Evidence Synthesis

Critical appraisal is intended to evaluate the risk of bias in studies (internally evaluating for systemic errors) as well as the external applicability and external validity of the work. There are many disciplinary checklists which provide criteria and questions that may help you identify flaws, errors, or bias, and score or weight the quality of the research. Sometimes different aspects of the study are scored separately and combined into a final score that indicates whether the study is of high, medium, or low quality. Even if you are not using a method that requires a specific risk of bias/ critical appraisal tool, you should develop a transparent metric of how you are assessing studies for quality, and include this in your methods.

Checklists used in the process of critically appraising evidence and articles:

• Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools
• Johns Hopkins Evidence Based Practice Model
• CASP

Additional Resources:

• Article: From critical appraisal to risk of bias assessment: clarifying the terminology for study evaluation in JBI systematic reviews
• Book on qualitative meta synthesis, including validation
• OSF site with excel download: Quality Assessment and Risk of Bias Tool Repository
• Temple University Resources for Critical Appraisal
• Mixed Methods Critical Appraisal tool

From Temple University:

Screening Tools:

Tools used to screen citations generated from searches.  These tools will allow for decisions based on inclusion, exclusion, and maybe.