Systematic reviews have a variety of purposes and can have significant health, social, and financial implications (Petticrew & Roberts, 2012). From often voluminous bodies of research, systematic reviews aim to produce valid and reliable evidence of the effectiveness of interventions, exposures, or predictors. In psychological research, the effectiveness of such is in terms of the magnitude of associations with outcomes. At each stage of the systematic process, reviewers seek to reduce the risk of bias. Beginning with a specific question, relevant studies are identified, critically appraised, and synthesised (Petticrew & Roberts, 2012).
Reviewers design and plan systematic reviews, as for other research studies, write a detailed procedure, and typically register the review with an independent body.
2.5.1 Registration.
The systematic review was registered in 2018 with PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, University of York Centre for Reviews and
24 Dissemination. The registered working title complied with the Participants, Intervention (or Exposure) and Comparison groups, Outcomes, Study designs (PI[E]COS) guidelines, and was as follows:
“A systematic review of the effect of social support, associated with accommodation, on the academic success and mental health of first-year international and regional/
remote area university students aged 17 - 20 years.”
The registered review questions were the following:
“Does perceived available social support affect the academic success and mental health of first-year international and regional/remote area university students aged 17 - 20 years?
Is there a difference between the level of perceived available social support in communal compared with small residences?”
Registration included contact details and affiliation of this author as sole reviewer, acknowledgement of the Australian Government, Research Training Program (AGRTP), and listed no actual or perceived undue influence on judgements concerning the main topic investigated.
2.5.2 Selection.
The aim of the systematic selection process is to identify studies which can be used to weigh or balance evidence in the review. Eligibility for critical appraisal is the final stage of the process. Selection begins with a search and collection of potential participating studies using pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria.
2.5.2.1 Inclusion criteria.
1. Studies in the English language.
2. Participants meeting specified demographic characteristics for home location, year of tertiary study, and age.
25 3. Outcomes meeting, or related to, concepts of academic success and mental health.
4. Predictors meeting definitions used in research literature for social support and type of residence.
2.5.2.2 Exclusion criteria.
1. Non-English language studies.
2. Participants not meeting specified demographic characteristics.
3. All outcomes unrelated to concepts of academic success and/or mental health.
4. All predictors unrelated to social support and/or types of residence.
Separate tables were compiled of acceptable definitions for outcomes and predictors.
The table of predictors also gave representative measures and items.
2.5.3 Method.
2.5.3.1 Systematic search.
Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, logic grids of search terms with Boolean operators and wildcard asterisks were compiled. Different combinations and spellings of terms searched the period 1993 - 2018 in electronic bibliographic databases comprised of relevant literature in English. The search was exhaustive and comprehensive. Sources for peer-reviewed journal articles included the Cochrane Library (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews), Education Research Complete, EMBASE, ERIC, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, PsycINFO/PsycLIT, SCOPUS, and Web of Science. The database, Web of Science, was requested to send notification of any relevant studies published up to 2020. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global was the source searched for “grey” literature (unpublished doctoral theses and dissertations). Search engines “Google” and
“Google Scholar” were also used.
26 2.5.4 Results.
All studies which included one or more of the search terms in the title were exported to the reference manager “Endnote”. Studies eligible for critical appraisal were selected using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement (Moher et al., 2009). The PRISMA checklist and flowchart guided the reduction of a total of 613 studies, produced by the search, to seven. “Endnote” identified 143 duplicated studies. From the remaining 470 studies, 48 were randomly selected for an inter- screener reliability test with the aim of reducing selection bias. The author and a peer (PhD candidate) concurred on a satisfactory 83.33 % of studies selected using the same inclusion and exclusion criteria. Titles, key words, and abstracts of the 470 studies were screened and 425 discarded as irrelevant (for example, “Well begun is half done: The importance of small group teaching for interaction, self-efficacy, and study success in the first semester”, Brouwer et al., 2016). Texts of the remaining 45 studies were examined in full and scored on the number of inclusion criteria using an Excel spreadsheet. The cut-off for potential eligibility for critical appraisal was 70% of the possible total score. Sixteen studies were obtained, however, nine of these failed to meet one or more essential inclusion criteria, for example, social support. The result was seven studies eligible for quality assessment using critical appraisal techniques.
2.5.5 Critical appraisal.
The seven studies were structured on five different theories and each study related in part to the research questions. The studies were appraised for risk of bias from various sources, including methodology, and for homogeneity and heterogeneity. Authors of each study addressed potential risks of bias except geographic bias. Each study was conducted in the United States of America (USA) but in different states. No Australian studies met the inclusion criteria. Thus, only intra-US geographical risk was reduced, highlighting the lack of
27 such research in other countries. There was homogeneity between the studies of population demographics, residence options, study design, and measures of social support.
2.5.6 Conclusion.
The systematic review found evidence for small, positive direct and indirect effects of social support on indicators of relocated, first-year students’ short- and medium-term
academic success and mental health. The evidence is consistent with the strong evidence of the meta-analysis conducted by Richardson et al. (2012) among others. The review also found a lack of research investigating the social support relocated students perceived was available to them in the types of residence which they typically occupied.