of school effectiveness refers to the extent to which a school is able to achieve its goals and objectives in terms of student learning, development and well-being [ 2 ]. This article is not focused on the historical view of school effectiveness research (SER) or on phases in its development but rather on identifying factors that contribute to school effectiveness. School effectiveness research concerns educational research and explores differences within and between schools and malleable factors that improve school performance [ 3 ] and/or achievements and/or outcomes. Educational (school) effectiveness can be defined as the degree to which an educational system and its components and stakeholders achieve specific desired goals and effects [ 4 ]. Taking into consideration the different terminology used in researching school effectiveness and that we were not focusing on those possible differences when describing our results, let us first focus on possible differences to which effective schooling can contribute—as the specific desired goals and effects of schooling can be numerous and especially because different aspects of those goals can be inter-linked.

Schools have important “effects” on children and their development; so, “schools do make a difference”, as stated by Reynolds and Creemers in [ 5 ] (p. 10). SER studies seek to include factors such as “gender, socio-economic status, mobility and fluency in the majority language used at school” in assessing the impact of schools [ 5 ] (p. 11). In the past, educational assessment mainly relied on basic metrics like the number of students advancing to higher education, the grade repetition rates and special education enrollment. However, it became clear that these metrics were influenced by external factors beyond school and teacher characteristics and were thus abandoned. Instead, more comprehensive measures focusing on academic achievement in subjects like math and language were introduced. Progress in assessing effectiveness continued with the inclusion of control measures, such as students’ prior knowledge and family socio-economic status. Presently, standardized objective tests are the primary tool for measuring educational effectiveness in specific curricula [ 4 ].

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in understanding the factors that contribute to school effectiveness, particularly in light of concerns about the quality of education and the need to improve educational outcomes. Research suggests that school effectiveness is a multifaceted concept that is influenced by a range of factors, including school leadership, teacher quality, curriculum and instruction, school culture and climate, parental involvement and student characteristics [ 2 , 6 , 7 ]. However, the relative importance of these factors may vary depending on the context in which they are examined. Therefore, it is important to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature to identify the key factors of school effectiveness across different contexts.

This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the literature on school effectiveness, with a focus on identifying the main influencing factors. The review drew upon a range of empirical studies, meta-analyses and reviews to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge on this topic. In this research, the literature review was conducted according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines [ 8 ]. Systematic reviews of the literature have an important role and can identify different problems that can be addressed in future studies, “they can generate or evaluate theories about how or why phenomena occur’’ and can address questions that cannot be tackled by individual studies through several studies [ 8 ] (p. 1). We were interested in several descriptors such as school, effectiveness/efficiency theories, effectiveness/efficiency research, and factors. Studies were reviewed using two databases: JSTOR and ERIC. This paper defines several categories that are important in school effectiveness research and, within these categories, lists various factors that affect students’ outcomes and the defined school effectiveness. The research question that this paper aimed to address is “what are the main factors of school effectiveness?”. This paper can be helpful as it provides an overview of school effectiveness research, and the research question is of significant importance, as answering it can help inform educational policy and practice by identifying the key areas that schools should focus on in order to improve student outcomes. Several studies attempted to answer this question, but there is still much debate and discussion surrounding the factors that contribute to school effectiveness.

2. Background of School Effectiveness Research

The concept of school effectiveness emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in response to growing concerns about the quality of education and the need to improve educational outcomes for students [ 4 , 7 , 9 ]. Early definitions of school effectiveness focused on the achievement of educational outcomes, such as academic performance and the ability of schools to meet the needs of students from diverse backgrounds [ 4 , 10 ].

Coleman et al. [ 11 ] argued that students’ socioeconomic status is a crucial factor affecting their academic achievement in schools and has a greater impact than school characteristics. This is consistent with the conclusion reached by Jencks [ 12 ], who found that schools do not have a statistically significant impact on student achievement. These findings paved the way for school effectiveness research, which emerged in the early 1970s as a radical movement aimed at exploring the factors within schools that contribute to better students’ educational performance, regardless of their social background [ 13 ]. In the field of education, effective-schools research emerged as a response to previous studies such as Coleman’s and Jencks’, which indicated that schools had little impact on students’ achievement. As titles such as “Schools can make a difference” and “School matters” suggest, the goal of effective-schools research was to challenge this notion and explore factors that contribute to successful schools. What sets effective-schools research apart is its focus on investigating the internal workings of schools, including their organization, structure and content, in order to identify characteristics associated with effectiveness [ 14 , 15 ]. According to Muijs [ 14 ], school effectiveness research sought to move beyond the prevailing pessimism about the impact of schools and education on students’ educational performance. The movement aimed to focus on studying the factors within schools that could lead to better students’ academic performance, irrespective of their social background [ 14 ] (p. 141). Scheerens et al. [ 16 ] (p. 43) summed up the five influencing factors identified in early research on school effectiveness: “strong educational leadership, emphasis on the acquiring of basic skills, an orderly and secure environment, high expectations of pupil attainment, frequent assessment of pupil progress”.

According to various scholars [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], defining educational quality is a challenging task due to the diverse settings, stakeholders and goals involved in education. Generally, educational quality can be defined as achieving the desired standards and goals. Creemers and Scheerens [ 23 ] further added that quality refers to the characteristics and factors of the school that contribute to differences in outcomes between students in different grades, schools and educational systems. However, these definitions fail to provide a clear explanation of the specific characteristics that result in quality education and schools [ 4 ] (p. 2). School effectiveness is a subset of educational effectiveness or educational quality. According to Scheerens [ 21 ], educational effectiveness refers to the extent to which an educational program or institution achieves its intended outcomes, while school effectiveness is concerned with the extent to which a school achieves its goals and objectives. Burusic et al. [ 4 ] also noted that school effectiveness research is a branch of educational effectiveness research that specifically focuses on the functioning of schools and their impact on student outcomes.

Theories of school effectiveness have evolved over time, with a greater emphasis on the role of leadership and school culture in shaping educational outcomes. One of the most influential models of school effectiveness is the “Effective Schools Model” developed by Edmonds [ 24 ]. This model identified five key characteristics of effective schools: high expectations, strong instructional leadership, a safe and orderly environment, a focus on basic skills, and frequent monitoring of student progress.

Subsequent research confirmed the importance of these factors in promoting school effectiveness [ 2 , 25 ]. For example, a study by Leithwood et al. [ 2 ] found that effective school leadership was associated with improved student outcomes, including academic achievement and graduation rates. Similarly, research by Ismail et al. [ 26 ] highlighted the importance of a positive school culture, including supportive relationships among staff and students, in promoting school effectiveness.

Reynolds et al. [ 27 ] (p. 3) proposed that there are three primary areas of focus in School Effectiveness Research (SER):

• School Effects Research: investigating the scientific characteristics of school effects, which has evolved from input–output studies to current studies that use multilevel models.
• Effective Schools Research: researching the procedures and mechanisms of effective schooling, which has developed from case studies of exceptional schools to contemporary studies that integrate qualitative and quantitative methods to study classrooms and schools concurrently.
• School Improvement Research: examining the methods through which schools can be transformed, utilizing increasingly advanced models that surpass the simple implementation of school effectiveness knowledge to employ sophisticated “multiple-lever” models.

Sammons and Bakkum [ 5 ] (p. 10) argued the importance of different factors that are associated with student attainment: “individual characteristics (age, birth weight, gender), family socio-economic characteristics (particularly family structure, parental background: qualification levels, health, socio-economic status, in or out of work, and income level), community and societal characteristics (neighborhood context, cultural expectations, social structural divisions especially in relation to social class)”.

More recent theories of school effectiveness also emphasized the need to address systemic inequities and promote social justice in education [ 28 , 29 ]. These theories recognize the role of societal factors, such as poverty and discrimination, in shaping educational outcomes and the need for schools to adopt a more inclusive and equitable approach to education. For example, Ainscow [ 28 ] developed a model of “inclusive school leadership”, which emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of inclusion and diversity in schools.

Overall, theories of school effectiveness have evolved over time, reflecting changing perspectives on the role of schools in promoting educational outcomes. Key factors identified in the literature include effective school leadership, a positive school culture and a focus on meeting the needs of diverse students. However, more recent theories also recognize the need to address systemic inequities and promote social justice in education.

According to Heyneman and Loxley [ 30 ], multiple linear regression was used to re-analyze IEA data on student achievement in industrialized countries. The researchers found that student background variables such as parental education, father’s occupation, number of books at home, use of a dictionary at home, the sex of the student and the age of the student explained approximately 20% of the total variance in science achievement, which accounted for roughly 50% of the explainable variance. Furthermore, the OECD [ 30 ] reported that PISA 2000 also revealed that various student background factors, such as parental occupational status, cultural possessions at home, parental involvement, home educational resources, participation in cultural activities and family wealth, explained the significant variance in the academic achievement of 15-year-old students.

3. Materials and Methods

For this article, a systematic literature review was carried out. The literature review was conducted using the PRISMA protocol [ 8 ]. “To ensure a systematic review is valuable to users, authors should prepare a transparent, complete, and accurate account of why the review was done, what they did (such as how studies were identified and selected), and what they found (such as characteristics of contributing studies and results of meta-analyses)” [ 8 ] (p. 1). We were interested in several descriptors such as school, effectiveness/efficiency theories, effectiveness/efficiency research and factors. For searching, the following formula was used: (school AND effectiveness) OR (school AND efficiency)) AND (theories OR research OR factors).

Two databases were used: JSTOR and ERIC. The search and review of the studies were carried out from August to October 2022. The period was limited between 2016 and 2022, except for the database ERIC, as we did not have that option. In the ERIC database, we examined research within the last five years, from 2018 to 2022, which was one of the options in the database. In JSTOR, the period was limited between 2016 and 2022. This decision was made because this literature review will be used in further research for a doctoral dissertation of the main authors of this article, where a secondary analysis will be performed considering the ICCS 2016/2022 (International Civic and Citizenship Education Study); therefore, we focused on the literature in that period.

The literature review included all studies in English, qualitative and quantitative. There were no specific restrictions on the studies involved, so book sections and articles published in professional and academic journals were considered.

Before we determined the final search formula, we tried several search terms and combinations. The search using the term “school effectiveness” was too broad, and, for example, that using the terms “school effectiveness theories” or “school effectiveness factors” was too narrow. We were also interested in the term efficiency, besides the term effectiveness; so, the following final search term was chosen: (school AND effectiveness) OR (school AND efficiency)) AND (theories OR research OR factors).

In the first phase of searching, we included descriptors and searched the literature using the final formula mentioned above.

Both databases have different options for searching studies, which is the reason why searching was individually adapted to our interests. With the already mentioned search formula, we obtained 130,371 results. The resources to which we did not have full access were excluded, and the final number of relevant items decreased to 13,446.

In the second phase of the literature review, we reviewed all the titles of the searched items and collected 130 possible relevant studies for our research area. We excluded 4 duplicates. After we read all selected articles, we excluded the irrelevant ones, and the final number of included studies in the systematical literature review was 84. The description of those articles is in the Results section. For a more visual picture of the search process for the literature review, please refer to the PRISMA diagram in Figure 1 .

PRISMA diagram for the search protocol and the inclusion and exclusion of the reviewed articles.

With the literature review in the area of school effectiveness, we identified key themes and provide theoretical guidance for the achievement of effective schools. The aim of this study was to discover and define the key factors that influence the effectiveness of a school and students’ achievements/outcomes. A few categories were identified within school effectiveness research: teacher effectiveness, effectiveness in digital/online education, and school efficiency. In the different items that we reviewed, some key factors that appeared to have a statistically significant impact on school effectiveness and student achievement were identified in several studies. Factors such as school culture, a supportive climate in the classroom, a positive class climate, the use of digital sources, a strong and firm leadership, an effective leadership, flipped classroom (FC), schools’ economic, social and cultural status, the attitude of principals, teachers, and school counselors, the organizational climate, the aspects of cooperation, inclusion in decision making, presence of teachers with many years of experience, collegial support, collegial leadership, teacher collaboration, the level of participation in decisions, the willingness to participate, the habit of treating students with respect and caring about their problems, high teacher ratings on leadership and the supervisor’s support of teachers were all revealed as important contributors to overall school effectiveness and student achievement.

The majority of the reviewed studies mostly discussed school-level factors. Thrupp in [ 3 ] argued that the background characteristics of the students are often overlooked. “School performance is usually expressed in terms of average student achievement by the school” [ 3 ], (p. 255). Furthermore, research suggests that “student achievement mostly depends on the performance of the student in early education” [ 31 ] (p. 12). School climate was detected as one of the most important factors for school effectiveness [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ], and studies indicated the significance of school climate for teacher commitment [ 33 , 39 , 40 , 41 ].

4.1. Positive School Climate and School Culture

A positive school climate is essential for school effectiveness. Khan [ 33 ] proposed that it would be worthwhile to develop a positive organizational climate strategy to improve teacher commitment, and promoting a positive school climate is important for the improvement of school effectiveness in general [ 34 ]. Authors like Ismail et al. [ 34 ] and Ismara et al. [ 42 ] claimed that improving school effectiveness requires support from stakeholders like government, policymakers, principals, deputy principals, teachers, parents and other school stakeholders.

Also, school culture predicts school effectiveness and has stronger relations with school effectiveness than teacher empowerment [ 43 ]. “A school should have a culture that values the professional development of its teachers, collegiality, collaborative leadership, and teamwork to be effective” [ 43 ] (p. 340). Karadağ et al. [ 44 ] argued that high-performing schools have strong school culture and spiritual leadership characteristics compared to low-performing schools. The results of their study showed the impact of school culture and spiritual leadership on academic success. Ismail et al. [ 26 ] also claimed that school culture has a significant influence on school effectiveness. “If school leaders want to shape a new culture, they should start with an assessment of the climate. If the culture is ineffective, there are probably climate issues that were missed before they became rooted in the culture” [ 45 ] (p. 58). The school should have a culture that “values the professional development of its teachers, collegiality, collaborative leadership, and teamwork to be effective” [ 43 ], (p. 340).

4.2. Teacher Effectiveness

Teacher effectiveness is also known as one of the most important factors for predicting school and student effectiveness [ 31 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Factors not significant in explaining differences in teacher effectiveness estimates are student gender and students’ language identity, as Aslantas claimed [ 31 ].

Effective teachers provide a positive school climate, collaborate with colleagues and analyze student data. Student achievement is positively associated with years of teaching experience [ 49 ]. The quality of the interactions between teachers and students is also very important. LoCasale-Crouch et al. [ 51 ] argued that teacher–student interactions are important to students’ school outcomes (they affect their engagement, academic performance and motivation). Independent of the overall interaction quality, students with less consistency in their interactions with teachers had more conflicts with them.

School effectiveness is positively correlated with the teachers’ level of participation in decisions and their willingness to participate. Teachers reported that they did not feel enough included in the decisions of the administration and were aware that the administration had an important role. It is therefore very important to increase the level of participation of teachers in decisions [ 52 ]. Yıldırım [ 53 ] claimed that organizational cynicism (OC) indirectly affects perceived school effectiveness (PSE) through involvement in the decision-making (IDM) process and may reduce perceived school effectiveness by reducing teachers’ participation in school decision making. OC had a statistically significant negative effect on PSE, as well as on IDM. IDM showed a statistically significant positive effect on PSE [ 53 ]. Gülbahar [ 54 ] (p. 15) reported that “the perceived supervisor support among teachers is positive on school effectiveness perception, engagement to work and job satisfaction and negative on organizational cynic attitude”.

Javorcíková et al. [ 55 ] analyzed the motivation level of teachers in primary schools. The supervisors’ approach as well as the atmosphere in the workplace, teamwork, fair system and salary are important for teachers’ positive motivation. Khan [ 33 ], on the other hand, tested the impact of organizational climate on teachers’ commitment. School climate is directly connected with school effectiveness, and Khan researched how it is associated with teacher commitment. He performed a regression analysis and argued that the school climate has a significant influence on teacher commitment. Also, collegial leadership and institutional vulnerability appeared as predictors of teacher commitment. Teacher professionalism and academic achievement failed to be predictors of teacher commitment. The study proposed that it would be worthwhile to develop a positive organizational climate strategy to improve teacher commitment [ 33 ].

4.3. Strong Leadership

Many authors agree that strong instructional, school, academic, collaborative and collegial leadership has a significant influence on the effectiveness of schools [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 39 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 48 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ].

Reynolds and Teddlie in [ 32 ] (p. 2) “summarized that effective schools were characterized by nine process factors: effective leadership, effective teaching, a pervasive focus on learning, a positive school culture, high expectations for all, student responsibilities and rights, progress monitoring, developing school staff skills, and involving parents”.

Professional development is a dimension of school culture. Gülşen and Çelik [ 43 ] tested the correlation with school effectiveness, and professional development was the most predictive variable. The other significant predictors were collegial support, collegial leadership, unity of purpose, self-efficacy, decision making and teacher collaboration. The following variables were not statistically significant in explaining school effectiveness: the learning partnership dimension of school culture and the status, impact, autonomy, and professional growth dimensions of school participant empowerment.

4.4. Technological Resources and Digital Literacy

This systematic literature review included many articles that discussed technological resources and digital literacy as important factors that can be effective in providing positive effects on education. It is necessary that teachers receive more support and training on using digital resources in education. Teachers partly use digital sources, and most of them do not consider it a workload. Teachers see the usage of digital sources as motivating student engagement in education and as having a positive effect on student success and education [ 69 , 70 ].

The studies examined in this systematic literature review also focused on online education and distance teaching and learning, since there was the COVID-19 pandemic during the considered research period; so, we identified some issues related to education during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 ]. The experience of online distance learning (ODL) was new for the students and teachers, and they faced some issues related to the lack of tools and sources and poor Internet connectivity to access virtual classes. Despite some difficulties, the teachers and students reported that ODL has many positive aspects that help working teachers and professionals to continue higher education and professional development [ 71 ].

Zou et al. [ 72 ] found that it is important for teachers who have the opportunity to continue their training to acquire more skills and become more confident, so their online teaching could be more effective. In general, in this study, the majority of students and teachers were satisfied with online teaching during the pandemic and reported that in general it was effective. Basar et al. [ 73 ] argued that tools and sources were not a problem for the students, as they had computers and an internet connection, and their ability and comfort to use computers were high. The main problem for the students was the lack of motivation for online learning. The majority of the participants in the study agreed that face-to-face teaching is very important. The authors also emphasized “the importance of well-equipped facilities and a stable internet connection for effective learning” and that the “support within school communities, and among parents and school administrators, is vital to ensure the success of online learning”. “While online learning has been proven to support the health of students during the pandemic, it is not as effective as conventional learning” [ 73 ] (pp. 76, 119, 128).

However, online education is nowadays more included in school systems; so, we must increase the effectiveness in that area of learning. The teachers who were educated beforehand and used the technology before the pandemic were more self-assured and had fewer problems with the transition [ 72 , 74 , 75 , 76 ].

4.5. Flipped Classroom

In our systematic literature review, we found that a few authors researched the learning method of flipped classroom and tested its association with school effectiveness [ 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 ].

Flipped classroom is a strategy of active learning that puts the student at the center of teaching and that gained popularity in the recent decade. Authors like Mok and Gilboy et al. in [ 79 ] argued that compared to traditional pedagogical teaching, students positively accept the strategy of a flipped classroom with more enthusiasm and motivation for learning. On the other hand, Atteberry [ 79 ] reported in a preliminary study that, according to four professors, flipped classroom did not improve students learning, though the difference was not significant. The flipped classroom (FC) method is a digital teaching method according to which the courses are taught online through learning applications and are supported by digital media, for example, learning videos and simulations [ 77 ].

Weiß and Friege [ 77 ] (p. 315) listed several definitions of the flipped classroom concept, from different authors:

• “An inverted (or flipped) classroom is a specific type of blended learning design that uses technology to move lectures outside the classroom and uses learning activities to move practice with concepts inside the classroom” Strayer (2012, p. 171).
• “We define the flipped classroom as an educational technique that consists of two parts: interactive group learning activities inside the classroom and direct computer-based individual instruction outside the classroom” Bishop and Verleger (2013, p. 9).
• “Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter” Association of Flipped Learning Network (2014, p. 1), Bergmann and Sams (2014, p. 14)”.

There are not yet clear conclusions on whether the method of the flipped classroom contributes to school effectiveness. This strategy of learning brings many benefits and, on the other hand, students and teachers face new challenges, and students have to be well organized for self-learning and for learning at home. Although research on that theme has grown in the last few years, there is a lack of publications and of relevant publications that meet the scientific standards [ 77 ].

Flipped classroom is an effective method that increases students’ engagement, and most students prefer this method of learning. But, on the other hand, it also has some disadvantages. The strategy did not further improve the scores of top-scoring students. Though the students did not prefer this method to the traditional one, it “helped improve the grades of students who were at the lower end of academic performance” [ 78 ] (p. 2). Knežević et al. [ 81 ] found a positive relationship between the method and school effectiveness, reporting that the strategy of flipped classroom brings higher results than the approach of conventional teaching and learning.

4.6. The Efficiency of Schools

The articles we examined for our systematic literature review reported on the efficiency of schools [ 71 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 ]. This concept includes the financial status of the school (budget), the number of employed staff at the school (teaching staff) and the school’s physical infrastructure [ 87 ]. “Efficient educational institutions are those that can use their inputs optimally to achieve maximum possible outputs. If the output is fixed, efficiency refers to minimizing the use of inputs to achieve the output” [ 87 ] (pp. 1, 2).

The study by Thompson et al. [ 82 ] showed that total student enrolment is a significantly essential and positively affecting factor for the efficiency rating of school districts. The percentage of nonwhite students and of economically disadvantaged students has a significant negative influence on the district efficiency scores. The most used method for measuring technical efficiency involves comparing inputs and outputs in many educational units. This method is called “Data Envelopment Analysis” (DEA) and was developed by Charnes et al. in [ 85 ] (p. 2). Halkiotis et al. [ 85 ] measured the degree of technical efficiency of high schools, and they found that it is necessary to improve the working conditions for teachers and reduce stress. The study results showed that a significant number of teachers did not complete their compulsory weekly teaching schedule. Furthermore, it is essential to develop a healthy competition between the students by increasing the average number of students per class.

4.7. Sociodemographic Characteristics

The sociodemographic characteristics have been identified as important factors that contribute to school effectiveness. Ramberg and Modin [ 56 ] found that schools with a high proportion of students with immigrant backgrounds tended to have lower levels of academic achievement, possibly due to language barriers and cultural differences. Şirin and Şahin [ 88 ] also noted that students from low-income families may face more challenges in their academic performance and school engagement, which can negatively impact the overall effectiveness of schools.

However, Hirschl and Smith [ 89 ] argued that the relationship between socioeconomic status and school effectiveness may not be straightforward, as schools in high-poverty areas may have higher levels of student motivation and community involvement, which can offset the negative effects of poverty. Murwaningsih and Fauziah [ 90 ] further highlighted the importance of considering gender and ethnicity to understand school effectiveness, as these factors can influence student achievement and experiences in different ways.

A study by Rumberger et al. [ 91 ] analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and found that socioeconomic status was a strong predictor of high school graduation rates. The study also found that students from low-income families were more likely to attend schools with fewer resources, which might contribute to lower academic achievement.

Overall, these studies suggest that the sociodemographic characteristics play a significant role in school effectiveness, but their influence may vary depending on specific contexts and populations.

5. Discussion

Academic performance, sometimes known as school readiness, academic achievement and school performance are often used as synonyms, and several authors agree that it is the result of learning, prompted by the teaching activity of the teacher and produced by the student [ 92 ]. However, at the same time, there seems to be a lack of consensus among researchers regarding the similarities and differences among the constructs of academic performance, achievement, and learning outcomes [ 93 ]. For those who view them as the same concept, they can be used interchangeably. But for others—who mostly come from different disciplines and thus have various knowledge regarding the perception and the ways each of these constructs were used in relation to certain variables—they can have different meanings [ 93 ], although to a low extent. The academic performance of a student can be regarded as the observable and measurable behavior of a student in a particular situation and can be evaluated through the scores obtained in teacher-made tests, first term examinations, mid-semester tests, etc. [ 93 ], which can be measured at any point. Achievement is a measurable behavior in a standardized series of tests, as indicated by Simpson and Weiner in [ 93 ] (p. 6), or is measured by a standardized achievement test developed for school subjects, as indicated by Bruce and Neville in [ 93 ] (p. 6). This means that academic achievement is measured in relation to what is attained at the end of a course, since it is the accomplishment of a medium- or long-term objective of education (cannot be attained within a short period or in one instance). It is important that the test should be standardized to meet the national norm [ 93 ] (pp. 6–9). Academic achievement is a representation of performance outcomes that indicate the level to which the student has attained specific goals that were the focus of activities in instructional environments [ 94 ]. School systems mostly define cognitive goals that either apply across multiple subject areas (e.g., critical thinking) or include the acquisition of knowledge and understanding in a specific intellectual domain (e.g., numeracy, literacy, science, history). Therefore, academic achievement should be considered as a multifaceted construct that comprises different domains of learning [ 94 ]. The definition of academic achievement depends on the indicators used to measure it. Among the many criteria that indicate academic achievement, there are very general indicators (e.g., procedural and declarative knowledge acquired in an educational system), more curricular-based criteria (e.g., grades or performance on an educational achievement test), and cumulative indicators of academic achievement (e.g., educational degrees and certificates) [ 94 ]. Academic achievements are usually expressed through school grades, as reported by Martinez-Otero in [ 92 ]. Learning outcomes may be used when looking for performance or achievement as an attitude of the students towards a particular subject [ 93 ] (p. 14). Aremu and Sokan [ 95 ] indicated that learning outcomes (academic achievement and academic performance) are determined by family, schools, society and motivation factors.

In summary, it appears that academic outcomes (performances and/or achievements) or educational goals and effects are influenced by several school and out-of-school (e.g., family) factors, as well as by student (individual) factors, with inter-relation factors also being of importance. And all of this contributes to school efficiency.

As shown in the previous section (Results), there are many factors contributing to school effectiveness. Some of them can be seen as related to each individual student (e.g., sociodemographic characteristics); however, also those “individual factors” are often directly or indirectly associated with within-school factors which are attributed to teachers and school efficiency (e.g., effective teaching, effective school or classroom leadership, etc.). And this is not a surprise, as Creemers and Kyriakides [ 96 ] already proposed that a new, dynamic model of effectiveness must (a) be multilevel in nature, (b) assume that the relation of some effectiveness factors with achievement may be curvilinear, (c) illustrate the dimensions upon which the measurement of each effectiveness factor should be based and (d) define relations among the effectiveness factors. Their testing of this dynamic model at the school (and, further, system) level placed most attention on describing detailed factors associated with teacher behavior in the classroom [ 96 ].

The subject of school effectiveness is a complex and multifaceted topic that has been the subject of extensive research and debate. There are many different factors that can contribute to the effectiveness of a school, including the quality of teaching, the study curriculum, the leadership and management of the school, the socio-economic background of the students, the level of parental involvement, the school culture and the school climate. The quality of the school seems to be strongly linked to a safe and stimulating learning environment. There is not a clear division in the definition of a safe and of a stimulating learning environment; furthermore, the concepts of a safe learning environment and of a stimulating learning environment are complementary and partly overlap with the concept of school culture and climate, as indicated by Dumont et al. in [ 97 ]. Standards defining the school culture and climate or a safe learning environment, highlight the following aspects: “inclusion, safety, relationships, information and communication, educational strategies” [ 97 ], (p. 9).

One important finding that emerged from the literature is that the quality of teaching is a very important factor in school effectiveness. Research has consistently shown that effective teaching practices can significantly improve student outcomes, including academic achievement, engagement and motivation [ 98 , 99 ]. This underscores the importance of ensuring that teachers have the necessary skills, knowledge and support to deliver high-quality instruction.

Another key finding is that school leadership and management can have a significant impact on school effectiveness. Effective leadership can create a positive school culture that promotes learning and growth, fosters collaboration among staff and students and ensures that resources are allocated effectively [ 2 , 100 ]. The socio-economic background of the students is also an important factor to consider when evaluating school effectiveness. Research has shown that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to experience academic difficulties and that schools that serve these populations face unique challenges [ 101 ]. In order to be effective, the schools must be able to provide these students with the support and resources they need to succeed. Important factors in the growth of students’ academic success (university students) are their sociodemographic characteristics, variables such as gender, the university where they studied, their fathers’ education and the way they chose their department [ 33 ].

6. Limitations of Our Systematic Review

There are several limitations regarding the review processes used in this literature review and the evidence reported. One limitation is the possibility of a publication bias. This review only included studies that were published in peer-reviewed journals and reported only in two databases, and we only included items to which we had full access. Another limitation is the potential for methodological differences across the studies. The studies included in this review used a variety of research methods and comprised case studies, surveys, and quantitative analyses, which could have resulted in variations in the findings. Furthermore, the studies may have used different definitions of school effectiveness or different measures of school inputs and outputs, which could make it difficult to compare findings across studies. Many of the studies included in the review relied on self-reported data, which may have introduced bias and inaccuracies in the findings. This review was limited by its focus on English-language studies published from 2016. This may have excluded relevant studies published in other languages or earlier than 2016. Additionally, the rapid pace of change in education policies and practices means that this review may not reflect the most up-to-date research in the field.

7. Conclusions and Future Directions

In conclusion, the effectiveness of schools is a complex and multifaceted concept that can be measured through various indicators such as academic achievement, student engagement and teacher satisfaction. This review of school effectiveness revealed that several factors contribute to effective schools, such as strong leadership, effective teaching practices, a positive school culture and parental involvement. Additionally, school resources, such as funding and facilities, can impact school effectiveness, particularly in under-resourced communities.

Leadership is a crucial factor in promoting student success, as noted by multiple researchers [ 2 , 48 , 67 , 102 , 103 ]. Leaders who create a positive school culture and prioritize high-quality teaching practices are more likely to create a learning environment where students can thrive. Furthermore, parental involvement has been linked to improved student achievement, as noted by Akbar et. al. [ 104 ] and Fan and Chen [ 105 ], and can be facilitated through strategies like family engagement programs and clear communication between families and schools.

Teacher quality is another critical factor in student learning and achievement [ 106 , 107 , 108 ]. Teachers who are knowledgeable, experienced and effective in using instructional strategies can significantly impact student outcomes. Effective curriculum and instruction, aligned with standards and assessments and delivered using evidence-based instructional strategies, are critical in promoting student learning and achievement [ 109 , 110 ].

Moreover, the inclusion of all students regardless of their backgrounds and abilities can promote a sense of belonging and engagement, which can positively impact their academic performance and social-emotional development, as noted by Ahn and Davis [ 111 ]. Additionally, a positive school climate is essential for promoting student learning and achievement. A safe, respectful and supportive school environment can positively impact student outcomes [ 33 , 38 , 112 ].

Finally, adequate resources, including funding, facilities and technology, are essential for promoting student learning and achievement, as noted by Bhutoria and Aljabri [ 87 ]. It is important to note that school effectiveness is a complex and multifaceted concept and that different factors may be more or less important depending on the context. Answering the research question, the literature suggests that effective schools are characterized by strong leadership, high-quality teachers, effective curriculum and instruction, parent and community involvement, a positive school climate and adequate resources. These factors work together to create a supportive learning environment that promotes student learning and achievement. However, by studying and understanding the key factors that contribute to school effectiveness, educators and policymakers can work to create environments that promote student success and support all students in reaching their full potential. By implementing evidence-based practices and strategies that prioritize strong leadership, effective teaching practices, parent and community involvement, a positive school culture and adequate resources, schools can provide high-quality education that meets the needs of all students. Overall, the literature suggests that school effectiveness is a multidimensional concept that requires a comprehensive and holistic approach to be achieved. By understanding the various factors that contribute to school effectiveness and implementing evidence-based practices, schools can provide high-quality education that meets the needs of all students.

While this literature review provides valuable insights into the factors that contribute to school effectiveness, its findings should be interpreted with caution, given the limitations of the review processes used. Future research in this area should consider addressing these limitations and building on the findings of this review to provide a more comprehensive understanding of school effectiveness. Despite these limitations, this literature review provides a valuable summary of the current research on school effectiveness and efficiency, highlighting the key factors that contribute to these outcomes. Future research could build on these findings by addressing some of the limitations of this review, such as conducting more comparative studies across different contexts and using consistent measures of effectiveness and efficiency.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support received from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P5-0106) and (research core funding No. J5-2553).

Funding Statement

This research within which this publication was prepared was funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARIS) within the program group “Educational Research”, grant number P5-0106 and within the research project “New Domains of Inequality: The digital divide in Slovenia”, grant number J5-2553.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, Š.J. and E.K.M.; formal analysis, Š.J.; methodology, Š.J.; supervision, E.K.M.; writing—original draft, Š.J.; Writing—review and editing, E.K.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

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Conducting a Literature Review

• Introduction

What is a Literature Review?

Goals of the literature review, types of literature reviews, recommended reading.

• Planning Your Literature Review
• Choose Keywords
• Decide where to search
• Formulate Your Search Strategy
• Utilize Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• Using Ai for Searching the Literature
• Evaluate, Synthesize & Analyze the Literature
• Write a Literature Review

A literature review surveys, summarizes, critically analyzes, compares, and synthesizes multiple scholarly works, or published knowledge on a particular topic or specific subject area.

Literature can include peer-reviewed or scholarly  articles, books/ ebooks, conference proceedings, theses/ dissertations, documents published by governmental agencies and non-profit organizations, and other forms of gray literature.

Conducting a literature review is part of the research process and serves to establish a base of knowledge and overview of the principal works on a specific area of research as well as identify important themes, discoveries, areas of consensus and debate, changes over time, and provide a foundation for further research.

A literature review may be written to:

•     Synthesize past and current literature on a topic
•     Identify a problem in a field of research  
•     Show how the literature relates to one another
•     Place your work in the the context of other related research

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

•     A thesis or dissertation
•     A grant proposal
•     A research paper assigned in a course 
•     An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

The following are common types of literature reviews:

Narrative or Traditional Review

The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

Systematic Review

The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find.

Meta-analysis

This type of review utilizes quantitative methods to combine the results of independent studies and synthesize summaries and conclusions which can be used to evaluate therapeutic effectiveness, plan new studies, etc.

Meta-synthesis

A meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic.

Further Reading on Different Types of Literature Reviews

Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies . Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91-108. doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x Gough, D., Thomas, J., & Oliver, S. (2012). Clarifying differences between review designs and methods . Systematic Reviews, 1, 28. doi:10.1186/2046-4053-1-28

The library has a number of books on conducting and writing literature reviews. The following are some recommended ebooks available in the library:

Books on Conducting Systematic Literature Reviews:

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. 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 research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
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Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

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A Review of the Literature on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Outcomes

• Open Access
• First Online: 24 May 2019

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• William Schmidt 31  

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Researchers agree that teachers are one of the most important school-based resources in determining students’ future academic success and lifetime outcomes, yet have simultaneously had difficulties in defining what teacher characteristics make for an effective teacher. This chapter reviews the large body of literature on measures of teacher effectiveness, underscoring the diversity of methods by which the general construct of “teacher quality” has been explored, including experience, professional knowledge, and opportunity to learn. Each of these concepts comprises a number of different dimensions and methods of operationalizing. Single-country research (and particularly research from the United States) is distinguished from genuinely comparative work. Despite a voluminous research literature on the question of teacher quality, evidence for the impact of teacher characteristics (experience and professional knowledge) on student outcomes remains quite limited. There is a smaller, but more robust set of findings for the effect of teacher support on opportunity to learn. Five measures may be associated with higher student achievement: teacher experience (measured by years of teaching), teacher professional knowledge (measured by education and self-reported preparation to teach mathematics), and teacher provision of opportunity to learn (measured by time on mathematics and content coverage). These factors provide the basis for a comparative cross-country model.

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• Opportunity to learn
• Teacher education
• Teacher experience
• Teacher quality
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

2.1 Defining Teacher Effectiveness

Researchers agree that teachers are one of the most important school-based resources in determining students’ future academic success and lifetime outcomes (Chetty et al. 2014 ; Rivkin et al. 2005 ; Rockoff 2004 ). As a consequence, there has been a strong emphasis on improving teacher effectiveness as a means to enhancing student learning. Goe ( 2007 ), among others, defined teacher effectiveness in terms of growth in student learning, typically measured by student standardized assessment results. Chetty et al. ( 2014 ) found that students taught by highly effective teachers, as defined by the student growth percentile (SGPs) and value-added measures (VAMs), were more likely to attend college, earn more, live in higher-income neighborhoods, save more money for retirement, and were less likely to have children during their teenage years. This potential of a highly effective teacher to significantly enhance the lives of their students makes it essential that researchers and policymakers properly understand the factors that contribute to a teacher’s effectiveness. However, as we will discuss in more detail later in this report, studies have found mixed results regarding the relationships between specific teacher characteristics and student achievement (Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). In this chapter, we explore these findings, focusing on the three main categories of teacher effectiveness identified and examined in the research literature: namely, teacher experience, teacher knowledge, and teacher behavior. Here we emphasize that much of the existing body of research is based on studies from the United States, and so the applicability of such national research to other contexts remains open to discussion.

2.2 Teacher Experience

Teacher experience refers to the number of years that a teacher has worked as a classroom teacher. Many studies show a positive relationship between teacher experiences and student achievement (Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). For example, using data from 4000 teachers in North Carolina, researchers found that teacher experience was positively related to student achievement in both reading and mathematics (Clotfelter et al. 2006 ). Rice ( 2003 ) found that the relationship between teacher experience and student achievement was most pronounced for students at the secondary level. Additional work in schools in the United States by Wiswall ( 2013 ), Papay and Kraft ( 2015 ), and Ladd and Sorenson ( 2017 ), and a Dutch twin study by Gerritsen et al. ( 2014 ), also indicated that teacher experience had a cumulative effect on student outcomes.

Meanwhile, other studies have failed to identify consistent and statistically significant associations between student achievement and teacher experience (Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Gustaffsson and Nilson 2016 ; Hanushek and Luque 2003 ; Luschei and Chudgar 2011 ; Wilson and Floden 2003 ). Some research from the United States has indicated that experience matters very much early on in a teacher’s career, but that, in later years, there were little to no additional gains (Boyd et al. 2006 ; Rivkin et al. 2005 ; Staiger and Rockoff 2010 ). In the first few years of a teacher’s career, accruing more years of experience seems to be more strongly related to student achievement (Rice 2003 ). Rockoff ( 2004 ) found that, when comparing teacher effectiveness (understood as value-added) to student test scores in reading and mathematics, teacher experience was positively related to student mathematics achievement; however, such positive relationships leveled off after teachers had gained two years of teaching experience. Drawing on data collected from teachers of grades four to eight between 2000 and 2008 within a large urban school district in the United States, Papay and Kraft ( 2015 ) confirmed previous research on the benefits experience can add to a novice teacher’s career. They found that student outcomes increased most rapidly during their teachers’ first few years of employment. They also found some further student gains due to additional years of teaching experience beyond the first five years. The research of Pil and Leana ( 2009 ) adds additional nuance; they found that acquiring teacher experience at the same grade level over a number of years, not just teacher experience in general (i.e. at multiple grades), was positively related to student achievement.

2.3 Teacher Professional Knowledge

A teacher’s professional knowledge refers to their subject-matter knowledge, curricular knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge (Collinson 1999 ). This professional knowledge is influenced by the undergraduate degrees earned by a teacher, the college attended, graduate studies undertaken, and opportunities to engage with on-the job training, commonly referred to as professional development (Collinson 1999 ; Rice 2003 ; Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). After undertaking in-depth quantitative analyses of the United States’ 1993–1994 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data sets, Darling-Hammond ( 2000 ) argued that measures of teacher preparation and certification were by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics, after controlling for student poverty levels and language status.

As with experience, research on the impact of teacher advanced degrees, subject specializations, and certification has been inconclusive, with several studies (Aaronson et al. 2007 ; Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Hanushek and Luque 2003 ; Harris and Sass 2011 ; Luschei and Chudgar 2011 ) suggesting weak, inconsistent, or non-significant relationships with student achievement. However, several international studies comparing country means found that teacher degrees (Akiba et al. 2007 ; Gustaffsson and Nilson 2016 ; Montt 2011 ) were related to student outcomes, as did Woessman’s ( 2003 ) student-level study of multiple countries.

2.3.1 Undergraduate Education

In their meta-analysis of teacher effectiveness, Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found three studies that showed some relationship between the quality of the undergraduate institution that a teacher attended and their future students’ success in standardized tests. In a thorough review of the research on teacher effectiveness attributes, Rice ( 2003 ) found that the selectivity of undergraduate institution and the teacher preparation program may be related to student achievement for students at the high school level and for high-poverty students.

In terms of teacher preparation programs, Boyd et al. ( 2009 ) found that overall these programs varied in their effectiveness. In their study of 31 teacher preparation programs designed to prepare teachers for the New York City School District, Boyd et al. ( 2009 ) drew from data based on document analyses, interviews, surveys of teacher preparation instructors, surveys of participants and graduates, and student value-added scores. They found that if a program was effective in preparing teachers to teach one subject, it tended to also have success in preparing teachers to teach other subjects as well. They also found that teacher preparation programs that focused on the practice of teaching and the classroom, and provided opportunities for teachers to study classroom practices, tended to prepare more effective teachers. Finally, they found that programs that included some sort of final project element (such as a personal research paper, or portfolio presentation) tended to prepare more effective teachers.

Beyond the institution a teacher attends, the coursework they choose to take within that program may also be related to their future students’ achievement. These associations vary by subject matter. A study by Rice ( 2003 ) indicated that, for teachers teaching at the secondary level, subject-specific coursework had a greater impact on their future students’ achievement. Similarly Goe ( 2007 ) found that, for mathematics, an increase in the amount of coursework undertaken by a trainee teacher was positively related to their future students’ achievement. By contrast, the meta-analysis completed by Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found that, for history and English teachers, there was no evidence of a relationship between a teacher’s undergraduate coursework and their future students’ achievement in those subjects.

2.3.2 Graduate Education

In a review of 14 studies, Wilson and Floden ( 2003 ) were unable to identify consistent relationships between a teacher’s level of education and their students’ achievement. Similarly, in their review of data from 4000 teachers in North Carolina, Clotfelter et al. ( 2006 ) found that teachers who held a master’s degree were associated with lower student achievement. However, specifically in terms of mathematics instruction, teachers with higher degrees and who undertook more coursework during their education seem to be positively related to their students’ mathematics achievement (Goe 2007 ). Likewise, Harris and Sass ( 2011 ) found that there was a positive relationship between teachers who had obtained an advanced degree during their teaching career and their students’ achievement in middle school mathematics. They did not find any significant relationships between advanced degrees and student achievement in any other subject area. Further, using data from the United States’ Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), Phillips ( 2010 ) found that subject-specific graduate degrees in elementary or early-childhood education were positively related to students’ reading achievement gains.

2.3.3 Certification Status

Another possible indicator of teacher effectiveness could be whether or not a teacher holds a teaching certificate. Much of this research has focused on the United States, which uses a variety of certification approaches, with lower grades usually having multi-subject general certifications and higher grades requiring certification in specific subjects. Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found no clear relationship between US teachers’ certification status and their students’ achievement, with the exception of the subject area of mathematics, where students tended have higher test scores when their teachers had a standard mathematics certification. Rice ( 2003 ) also found that US teacher certification was related to high school mathematics achievement, and also found that there was some evidence of a relationship between certification status and student achievement in lower grades. Meanwhile, in their study of grade one students, Palardy and Rumberger ( 2008 ) also found evidence that students made greater gains in reading ability when taught by fully certified teachers.

In a longitudinal study using data from teachers teaching grades four and five and their students in the Houston School District in Texas, Darling-Hammond et al. ( 2005 ) found that those teachers who had completed training that resulted in a recognized teaching certificate were more effective that those who had no dedicated teaching qualifications. The study results suggested that teachers without recognized US certification or with non-standard certifications generally had negative effects on student achievement after controlling for student characteristics and prior achievement, as well as the teacher’s experience and degrees. The effects of teacher certification on student achievement were generally much stronger than the effects for teacher experience. Conversely, analyzing data from the ECLS-K, Phillips ( 2010 ) found that grade one students tended to have lower mathematics achievement gains when they had teachers with standard certification. In sum, the literature the influence of teacher certification remains deeply ambiguous.

2.3.4 Professional Development

Although work by Desimone et al. ( 2002 , 2013 ) suggested that professional development may influence the quality of instruction, most researchers found that teachers’ professional development experiences showed only limited associations with their effectiveness, although middle- and high-school mathematics teachers who undertook more content-focused training may be the exception (Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Harris and Sass 2011 ). In their meta-analysis of the effects of professional development on student achievement, Blank and De Las Alas ( 2009 ) found that 16 studies reported significant and positive relationships between professional development and student achievement. For mathematics, the average effect size of studies using a pre-post assessment design was 0.21 standard deviations.

Analyzing the data from six data sets, two from the Beginning Teacher Preparation Survey conducted in Connecticut and Tennessee, and four from the United States National Center for Education Statistics’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Wallace ( 2009 ) used structural equation modeling to find that professional development had a very small, but occasionally statistically significant effect on student achievement. She found, for example, that for NAEP mathematics data from the year 2000, 1.2 additional hours of professional development per year were related to an increase in average student scores of 0.62 points, and for reading, an additional 1.1 h of professional development were related to an average increase in student scores of 0.24 points. Overall, Wallace ( 2009 ) identified professional development had moderate effects on teacher practice and some small effects on student achievement when mediated by teacher practice.

2.3.5 Teacher Content Knowledge

Of course, characteristics like experience and education may be imperfect proxies for teacher content knowledge; unfortunately, content knowledge is difficult to assess directly. However, there is a growing body of work suggesting that teacher content knowledge may associated with student learning. It should be noted that there is an important distinction between general content knowledge about a subject (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) specifically related to teaching that subject, each of which may be independently related to student outcomes (Baumert et al. 2010 ).

Studies from the United States (see for example, Chingos and Peterson 2011 ; Clotfelter et al. 2006 ; Constantine et al. 2009 ; Hill et al. 2005 ; Shuls and Trivitt 2015 ) have found some evidence that higher teacher cognitive skills in mathematics are associated with higher student scores. Positive associations between teacher content knowledge and student outcomes were also found in studies based in Germany (Baumert et al. 2010 ) and Peru (Metzler and Woessman 2012 ), and in a comparative study using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data undertaken by Hanushek et al. ( 2018 ). These findings are not universal, however, other studies from the United States (Blazar 2015 ; Garet et al. 2016 ; Rockoff et al. 2011 ) failed to find a statistically significant association between teacher content knowledge and student learning.

The studies we have discussed all used some direct measure of teacher content knowledge. An alternative method of assessing mathematics teacher content knowledge is self-reported teacher preparation to teach mathematics topics. Both TIMSS and IEA’s Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M, conducted in 2007–2008) have included many questions, asking teachers to report on their preparedness to teach particular topics. Although Luschei and Chudgar ( 2011 ) and Gustafsson and Nilson ( 2016 ) found that these items had a weak direct relationship to student achievement across countries, other studies have suggested that readiness is related to instructional quality (Blomeke et al. 2016 ), as well as content knowledge and content preparation (Schmidt et al. 2017 ), suggesting that instructional quality may have an indirect effect on student learning.

2.4 Teacher Behaviors and Opportunity to Learn

Although the impact of teacher characteristics (experience, education, and preparedness to teach) on student outcomes remains an open question, there is much a much more consistent relationship between student achievement and teacher behaviors (instructional time and instructional content), especially behaviors related instructional content. Analyzing TIMSS, Schmidt et al. ( 2001 ) found an association between classroom opportunity to learn (OTL), interpreted narrowly as student exposure to instructional content, and student achievement. In a later study using student-level PISA data, Schmidt et al. ( 2015 ) identified a robust relationship between OTL and mathematics literacy across 62 different educational systems. The importance of instructional content has been recognized by national policymakers, and has helped motivate standards-based reform in an effort to improve student achievement, such as the Common Core in the United States (Common Core Standards Initiative 2018 ). However, we found that there was little research on whether teacher instructional content that aligned with national standards had improved student learning; the only study that we were able to identify found that such alignment had only very weak associations with student mathematics scores (Polikoff and Porter 2014 ). Student-reported data indicates that instructional time (understood as classroom time on a particular subject) does seem to be related to mathematics achievement (Cattaneo et al. 2016 ; Jerrim et al. 2017 ; Lavy 2015 ; Rivkin and Schiman 2015 ; Woessman 2003 ).

2.5 Conclusion

This review of the literature simply brushes the surface of the exceptional body of work on the relationship between student achievement and teacher characteristics and behaviors. Whether analyzing US-based, international, or the (limited) number of comparative studies, the associations between easily measurable teacher characteristics, like experience and education, and student outcomes in mathematics, remains debatable. In contrast, there is more evidence to support the impact of teacher behaviors, such as instructional content and time on task, on student achievement. Our goal was to incorporate all these factors into a comparative model across countries, with the aim of determining what an international cross-national study like TIMSS could reveal about the influence of teachers on student outcomes in mathematics. The analysis that follows draws on the existing body of literature on teacher effectiveness, which identified key teacher factors that may be associated with higher student achievement: teacher experience, teacher professional knowledge (measured by education and self-reported preparation to teach mathematics), and teacher provision of opportunity to learn (time on mathematics and content coverage).

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Burroughs, N. et al. (2019). A Review of the Literature on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Outcomes. In: Teaching for Excellence and Equity. IEA Research for Education, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16151-4_2

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Literature Review

There is a large amount of anthropological literature centering on some aspect of schooling. Several books have been written about the social systems present within American High Schools. Most studies focus on a participant observation method within high schools themselves, rather than reconstruction of the past, but provide valuable material about the process of identity creation in high schools. However, there are also a number of studies which deal with some element of past school experiences, and contain some valuable analysis of memory and considerations involved in doing research on past experiences. To that end, this review is divided into two sections, the first of which deals with literature on the creation of social groups within the high school, and a second addressing some issues surrounding reconstruction of past high school experiences.

Social Groups Within the High School

Most studies make some attempt to map out social categories and how these are affected by factors such as individual personality or social classes. The most simplistic categories are found in Penelope Eckert’s 1989 work Jocks and Burnouts, Social Categories and Identity in the High School . This work focuses on two main categories within the high school, and argues that almost all students in the high school fit somewhere in a spectrum between these categories. According to Eckert, Jock embodies an attitude- an acceptance of the school and its institutions as an all-encompassing social context, and an unflagging enthusiasm and energy for working within those institutions (Eckert 1989:3). Burnouts, on the other hand are those that do not, who are, Burned out; from long years of frustration encountered in an institution that rejects and stigmatizes them as it fails to recognize and meet their needs (Eckert 1989:3). Students who do not clearly embody either of these traits are in-between falling somewhere in a spectrum between these two categories.

Hervé Varenne, in American School Language: Culturally Patterned Conflicts in a Suburban High School, notes the existence of a rhetoric of two categories—jocks and freaks, who were also known as lungs. However, his analysis of the situation paints a far more complicated picture of the realities of these categories in the school itself, and the existence of many smaller cliques, whose members may not neatly fit into either of the described categories.

Sherry Ortner, in her book New Jersey Dreaming, Capital, Culture, the Class of ’58 , divides people into social groups based roughly on two factors: capital (class) and personal qualities of attitude/style. Generally, wealthy and tame students corresponded to popular kids/class officers, wealthy and wild corresponded to jocks/cheerleaders, less wealthy and tame corresponded to ordinary citizens/nerds, and less wealthy and wild corresponded to hoods/sluts/smokers/burnouts (Ortner 2003:97).

Heewon Chang, in Adolescent Life and Ethos , however chooses not to highlight perceived divisions or cliques in the small rural high school that she studied, rather noting that the dominant ideology was one of trying to get along with everyone, although also noting that certain people, such as smokers were subject to being ostracized (Chang 1992:122). These very different categorizations highlight not only that there may be differences in interpretation of social patterns in an American High School setting, but also that high schools vary enormously in the social patterns found within them.

Memory and Past School Experience

Although the majority of work I have located details experiences within a high school that is current to the time period when the work is published, a number of works deal in some way with memories of past experiences of high school, such as Sherry Ortner’s book New Jersey Dreaming, Capital, Culture and the Class of ’58 which uses oral histories to analyze the life histories of various members of the class of 1958 in a New Jersey high school, and A Room Full of Mirrors, High School Reunions in Middle America , by Keiko Ikeda which focuses on the cultural significance of High School Reunions, and also Barbara Shircliffe’s article We Got the Best of that World: A Case for the Study of Nostalgia in the Oral History of School Segregation , and Naomi Norquay’s Identity and Forgetting, both of which deal with oral history studies specific to memories of educational experience, and bring to light elements of oral history that are potentially significant for the analysis of the South Hadley High School oral history interviews.

Shircliffe’s article centers on nostalgic memories of two Florida High Schools that, under policies of segregation operated as Blacks-only high schools. Shircliffe notes that despite an extreme lack of resources delegated to the school, many students remember their experiences there very fondly, and emphasize the supportive community that was found there, a community that was at once strict and disciplined but also caring about individual students. Shircliffe argues in this article that overly nostalgic histories that are perhaps not historically accurate should not be dismissed out of hand by historians, but rather that, our nostalgia for the past in a sense is an informal way we comment and make sense of history, revealing our responses to and desires for social change (Shircliffe 2001). So, in the case of her study, nostalgia among Black Americans for the segregated schools in her study, Shircliffe argues that this nostalgia may be as much a commentary about the racism that continued after de-segregation up to the present day, with the busing system that followed disproportionately sending black students to other neighborhoods, and other changes to the neighborhood where the schools were found such as the building of a freeway which physically divided the community, rather than a desire to return to a system of segregation.

Norquay’s article, Memory and Forgetting, addresses the significance of which types of events are considered significant and remembered, and which are not, which would also have a great deal of applicability to the South Hadley High School project. In asking participants, several teachers in the Toronto area, about their memories of school and childhood, Norquay notes that certain types of memories are common, ones that are perceived to be extraordinary in some way, or elicit a powerful emotional response, rather than the more everyday aspects of going to school. For example, memories of school played a much smaller part of her interviews than did memories of families. When memories of schooling are mentioned, they are much more likely to be events that are perceived as extraordinary in some way rather than mundane routines of going to school. For example, students were more likely to remember events that were angering or humiliating in some way, or were special days such as first days of school or other events.

Norquay emphasizes how what is forgotten is just as revealing as what is remembered in interviews, and can provide information on what people are conditioned to remember by parents, or society at large, and the role that interviewers themselves play in this by asking about certain events, or by avoiding subjects that appeared painful for the interviewee.

Both Ortner and Ikeda’s works deal in some way with the legacy of the high school experience. Ikeda looks at the social phenomenon of High School Reunions, and Ortner examines the long term story of people in one particular graduating class in 1958, looking primarily at class mobility, and how the class of 1958 changed from its working class/lower middle class origins to become to a large extent part of what Ortner terms a white overclass.

In Ortner’s work, reconstruction of the high school identities and classes is used as the starting point for her analysis of the changing class structure in the United States. As discussed above, Ortner goes into great depth about classes and groupings within the high school, created from data collected via questionnaires and interviews. This data about the high school and students’ background becomes the beginning of Ortner’s work in tracing individual lives during a period of American history with a large degree of class mobility.

By contrast, Ikeda’s work goes much less into detail about the high school experience itself, instead concentrating on its legacy in the form of High School Reunions, using largely a participant-observation method in addition to interviews in order to explore the meaning of these reunions through different periods in people’s lives. Although less directly related to the high school experience itself, Ikeda’s work is significant for exploring the legacy of high school on people’s lives, and a detailed analysis of an event that in many ways may play a role in shaping people’s memories of high school, and the creation of a collective memory of a high school experience.

The articles discussed in this lit review could have the potential to inform many aspects of the South Hadley high school study. This study has the possibility to add to the existing analysis of social groups in the high school from a specifically historical perspective, in a manner similar to Ortner’s work. The information gathered could also be analyzed through approaches similar to either Shircliffe or Norquay, addressing the extent towards which nostalgia plays a role in these interviews and looking as well for patterns in what is often remembered about high school, and what is consistently overlooked. The data collected have the potential to be analyzed from many different angles and add new perspectives to existing work on anthropology within the High School.

Works Cited

Chang, Heewong. Adolescent Life and Ethos: An Ethnography of a US High School . London. The Falmer Press, 1992.

Eckert, Penelope. Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School. New York. Teachers College Press, 1989.

Ikeda, Keiko. A Room Full of Mirrors High School Reunions in Middle America . Stanford. Stanford University Press, 1998.

Norquay, Naomi. Identity and Forgetting. Oral History Review. v.26 no. 1. Stanford, Stanford University Press. 1999.

Ortner, Sherry. New Jersey Dreaming, Capital, Culture, and the Class of ’58. Durham, Duke University Press, 2003.

Shircliffe, Barbara. We Got the Best of that World: A Case for the Study of Nostalgia in the Oral History of School Segregation. Oral History Review. v.28 no. 2, University of California Press. 2001.

Varenne, Hervé. American School Language: Culturally Patterned Conflicts in a Suburban High School. New York. Irvington Publishers, 1983.

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Editorial article, editorial: cystic kidney diseases in children and adults: from diagnosis to etiology and back.

• 1 University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia
• 2 Division of Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation, Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
• 3 Department of Nephrology, Arterial Hypertension, Dialysis and Transplantation, University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
• 4 Institute of Human Genetics, Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne, and Center for Rare and Hereditary Kidney Disease, Cologne, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

Editorial on the Research Topic Cystic kidney diseases in children and adults: from diagnosis to etiology and back

Renal cysts are often regarded as the most common abnormality associated with kidney disease ( 1 , 2 ). They are encountered in both adults and children, as isolated findings or as part of a more complex clinical condition ( 3 – 5 ). Isolated kidney cysts in adults sometimes require evaluation for kidney cancer or simple cysts may occur as a sign of age-related kidney tissue degeneration in the absence of any underlying specific kidney disease. Recent advances in understanding the underlying mechanisms have led to the concept of renal ciliopathies with more than 100 genes associated with ciliary dysfunction, resulting in conditions such as polycystic kidney disease (PKD), tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) and nephronophthisis complex (NPHC), which may be associated with various extrarenal phenotypes ( Figure 1 ) ( 6 – 8 ). In addition to progressive CKD, these disorders are characterized by a variety of additional symptoms such as hepatic impairment, vision problems, developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, and skeletal abnormalities, which inconsistently present throughout the course of the disease ( 4 , 5 , 7 ). Furthermore, the significant phenotypic overlap makes it difficult to differentiate specific disorders, often necessitating genetic testing to reach a definite diagnosis ( 9 ). Despite a multitude of clinical and translational studies, in the majority of cases it is still challenging or even impossible to predict the individual clinical course, necessitating regular follow-up of the patients and a timely response in terms of treatment, which remains mostly symptomatic ( 10 ).

Figure 1 . Prominent syndromes and associated genes within the renal ciliopathies concept. ADPKD, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease; ARPKD, autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease; NPHC, nephronophthisis complex; TSC, tuberous sclerosis complex.

The present special issue contains seven noteworthy articles describing engaging cases of children and adults with various disorders having a common denominator in the form of kidney cysts, systematically reviewing the current literature on the clinical characteristics of an HNF1B gene variant and biomarkers of kidney disease progression in autosomal dominant PKD (ADPKD), investigating the outcome of fetal renal cystic disease and exploring the utility of magnetic resonance imaging-based kidney volume assessment for risk stratification in children with ADPKD.

In more detail, Simičić Majce et al . describe a nonconsanguineous family with three members affected by BBS caused by compound heterozygous mutations in the BBS12 gene. Despite identical genotypes, the affected family members demonstrated significant diversity in clinical characteristics (different expressivity) of the BBS phenotype emphasizing the importance of genetic testing for the early diagnosis of this rare ciliopathy. Similarly, Fištrek Prlić et al. present two clinically distinct cases of autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease (ADTKD) diagnosed only after genetic testing, along with an extensive review of the literature and a comprehensive overview of the condition. Both patients had uninformative renal ultrasound and urinalysis findings with only elevated serum creatinine levels indicating a kidney disease. An adult patient with a positive family history of CKD had no other symptoms, while an adolescent boy with an unremarkable family history had psychomotor impairment with epilepsy. After the testing they were diagnosed with MUC1 -related ADTKD and 17q12 microdeletion syndrome causing the loss of one copy of the transcription factor HNF1B and 14 additional genes, respectively, highlighting the importance of clinical awareness in diagnosing this syndrome. Finally, the third case report by Kasahara et al. advocates an interesting option to treat the chronic pain experienced by more than half of patients with ADPKD. They describe an adolescent girl with persistent pain associated with multiple renal cysts that prevented her from participating in daily activities. After being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADHD) and appropriate treatment for this condition being initiated, she experienced significant pain relief and better control of her hypertension. Therefore, in patients with ADPKD it may be important to recognize concomitant ADHD and consider a trial of ADHD medications when chronic pain associated with ADPKD is present.

In line with the exploration of important associations between cystic kidney disease and other disorders a systematic review by Nittel et al. examined the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) in patients with 17q12 microdeletions vs. HNF1B point mutations. The results of a diligent literature search revealed that NDDs are frequently observed in HNF1B -associated diseases, especially in the common 17q12 microdeletion, and should hence become a routine part of clinical care for patients with HNF1B -related diseases. On the other hand, a systematic review by Sorić Hosman et al. provided a critical overview of previously examined serum and urine biomarkers with a potential for predicting disease progression or response to therapy in patients with ADPKD. A comprehensive literature review identified several prognostic molecules that are involved in various processes central to the development of the disease, such as tubular injury, inflammation, metabolism, renin-angiotensin, or vasopressin system adjustments. Interestingly, the most accurate predictive models have been achieved when incorporating such serum and urine biomarkers with the Predicting Renal Outcome in Polycystic Kidney Disease (PROPKD) score which combines underlying genetic mutations and clinical risk factors, or with the Mayo Imaging Classification (MIC) which is based on age- and height-adjusted total kidney volume (TKV) measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

MRI-based kidney volume assessment was further investigated by Yilmaz et al. in a multicenter, cross-sectional, and case-controlled study involving 89 children and adolescents with a genetically confirmed and detailly characterized diagnosis of ADPKD. The study patients were stratified according to the innovative Leuven Imaging Classification (LIC) into different risk categories, with those in the highest risk category having an increased incidence of hypertension and a higher prevalence of PKD1 mutations. Therefore, the study advocates the use of MRI for the measurement of TKV in the pediatric population, in addition to the use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring to recognize those with hypertension.

Finally, Botero-Calderon et al. presented a retrospective study evaluating clinical and imaging data, genetic testing results and postnatal follow-up outcomes of infants identified in utero with bilateral renal cystic disease at a single referral center over a period of 11 years. Among 17 patients with suspected renal ciliopathy, the most common diagnosis was autosomal recessive PKD (ARPKD, n  = 4), followed by Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS, n  = 3), autosomal dominant polycystic disease (ADPKD, n  = 2), HNF1B-related disease ( n  = 2), and Meckel-Gruber syndrome (MKS, n  = 2), while four cases were not genetically resolved. In terms of postnatal management, the study revealed that the vast majority of neonatal survivors with renal ciliopathies are directed to the care of a pediatric nephrologist, while this proportion is much lower in those with genetically unresolved enlarged, echogenic kidneys, stressing the need for structured management programs for prenatally identified kidney disease.

In conclusion, our research topic provides a contemporary overview of current practices, unmet clinical needs and research gaps regarding the broad spectrum  of renal ciliopathies that may be useful to a wide range of physicians and researchers dealing with these complex disorders.

Author contributions

LL: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Conceptualization. IV: Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization. MF: Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization. BB: Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization.

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.

The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

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Keywords: cystic kidney disease, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD), nephronophtisis complex (NPHC), Bardet Biedl syndrome (BBS)

Citation: Lamot L, Vuković Brinar I, Fištrek Prlić M and Beck B (2024) Editorial: Cystic kidney diseases in children and adults: from diagnosis to etiology and back. Front. Pediatr. 12:1401593. doi: 10.3389/fped.2024.1401593

Received: 15 March 2024; Accepted: 29 March 2024; Published: 10 April 2024.

Edited and Reviewed by: Michael L. Moritz , University of Pittsburgh, United States

© 2024 Lamot, Vuković Brinar, Fištrek Prlić and Beck. 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: Lovro Lamot [email protected]

This article is part of the Research Topic

Cystic Kidney Diseases in Children and Adults: From Diagnosis to Etiology and Back