Systematic reviews or research synthesis has the goal to integrate empirical research for the purpose of creating generalizations. In other words, it is the process through which a set of (primary) research studies are assessed with the objective of summarizing the evidence relating to a particular question. The underlying information can be qualitative or quantitative; an example of quantitative research synthesis is meta analysis.

It is important to note that summarizing evidence to create generalizations also involves finding the limits and impacting factors of generalizations. Research synthesis should therefore (a) pay attention to relevant theories, critically analyze the research they cover, (b) try to resolve conflicts in the literature, and (c) attempt to identify central issues for future research.

Research synthesis involves the following steps: Problem formulation (state the research question to be addressed), data collection (collect relevant information), data evaluation (assess to collected information), analysis and interpretation (analyze the information and interpret the results), (public) presentation (present the results of the process to stakeholders). In research synthesis, the researcher claims an initially nonjudgmental stance vis- à-vis the outcomes of the synthesis (i.e., neutral representation) and intends to be exhaustive in the coverage of the research base (Cooper/Hedges, 1994).