LAUSR

Educational reviews are potentially very valuable resources for educators because they shed light on the priority and methods of educational practices. Reviews can inform on the prevalence of educational problems and types of educational practices and policies, on the advantages and disadvantages of educational assessment tools, and on the effectiveness of methods for teaching and implementing the curriculum and its components. Educational reviews may assist educators in demonstrating how educational theory is implemented for a variety of learner audiences. Educational reviews also can assist in summarizing large bodies of material that may otherwise be challenging to handle. When there is a relative paucity of information on a topic, reviews can identify the importance of developing that literature and serve as a springboard for further research. Reviews can also assist by finding relevant studies that are difficult to obtain as well as by identifying and attempting to resolve divergent views by educators or authors on a particular topic area of interest. Academic Psychiatry publishes systematic and other types of reviews that synthesize important information on a topic of general interest. An excellent example of a high-quality systematic review is published in the April 2017 issue of the journal [1]. Here, Abdool et al. reviewed studies applying simulation-based methodologies in undergraduate psychiatry education and assessed the depth of learner engagement using simulation methods [1]. Because of the potential value and importance of reviews, notwithstanding the fun in constructing and learning from them, our goals for this editorial are to briefly describe and comment on the different types of educational reviews, their strengths and weaknesses, and the common pitfalls in their construction. We have been advantaged by the opportunity to learn from our authors and from the feedback provided by reviewers about the design and construction of reviews. As editors, we view ourselves as committed to learning about educational study designs. Our wish is to convey some of what we have learned to our readers and to prospective authors in order to assist in developing an understanding of the construction and appraisal of reviews. To this end, we will describe commonly encountered issues in reviews, particularly systematic reviews, submitted to Academic Psychiatry that may detract from their quality or the validity of their findings. We will also refer to the example of Abdool et al. [1] for tips on how to do it well.