the role of literature review research

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Library Guide to Capstone Literature Reviews: Role of the Literature Review

The role of the literature review.

Your literature review gives readers an understanding of the scholarly research on your topic.

In your literature review you will:

• demonstrate that you are a well-informed scholar with expertise and knowledge in the field by giving an overview of the current state of the literature
• find a gap in the literature, or address a business or professional issue, depending on your doctoral study program; the literature review will illustrate how your research contributes to the scholarly conversation
• provide a synthesis of the issues, trends, and concepts surrounding your research

Be aware that the literature review is an iterative process. As you read and write initial drafts, you will find new threads and complementary themes, at which point you will return to search, find out about these new themes, and incorporate them into your review.

The purpose of this guide is to help you through the literature review process. Take some time to look over the resources in order to become familiar with them. The tabs on the left side of this page have additional information.

Short video: Research for the Literature Review

Short Video: Research for the Literature Review

(4 min 10 sec) Recorded August 2019 Transcript 

Literature review as a dinner party

To think about the role of the literature review, consider this analogy:  pretend that you throw a dinner party for the other researchers working in your topic area. First, you’d need to develop a guest list.

• The guests of honor would be early researchers or theorists; their work likely inspired subsequent studies, ideas, or controversies that the current researchers pursue.
• Then, think about the important current researchers to invite. Which guests might agree with each other?  Which others might provide useful counterpoints?
• You likely won’t be able to include everyone on the guest list, so you may need to choose carefully so that you don’t leave important figures out. 
• Alternatively, if there aren’t many researchers working in your topic area, then your guest list will need to include people working in other, related areas, who can still contribute to the conversation.

After the party, you describe the evening to a friend. You’ll summarize the evening’s conversation. Perhaps one guest made a comment that sparked a conversation, and then you describe who responded and how the topic evolved. There are other conversations to share, too. This is how you synthesize the themes and developments that you find in your research. Thinking about your literature research this way will help you to present your dinner party (and your literature review) in a lively and engaging way.

Short video: Empirical research

Video: How to locate and identify empirical research for your literature review

(6 min 16 sec) Recorded May 2020 Transcript 

Here are some useful resources from the Writing Center, the Office of Research and Doctoral Services, and other departments within the Office of Academic Support. Take some time to look at what is available to help you with your capstone/dissertation.

• Familiarize yourself with Walden support
• Doctoral Capstone Resources website
• Capstone writing resources
• Office of Student Research Administration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Visit the Writing Center

You can watch recorded webinars on the literature review in our Library Webinar Archives .

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Literature Reviews

• What is a literature review?
• Steps in the Literature Review Process
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
• Librarian Support

What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

• Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
• Explain why this review has taken place;
• Articulate a position or hypothesis;
• Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

• Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
• Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

• Organizes or describes a topic
• Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

• It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
• It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
• It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
• It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy ​

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

• October 26, 2022 recording
• Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

Libraries | Research Guides

Literature reviews, what is a literature review, learning more about how to do a literature review.

• Planning the Review
• The Research Question
• Choosing Where to Search
• Organizing the Review
• Writing the Review

A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it relates to your research question. A literature review goes beyond a description or summary of the literature you have read. 

• Sage Research Methods Core Collection This link opens in a new window SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. SAGE Research Methods is the ultimate methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher. – Publisher

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• Last Updated: Jan 17, 2024 10:05 AM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/literaturereviews

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What is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

4-minute read

• 23rd October 2023

If you’re writing a research paper or dissertation , then you’ll most likely need to include a comprehensive literature review . In this post, we’ll review the purpose of literature reviews, why they are so significant, and the specific elements to include in one. Literature reviews can:

1. Provide a foundation for current research.

2. Define key concepts and theories.

3. Demonstrate critical evaluation.

4. Show how research and methodologies have evolved.

5. Identify gaps in existing research.

6. Support your argument.

Keep reading to enter the exciting world of literature reviews!

What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a critical summary and evaluation of the existing research (e.g., academic journal articles and books) on a specific topic. It is typically included as a separate section or chapter of a research paper or dissertation, serving as a contextual framework for a study. Literature reviews can vary in length depending on the subject and nature of the study, with most being about equal length to other sections or chapters included in the paper. Essentially, the literature review highlights previous studies in the context of your research and summarizes your insights in a structured, organized format. Next, let’s look at the overall purpose of a literature review.

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Literature reviews are considered an integral part of research across most academic subjects and fields. The primary purpose of a literature review in your study is to:

Provide a Foundation for Current Research

Since the literature review provides a comprehensive evaluation of the existing research, it serves as a solid foundation for your current study. It’s a way to contextualize your work and show how your research fits into the broader landscape of your specific area of study.  

Define Key Concepts and Theories

The literature review highlights the central theories and concepts that have arisen from previous research on your chosen topic. It gives your readers a more thorough understanding of the background of your study and why your research is particularly significant .

Demonstrate Critical Evaluation 

A comprehensive literature review shows your ability to critically analyze and evaluate a broad range of source material. And since you’re considering and acknowledging the contribution of key scholars alongside your own, it establishes your own credibility and knowledge.

Show How Research and Methodologies Have Evolved

Another purpose of literature reviews is to provide a historical perspective and demonstrate how research and methodologies have changed over time, especially as data collection methods and technology have advanced. And studying past methodologies allows you, as the researcher, to understand what did and did not work and apply that knowledge to your own research.  

Identify Gaps in Existing Research

Besides discussing current research and methodologies, the literature review should also address areas that are lacking in the existing literature. This helps further demonstrate the relevance of your own research by explaining why your study is necessary to fill the gaps.

Support Your Argument

A good literature review should provide evidence that supports your research questions and hypothesis. For example, your study may show that your research supports existing theories or builds on them in some way. Referencing previous related studies shows your work is grounded in established research and will ultimately be a contribution to the field.  

Literature Review Editing Services 

Ensure your literature review is polished and ready for submission by having it professionally proofread and edited by our expert team. Our literature review editing services will help your research stand out and make an impact. Not convinced yet? Send in your free sample today and see for yourself! 

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• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• 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.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative 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.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

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." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative 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." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: How to Pick a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview

• Academic Skills
• Reading, writing and referencing
• Literature reviews

Writing a literature review

Find out how to write a lit review.

What is a literature review ?

A literature review explores and evaluates the literature on a specific topic or question. It synthesises the contributions of the different authors, often to identify areas that need further exploration.

You may be required to write a literature review as a standalone document or part of a larger body of research, such as a thesis.

• The point of a standalone literature review is to demonstrate that you have read widely in your field and you understand the main arguments.
• As part of a thesis or research paper, the literature review defines your project by establishing how your work will extend or differ from previous work and what contribution it will make.

What are markers looking for?

In the best literature reviews, the writer:

• Has a clear understanding of key concepts within the topic.
• Clarifies important definitions and terminology.
• Covers the breadth of the specific topic.
• Critically discusses the ideas in the literature and evaluates how authors present them.
• Clearly indicates a research gap for future enquiry.

How do I write a literature review?

This video outlines a step by step approach to help you evaluate readings, organise ideas and write critically. It provides examples of how to connect, interpret and critique ideas to make sure your voice comes through strongly.

Tips for research, reading and writing

You may be given a specific question to research or broad topics which must be refined to a question that can be reasonably addressed in the time and word limit available.

Use your early reading to help you determine and refine your topic.

• Too much literature? You probably need to narrow your scope. Try to identify a more specific issue of interest.
• Not enough literature? Your topic may be too specific and needs to be broader.

Start with readings suggested by your lecturers or supervisors. Then, do your own research - the best place to go is the Library Website .

You can also use the Library Guides or speak to a librarian to identify the most useful databases for you and to learn how to search for sources effectively and efficiently.

Cover the field

Make sure your literature search covers a broad range of views and information relevant to your topic. Focussing on a narrow selection of sources may result in a lack of depth. You are not expected to cover all research and scholarly opinions on your topic, but you need to identify and include important viewpoints. A quality literature review examines and evaluates different viewpoints based on the evidence presented, rather than providing only material that reinforces a bias.

Use reading strategies

Survey, skim and scan to find the most relevant articles, and the most relevant parts of those articles. These can be re-read more closely later when you have acquired an overview of your topic.

Take notes as you read

This helps to organise and develop your thoughts. Record your own reactions to the text in your notes, perhaps in a separate column. These notes can form the basis of your critical evaluation of the text. Record any facts, opinions or direct quotes that are likely to be useful to your review, noting the page numbers, author and year.

Stop reading when you have enough

This depends on the word count required of this literature review. A review of one thousand words can only cover the major ideas and probably less than ten references. Longer reviews that form part of a large research paper will include more than fifty. Your tutor or supervisor should be able to suggest a suitable number.

As you read, ask yourself these questions:

• Have I answered my question without any obvious gaps?
• Have I read this before? Are there any new related issues coming up as I search the literature?
• Have I found multiple references which cover the same material or just enough to prove agreement?

There are many possible ways to organise the material. For example:

• chronologically
• by theoretical perspective
• from most to least important
• by issue or theme

It is important to remember that you are not merely cataloguing or describing the literature you read. Therefore, you need to choose an organisation that will enable you to compare the various authors' treatment of ideas. This is often best achieved by organising thematically, or grouping ideas into sets of common issues tackled in the various texts. These themes will form the basis of the different threads that are the focus of your study.

A standalone literature review

A standalone literature review is structured much like an academic essay.

• Introduction - establish the context for your topic and outline your main contentions about the literature
• Main body - explain and support these inferences in the main body
• Conclusion - summarise your main points and restate the contention.

The main difference between an essay and this kind of literature review is that an essay focuses on a topic and uses the literature as a support for the arguments. In a standalone literature review, the literature itself is the topic of discussion and evaluation. This means you evaluate and discuss not only the informational content but the quality of the author’s handling of the content.

A literature review as part of a larger research paper?

As part of a larger research paper, the literature review may take many forms, depending on your discipline, your topic and the logic of your research. Traditionally, in empirical research, the literature review is included in the introduction, or a standalone chapter immediately following the introduction. For other forms of research, you may need to engage more extensively with the literature and thus, the literature review may spread over more than one chapter, or even be distributed throughout the thesis.

Start writing early. Writing will clarify your thinking on the topic and reveal any gaps in information and logic. If your ideas change, sections and paragraphs can be reworked to change your contentions or include extra information.

Similarly, draft an overall plan for your review as soon as you are ready, but be prepared to rework sections of it to reflect your developing argument.

The most important thing to remember is that you are writing a review . That means you must move past describing what other authors have written by connecting, interpreting and critiquing their ideas and presenting your own analysis and interpretation.

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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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• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 5. The Literature Review
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
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• Research Process Video Series
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• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
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• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
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• Bibliography

A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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Research Process :: Step by Step

• Introduction
• Select Topic
• Identify Keywords
• Background Information
• Develop Research Questions
• Refine Topic
• Search Strategy
• Popular Databases
• Evaluate Sources
• Types of Periodicals
• Reading Scholarly Articles
• Primary & Secondary Sources
• Organize / Take Notes
• Writing & Grammar Resources
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Review
• Citation Styles
• Paraphrasing
• Privacy / Confidentiality
• Research Process
• Selecting Your Topic
• Identifying Keywords
• Gathering Background Info
• Evaluating Sources

Organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question.  

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment, but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries

A literature review must do these things:

• be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
• synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
• identify areas of controversy in the literature
• formulate questions that need further research

Ask yourself questions like these:

• What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define?
• What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies of loneliness among migrant workers)?
• What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
• How good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I've found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?
• Have I critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
• Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
• Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?

Ask yourself questions like these about each book or article you include:

• Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
• Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
• Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
• What is the author's research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination)?
• What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?
• What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
• Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions she or he does not agree with?
• In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
• In material written for a popular readership, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely "proving" what he or she already believes?
• How does the author structure the argument? Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?
• In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
• How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am developing?

Text written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre, University of Toronto

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

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Literature Review: Purpose of a Literature Review

• Literature Review
• Purpose of a Literature Review
• Work in Progress
• Compiling & Writing
• Books, Articles, & Web Pages
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Departmental Differences
• Citation Styles & Plagiarism
• Know the Difference! Systematic Review vs. Literature Review

The purpose of a literature review is to:

• Provide a foundation of knowledge on a topic
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication and give credit to other researchers
• Identify inconstancies: gaps in research, conflicts in previous studies, open questions left from other research
• Identify the need for additional research (justifying your research)
• Identify the relationship of works in the context of their contribution to the topic and other works
• Place your own research within the context of existing literature, making a case for why further study is needed.

Videos & Tutorials

VIDEO: What is the role of a literature review in research? What's it mean to "review" the literature? Get the big picture of what to expect as part of the process. This video is published under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY-NC-SA US license. License, credits, and contact information can be found here: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/litreview/

Elements in a Literature Review

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What Is A Literature Review?

A plain-language explainer (with examples).

By:  Derek Jansen (MBA) & Kerryn Warren (PhD) | June 2020 (Updated May 2023)

If you’re faced with writing a dissertation or thesis, chances are you’ve encountered the term “literature review” . If you’re on this page, you’re probably not 100% what the literature review is all about. The good news is that you’ve come to the right place.

Literature Review 101

• What (exactly) is a literature review
• What’s the purpose of the literature review chapter
• How to find high-quality resources
• How to structure your literature review chapter
• Example of an actual literature review

What is a literature review?

The word “literature review” can refer to two related things that are part of the broader literature review process. The first is the task of  reviewing the literature  – i.e. sourcing and reading through the existing research relating to your research topic. The second is the  actual chapter  that you write up in your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s look at each of them:

Reviewing the literature

The first step of any literature review is to hunt down and  read through the existing research  that’s relevant to your research topic. To do this, you’ll use a combination of tools (we’ll discuss some of these later) to find journal articles, books, ebooks, research reports, dissertations, theses and any other credible sources of information that relate to your topic. You’ll then  summarise and catalogue these  for easy reference when you write up your literature review chapter. 

The literature review chapter

The second step of the literature review is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or thesis structure ). At the simplest level, the literature review chapter is an  overview of the key literature  that’s relevant to your research topic. This chapter should provide a smooth-flowing discussion of what research has already been done, what is known, what is unknown and what is contested in relation to your research topic. So, you can think of it as an  integrated review of the state of knowledge  around your research topic. 

What’s the purpose of a literature review?

The literature review chapter has a few important functions within your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s take a look at these:

Purpose #1 – Demonstrate your topic knowledge

The first function of the literature review chapter is, quite simply, to show the reader (or marker) that you  know what you’re talking about . In other words, a good literature review chapter demonstrates that you’ve read the relevant existing research and understand what’s going on – who’s said what, what’s agreed upon, disagreed upon and so on. This needs to be  more than just a summary  of who said what – it needs to integrate the existing research to  show how it all fits together  and what’s missing (which leads us to purpose #2, next). 

Purpose #2 – Reveal the research gap that you’ll fill

The second function of the literature review chapter is to  show what’s currently missing  from the existing research, to lay the foundation for your own research topic. In other words, your literature review chapter needs to show that there are currently “missing pieces” in terms of the bigger puzzle, and that  your study will fill one of those research gaps . By doing this, you are showing that your research topic is original and will help contribute to the body of knowledge. In other words, the literature review helps justify your research topic.  

Purpose #3 – Lay the foundation for your conceptual framework

The third function of the literature review is to form the  basis for a conceptual framework . Not every research topic will necessarily have a conceptual framework, but if your topic does require one, it needs to be rooted in your literature review. 

For example, let’s say your research aims to identify the drivers of a certain outcome – the factors which contribute to burnout in office workers. In this case, you’d likely develop a conceptual framework which details the potential factors (e.g. long hours, excessive stress, etc), as well as the outcome (burnout). Those factors would need to emerge from the literature review chapter – they can’t just come from your gut! 

So, in this case, the literature review chapter would uncover each of the potential factors (based on previous studies about burnout), which would then be modelled into a framework. 

Purpose #4 – To inform your methodology

The fourth function of the literature review is to  inform the choice of methodology  for your own research. As we’ve  discussed on the Grad Coach blog , your choice of methodology will be heavily influenced by your research aims, objectives and questions . Given that you’ll be reviewing studies covering a topic close to yours, it makes sense that you could learn a lot from their (well-considered) methodologies.

So, when you’re reviewing the literature, you’ll need to  pay close attention to the research design , methodology and methods used in similar studies, and use these to inform your methodology. Quite often, you’ll be able to  “borrow” from previous studies . This is especially true for quantitative studies , as you can use previously tried and tested measures and scales. 

How do I find articles for my literature review?

Finding quality journal articles is essential to crafting a rock-solid literature review. As you probably already know, not all research is created equally, and so you need to make sure that your literature review is  built on credible research . 

We could write an entire post on how to find quality literature (actually, we have ), but a good starting point is Google Scholar . Google Scholar is essentially the academic equivalent of Google, using Google’s powerful search capabilities to find relevant journal articles and reports. It certainly doesn’t cover every possible resource, but it’s a very useful way to get started on your literature review journey, as it will very quickly give you a good indication of what the  most popular pieces of research  are in your field.

One downside of Google Scholar is that it’s merely a search engine – that is, it lists the articles, but oftentimes  it doesn’t host the articles . So you’ll often hit a paywall when clicking through to journal websites. 

Thankfully, your university should provide you with access to their library, so you can find the article titles using Google Scholar and then search for them by name in your university’s online library. Your university may also provide you with access to  ResearchGate , which is another great source for existing research. 

Remember, the correct search keywords will be super important to get the right information from the start. So, pay close attention to the keywords used in the journal articles you read and use those keywords to search for more articles. If you can’t find a spoon in the kitchen, you haven’t looked in the right drawer. 

Need a helping hand?

How should I structure my literature review?

Unfortunately, there’s no generic universal answer for this one. The structure of your literature review will depend largely on your topic area and your research aims and objectives.

You could potentially structure your literature review chapter according to theme, group, variables , chronologically or per concepts in your field of research. We explain the main approaches to structuring your literature review here . You can also download a copy of our free literature review template to help you establish an initial structure.

In general, it’s also a good idea to start wide (i.e. the big-picture-level) and then narrow down, ending your literature review close to your research questions . However, there’s no universal one “right way” to structure your literature review. The most important thing is not to discuss your sources one after the other like a list – as we touched on earlier, your literature review needs to synthesise the research , not summarise it .

Ultimately, you need to craft your literature review so that it conveys the most important information effectively – it needs to tell a logical story in a digestible way. It’s no use starting off with highly technical terms and then only explaining what these terms mean later. Always assume your reader is not a subject matter expert and hold their hand through a journe y of the literature while keeping the functions of the literature review chapter (which we discussed earlier) front of mind.

Example of a literature review

In the video below, we walk you through a high-quality literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. This will give you a clearer view of what a strong literature review looks like in practice and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve (hopefully) answered the question, “ what is a literature review? “. We’ve also considered the purpose and functions of the literature review, as well as how to find literature and how to structure the literature review chapter. If you’re keen to learn more, check out the literature review section of the Grad Coach blog , as well as our detailed video post covering how to write a literature review . 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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16 Comments

Thanks for this review. It narrates what’s not been taught as tutors are always in a early to finish their classes.

Thanks for the kind words, Becky. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

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This is review is amazing. I benefited from it a lot and hope others visiting this website will benefit too.

Timothy T. Chol [email protected]

Thank you very much for the guiding in literature review I learn and benefited a lot this make my journey smooth I’ll recommend this site to my friends

This was so useful. Thank you so much.

Hi, Concept was explained nicely by both of you. Thanks a lot for sharing it. It will surely help research scholars to start their Research Journey.

The review is really helpful to me especially during this period of covid-19 pandemic when most universities in my country only offer online classes. Great stuff

Great Brief Explanation, thanks

So helpful to me as a student

GradCoach is a fantastic site with brilliant and modern minds behind it.. I spent weeks decoding the substantial academic Jargon and grounding my initial steps on the research process, which could be shortened to a couple of days through the Gradcoach. Thanks again!

This is an amazing talk. I paved way for myself as a researcher. Thank you GradCoach!

Well-presented overview of the literature!

This was brilliant. So clear. Thank you

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• Research Process

Literature Review in Research Writing

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Table of Contents

Research on research? If you find this idea rather peculiar, know that nowadays, with the huge amount of information produced daily all around the world, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep up to date with all of it. In addition to the sheer amount of research, there is also its origin. We are witnessing the economic and intellectual emergence of countries like China, Brazil, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates, for example, that are producing scholarly literature in their own languages. So, apart from the effort of gathering information, there must also be translators prepared to unify all of it in a single language to be the object of the literature survey. At Elsevier, our team of translators is ready to support researchers by delivering high-quality scientific translations , in several languages, to serve their research – no matter the topic.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a study – or, more accurately, a survey – involving scholarly material, with the aim to discuss published information about a specific topic or research question. Therefore, to write a literature review, it is compulsory that you are a real expert in the object of study. The results and findings will be published and made available to the public, namely scientists working in the same area of research.

How to Write a Literature Review

First of all, don’t forget that writing a literature review is a great responsibility. It’s a document that is expected to be highly reliable, especially concerning its sources and findings. You have to feel intellectually comfortable in the area of study and highly proficient in the target language; misconceptions and errors do not have a place in a document as important as a literature review. In fact, you might want to consider text editing services, like those offered at Elsevier, to make sure your literature is following the highest standards of text quality. You want to make sure your literature review is memorable by its novelty and quality rather than language errors.

Writing a literature review requires expertise but also organization. We cannot teach you about your topic of research, but we can provide a few steps to guide you through conducting a literature review:

• Choose your topic or research question: It should not be too comprehensive or too limited. You have to complete your task within a feasible time frame.
• Set the scope: Define boundaries concerning the number of sources, time frame to be covered, geographical area, etc.
• Decide which databases you will use for your searches: In order to search the best viable sources for your literature review, use highly regarded, comprehensive databases to get a big picture of the literature related to your topic.
• Search, search, and search: Now you’ll start to investigate the research on your topic. It’s critical that you keep track of all the sources. Start by looking at research abstracts in detail to see if their respective studies relate to or are useful for your own work. Next, search for bibliographies and references that can help you broaden your list of resources. Choose the most relevant literature and remember to keep notes of their bibliographic references to be used later on.
• Review all the literature, appraising carefully it’s content: After reading the study’s abstract, pay attention to the rest of the content of the articles you deem the “most relevant.” Identify methodologies, the most important questions they address, if they are well-designed and executed, and if they are cited enough, etc.

If it’s the first time you’ve published a literature review, note that it is important to follow a special structure. Just like in a thesis, for example, it is expected that you have an introduction – giving the general idea of the central topic and organizational pattern – a body – which contains the actual discussion of the sources – and finally the conclusion or recommendations – where you bring forward whatever you have drawn from the reviewed literature. The conclusion may even suggest there are no agreeable findings and that the discussion should be continued.

Why are literature reviews important?

Literature reviews constantly feed new research, that constantly feeds literature reviews…and we could go on and on. The fact is, one acts like a force over the other and this is what makes science, as a global discipline, constantly develop and evolve. As a scientist, writing a literature review can be very beneficial to your career, and set you apart from the expert elite in your field of interest. But it also can be an overwhelming task, so don’t hesitate in contacting Elsevier for text editing services, either for profound edition or just a last revision. We guarantee the very highest standards. You can also save time by letting us suggest and make the necessary amendments to your manuscript, so that it fits the structural pattern of a literature review. Who knows how many worldwide researchers you will impact with your next perfectly written literature review.

Know more: How to Find a Gap in Research .

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NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.

Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet].

Chapter 9 methods for literature reviews.

Guy Paré and Spyros Kitsiou .

9.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing the contents of many empirical and conceptual papers. Among other methods, literature reviews are essential for: (a) identifying what has been written on a subject or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) aggregating empirical findings related to a narrow research question to support evidence-based practice; (d) generating new frameworks and theories; and (e) identifying topics or questions requiring more investigation ( Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015 ).

Literature reviews can take two major forms. The most prevalent one is the “literature review” or “background” section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses ( Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013 ). It may also provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research as one that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed study ( Hart, 1998 ; Levy & Ellis, 2006 ).

The second form of literature review, which is the focus of this chapter, constitutes an original and valuable work of research in and of itself ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Rather than providing a base for a researcher’s own work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the community interested in a particular area or topic ( Mulrow, 1987 ). The so-called “review article” is a journal-length paper which has an overarching purpose to synthesize the literature in a field, without collecting or analyzing any primary data ( Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006 ).

When appropriately conducted, review articles represent powerful information sources for practitioners looking for state-of-the art evidence to guide their decision-making and work practices ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, high-quality reviews become frequently cited pieces of work which researchers seek out as a first clear outline of the literature when undertaking empirical studies ( Cooper, 1988 ; Rowe, 2014 ). Scholars who track and gauge the impact of articles have found that review papers are cited and downloaded more often than any other type of published article ( Cronin, Ryan, & Coughlan, 2008 ; Montori, Wilczynski, Morgan, Haynes, & Hedges, 2003 ; Patsopoulos, Analatos, & Ioannidis, 2005 ). The reason for their popularity may be the fact that reading the review enables one to have an overview, if not a detailed knowledge of the area in question, as well as references to the most useful primary sources ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Although they are not easy to conduct, the commitment to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one’s academic community ( Paré et al., 2015 ; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Most, if not all, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medical informatics publish review articles of some type.

The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review articles in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

As explained in Templier and Paré (2015) , there are six generic steps involved in conducting a review article:

• formulating the research question(s) and objective(s),
• searching the extant literature,
• screening for inclusion,
• assessing the quality of primary studies,
• extracting data, and
• analyzing data.

Although these steps are presented here in sequential order, one must keep in mind that the review process can be iterative and that many activities can be initiated during the planning stage and later refined during subsequent phases ( Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013 ; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ).

Formulating the research question(s) and objective(s): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the need for the review itself ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ), identify the review’s main objective(s) ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ; Webster & Watson, 2002 ). Importantly, they also need to articulate the research question(s) they propose to investigate ( Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ). In this regard, we concur with Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) that clearly articulated research questions are key ingredients that guide the entire review methodology; they underscore the type of information that is needed, inform the search for and selection of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent analysis. Searching the extant literature: The next step consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of material to be considered in the review ( Cooper, 1988 ). There exist three main coverage strategies. First, exhaustive coverage means an effort is made to be as comprehensive as possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of most other works in a given field or area. Often authors who adopt this strategy will search for relevant articles in a small number of top-tier journals in a field ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In the third strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that have been central or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how problems or questions were framed, introduced new methods or concepts, or engendered important debate ( Cooper, 1988 ). Screening for inclusion: The following step consists of evaluating the applicability of the material identified in the preceding step ( Levy & Ellis, 2006 ; vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). Once a group of potential studies has been identified, members of the review team must screen them to determine their relevance ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding certain studies. This exercise requires a significant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at least two independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must also be in place ( Liberati et al., 2009 ; Shea et al., 2009 ). Assessing the quality of primary studies: In addition to screening material for inclusion, members of the review team may need to assess the scientific quality of the selected studies, that is, appraise the rigour of the research design and methods. Such formal assessment, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review team refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may affect their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the data and interpret the findings ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or considering through domain-based evaluations which study components have or have not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reflect on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity ( Shea et al., 2009 ). Extracting data: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Indeed, the type of data that should be recorded mainly depends on the initial research questions ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ). However, important information may also be gathered about how, when, where and by whom the primary study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Analyzing and synthesizing data : As a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, aggregate, organize, and compare the evidence extracted from the included studies. The extracted data must be presented in a meaningful way that suggests a new contribution to the extant literature ( Jesson et al., 2011 ). Webster and Watson (2002) warn researchers that literature reviews should be much more than lists of papers and should provide a coherent lens to make sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. There exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.g., frequency analysis, meta-analysis) and qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence ( Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005 ; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

9.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations

EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic. Our classification scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues’ (2015) typology. Below we present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

9.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the “traditional” way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative interpretation of prior knowledge ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). Put simply, a narrative review attempts to summarize or synthesize what has been written on a particular topic but does not seek generalization or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed ( Davies, 2000 ; Green et al., 2006 ). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a particular point of view ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ). As such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to certain studies in order to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary articles is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences ( Green et al., 2006 ). There are several narrative reviews in the particular eHealth domain, as in all fields, which follow such an unstructured approach ( Silva et al., 2015 ; Paul et al., 2015 ).

Despite these criticisms, this type of review can be very useful in gathering together a volume of literature in a specific subject area and synthesizing it. As mentioned above, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge and highlighting the significance of new research ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Faculty like to use narrative reviews in the classroom because they are often more up to date than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and expose students to peer-reviewed literature ( Green et al., 2006 ). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, thus helping researchers to determine research questions or formulate hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can also be used as educational articles to bring practitioners up to date with certain topics of issues ( Green et al., 2006 ).

Recently, there have been several efforts to introduce more rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, have contributed to advancing knowledge on how to structure a “traditional” review. For instance, Levy and Ellis (2006) proposed a generic framework for conducting such reviews. Their model follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three steps, namely: (a) literature search and screening; (b) data extraction and analysis; and (c) writing the literature review. They provide detailed and very helpful instructions on how to conduct each step of the review process. As another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a series of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of knowledge. Last, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify primary studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified articles, synthesize and analyze the findings, and effectively write and present the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a good example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the development process of mobile health ( m-health ) interventions for patients’ cancer care self-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is broad: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions can be drawn as a result of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on six electronic databases and Google Scholar . The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate manner. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening process. Both authors independently reviewed each of the identified articles to determine eligibility and extract study information. A flow diagram shows the number of studies identified, screened, and included or excluded at each stage of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a series of practical recommendations for m-health intervention development.

9.3.2. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a body of knowledge in a particular research topic reveals any interpretable pattern or trend with respect to pre-existing propositions, theories, methodologies or findings ( King & He, 2005 ; Paré et al., 2015 ). In contrast with narrative reviews, descriptive reviews follow a systematic and transparent procedure, including searching, screening and classifying studies ( Petersen, Vakkalanka, & Kuzniarz, 2015 ). Indeed, structured search methods are used to form a representative sample of a larger group of published works ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, authors of descriptive reviews extract from each study certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, data collection techniques, and direction or strength of research outcomes (e.g., positive, negative, or non-significant) in the form of frequency analysis to produce quantitative results ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). In essence, each study included in a descriptive review is treated as the unit of analysis and the published literature as a whole provides a database from which the authors attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the state of the art in a particular domain ( King & He, 2005 ).

In the fields of health sciences and medical informatics, reviews that focus on examining the range, nature and evolution of a topic area are described by Anderson, Allen, Peckham, and Goodwin (2008) as mapping reviews . Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually relate to publication patterns and trends. There is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be done. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of most works published in a particular area and they consider a specific time frame to be mapped.

An example of this approach in the eHealth domain is offered by DeShazo, Lavallie, and Wolf (2009). The purpose of this descriptive or mapping review was to characterize publication trends in the medical informatics literature over a 20-year period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this ambitious objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, impact factors, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical informatics articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term analysis also suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, average impact scores increased over time with two notable growth periods. Overall, patterns in research outputs that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline (DeShazo et al., 2009).

9.3.3. Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews attempt to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant literature on an emergent topic (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013 ; Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010). A scoping review may be conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activities in a particular area, determine the value of undertaking a full systematic review (discussed next), or identify research gaps in the extant literature ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In line with their main objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed research agenda for future works along with potential implications for both practice and research.

Unlike narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole point of scoping the field is to be as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be established to help researchers eliminate studies that are not aligned with the research questions. It is also recommended that at least two independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy and then the full articles for study selection ( Daudt et al., 2013 ). The synthesized evidence from content or thematic analysis is relatively easy to present in tabular form (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

One of the most highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published by Archer, Fevrier-Thomas, Lokker, McKibbon, and Straus (2011) . These authors reviewed the existing literature on personal health record ( phr ) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications, outcomes, and benefits. Seven databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phr s were used during this process. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts to determine inclusion status. A second screen of full-text articles, again by two independent members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phr s. All in all, 130 articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a large amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal evidence of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more research is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is little solid evidence from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the use of phr s. Hence, they suggested that more research is needed that addresses the current lack of understanding of optimal functionality and usability of these systems, and how they can play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-management ( Archer et al., 2011 ).

9.3.4. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of information, including research-based evidence from numerous clinical trials and evaluation studies, assessing the effectiveness of health information technologies and interventions ( Ammenwerth & de Keizer, 2004 ; Deshazo et al., 2009 ). It is unrealistic to expect that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resources to identify the available evidence in the area of their expertise and consider it when making decisions. Systematic reviews that involve the rigorous application of scientific strategies aimed at limiting subjectivity and bias (i.e., systematic and random errors) can respond to this challenge.

Systematic reviews attempt to aggregate, appraise, and synthesize in a single source all empirical evidence that meet a set of previously specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a clearly formulated and often narrow research question on a particular topic of interest to support evidence-based practice ( Liberati et al., 2009 ). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles ( Liberati et al., 2009 ) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can lead to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to aggregate a large body of research evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the same direction and of the same general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between study results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of interest based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them ( Cook, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997 ). The main procedures of a systematic review involve:

• Formulating a review question and developing a search strategy based on explicit inclusion criteria for the identification of eligible studies (usually described in the context of a detailed review protocol).
• Searching for eligible studies using multiple databases and information sources, including grey literature sources, without any language restrictions.
• Selecting studies, extracting data, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two independent reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the process.
• Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
• Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
• Interpreting results and drawing conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, but not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known as meta-analyses , these reviews use specific data extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by outcome of interest an effect size along with a confidence interval that reflects the degree of uncertainty behind the point estimate of effect ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008 ). Subsequently, they use fixed or random-effects analysis models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted average of the effect estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary effect size is a value that reflects the average magnitude of the intervention effect for a particular outcome of interest or, more generally, the strength of a relationship between two variables across all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses can create more precise and reliable estimates of intervention effects than those derived from individual studies alone, when these are examined independently as discrete sources of information.

The review by Gurol-Urganci, de Jongh, Vodopivec-Jamsek, Atun, and Car (2013) on the effects of mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments is an illustrative example of a high-quality systematic review with meta-analysis. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs to health systems. These authors sought to assess whether mobile phone-based appointment reminders delivered through Short Message Service ( sms ) or Multimedia Messaging Service ( mms ) are effective in improving rates of patient attendance and reducing overall costs. To this end, they conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases using highly sensitive search strategies without language or publication-type restrictions to identify all rct s that are eligible for inclusion. In order to minimize the risk of omitting eligible studies not captured by the original search, they supplemented all electronic searches with manual screening of trial registers and references contained in the included studies. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were performed inde­­pen­dently by two coders using standardized methods to ensure consistency and to eliminate potential errors. Findings from eight rct s involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to calculate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone call reminders.

Meta-analyses are regarded as powerful tools for deriving meaningful conclusions. However, there are situations in which it is neither reasonable nor appropriate to pool studies together using meta-analytic methods simply because there is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can use qualitative synthesis methods such as vote counting, content analysis, classification schemes and tabulations, as an alternative approach to narratively synthesize the results of the independent studies included in the review. This form of review is known as qualitative systematic review.

A rigorous example of one such review in the eHealth domain is presented by Mickan, Atherton, Roberts, Heneghan, and Tilson (2014) on the use of handheld computers by healthcare professionals and their impact on access to information and clinical decision-making. In line with the methodological guide­lines for systematic reviews, these authors: (a) developed and registered with prospero ( www.crd.york.ac.uk/ prospero / ) an a priori review protocol; (b) conducted comprehensive searches for eligible studies using multiple databases and other supplementary strategies (e.g., forward searches); and (c) subsequently carried out study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments in a duplicate manner to eliminate potential errors in the review process. Heterogeneity between the included studies in terms of reported outcomes and measures precluded the use of meta-analytic methods. To this end, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to describe the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing information for clinical knowledge, adherence to safety and clinical quality guidelines, and diagnostic decision-making.

In recent years, the number of systematic reviews in the field of health informatics has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can cause great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence ( Moher, 2013 ). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisal and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that decision-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated evidence. Umbrella reviews , also known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of evidence synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and contrast findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Umbrella reviews generally adhere to the same principles and rigorous methodological guidelines used in systematic reviews. However, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the primary study ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Unlike systematic reviews that have a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader research topics for which there are several potential interventions ( Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011 ). A recent umbrella review on the effects of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized evidence from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of home telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admissions ( Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015 ).

9.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews developed to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous evidence about complex interventions applied in diverse contexts in a way that informs policy decision-making ( Greenhalgh, Wong, Westhorp, & Pawson, 2011 ). They originated from criticisms of positivist systematic reviews which centre on their “simplistic” underlying assumptions ( Oates, 2011 ). As explained above, systematic reviews seek to identify causation. Such logic is appropriate for fields like medicine and education where findings of randomized controlled trials can be aggregated to see whether a new treatment or intervention does improve outcomes. However, many argue that it is not possible to establish such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such as social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent outcome ( Oates, 2011 ; Pawson, 2006 ; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ).

To circumvent these limitations, Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey, and Walshe (2005) have proposed a new approach for synthesizing knowledge that seeks to unpack the mechanism of how “complex interventions” work in particular contexts. The basic research question — what works? — which is usually associated with systematic reviews changes to: what is it about this intervention that works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and why? Realist reviews have no particular preference for either quantitative or qualitative evidence. As a theory-building approach, a realist review usually starts by articulating likely underlying mechanisms and then scrutinizes available evidence to find out whether and where these mechanisms are applicable ( Shepperd et al., 2009 ). Primary studies found in the extant literature are viewed as case studies which can test and modify the initial theories ( Rousseau et al., 2008 ).

The main objective pursued in the realist review conducted by Otte-Trojel, de Bont, Rundall, and van de Klundert (2014) was to examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, most importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. The research team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified six main ways which represent “educated guesses” to be tested against the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Two members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-step procedure. The authors then extracted data from the selected articles and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forward those mechanisms where patient portals contribute to outcomes and the variation in outcomes across different contexts.

9.3.6. Critical Reviews

Lastly, critical reviews aim to provide a critical evaluation and interpretive analysis of existing literature on a particular topic of interest to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important issues with respect to theories, hypotheses, research methods or results ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ; Kirkevold, 1997 ). Unlike other review types, critical reviews attempt to take a reflective account of the research that has been done in a particular area of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisal instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars about the weaknesses of prior research and strengthen knowledge development by giving focus and direction to studies for further improvement ( Kirkevold, 1997 ).

Kitsiou, Paré, and Jaana (2013) provide an example of a critical review that assessed the methodological quality of prior systematic reviews of home telemonitoring studies for chronic patients. The authors conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases to identify eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisal. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this particular area suffer from important methodological flaws and biases that impair their internal validity and limit their usefulness for clinical and decision-making purposes. To this end, they provide a number of recommendations to strengthen knowledge development towards improving the design and execution of future reviews on home telemonitoring.

9.4. Summary

Table 9.1 outlines the main types of literature reviews that were described in the previous sub-sections and summarizes the main characteristics that distinguish one review type from another. It also includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can be used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

As shown in Table 9.1 , each review type addresses different kinds of research questions or objectives, which subsequently define and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For example, in the case of narrative reviews, there is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles ( Green et al., 2006 ). Researchers are often relatively free to use a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific articles, describe their operational characteristics, present how the individual studies fit together, and formulate conclusions. On the other hand, systematic reviews are characterized by their high level of systematicity, rigour, and use of explicit methods, based on an “a priori” review plan that aims to minimize bias in the analysis and synthesis process (Higgins & Green, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.g., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may be conducted to discover patterns (e.g., descriptive reviews) or involve a synthesis approach that may include the critical analysis of prior research ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Hence, in order to select the most appropriate type of review, it is critical to know before embarking on a review project, why the research synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

9.5. Concluding Remarks

In light of the increased use of evidence-based practice and research generating stronger evidence ( Grady et al., 2011 ; Lyden et al., 2013 ), review articles have become essential tools for summarizing, synthesizing, integrating or critically appraising prior knowledge in the eHealth field. As mentioned earlier, when rigorously conducted review articles represent powerful information sources for eHealth scholars and practitioners looking for state-of-the-art evidence. The typology of literature reviews we used herein will allow eHealth researchers, graduate students and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences between review types.

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific type of review as being of higher quality than another ( Paré et al., 2015 ). As explained above, each type of review has its own strengths and limitations. Having said that, we realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should be considered seriously by prospective authors. In the present context, the notion of rigour refers to the reliability and validity of the review process described in section 9.2. For one thing, reliability is related to the reproducibility of the review process and steps, which is facilitated by a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or not, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is important that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and approach that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted appropriately. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of time covered, the articles selected in the search, and the application of backward and forward searches ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). In short, the rigour of any review article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the approach used. We refer those interested in the concepts of rigour and quality to the work of Templier and Paré (2015) which offers a detailed set of methodological guidelines for conducting and evaluating various types of review articles.

To conclude, our main objective in this chapter was to demystify the various types of literature reviews that are central to the continuous development of the eHealth field. It is our hope that our descriptive account will serve as a valuable source for those conducting, evaluating or using reviews in this important and growing domain.

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• Cite this Page Paré G, Kitsiou S. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews. In: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.
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Factors influencing the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices for rice cultivation in Southeast Asia: a review

• Review Article
• Open access
• Published: 23 April 2024
• Volume 44 , article number  27 , ( 2024 )

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• Sheng-Han-Erin Chang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9757-4702 1 ,
• Emmanuel O. Benjamin 2 &
• Johannes Sauer 1  

Rice cultivation plays a vital role in the Southeast Asian (SEA) economy, but it poses environmental challenges and contributes a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. To address these concerns, sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) for rice production have been introduced to mitigate the environmental impact of rice production while fostering economic and social sustainability. However, the adoption of these practices remains limited, highlighting the need for a critical review of existing literature to gain deeper insights into the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of these practices in SEA countries. This review analyzed 39 manuscripts to assess the current state of SAPs for rice cultivation in SEA. We found that socio-demographic variables and farm management variables were frequently examined in these studies, with varying levels of significance. Economic and institutional variables were moderately studied and tended to have more significant findings. There is a noticeable research gap regarding behavioral factors, emphasizing the need for further investigation in SEA. Furthermore, the findings underscore the importance of conducting additional research to develop effective monetary and non-monetary incentives and explore methodologies to address the gaps in understanding farmers’ trade-offs and preferences among different SAPs. These efforts are crucial for promoting the widespread adoption of SAPs in rice cultivation.

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1 Introduction

Rice cultivation has historically played an important role in the economic and social development of many Southeast Asian countries (SEA). SEA comprises “mainland” (Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam) and Island regions (Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) that collectively contribute 26% to global rice production and 40% to exports (Yuan et al. 2022 ). Mainland and island regions are characterized by tropical and subtropical climatic zones with high annual precipitation.

The majority of rice producers in these countries are smallholders with four main types of rice cultivation systems as follows: irrigated, rainfed, deep water, and upland rice (usually on sloping land) (Mutert and Fairhurst 2002 ). Irrigated rice systems exhibit the highest productivity, followed by rainfed, deep water, and upland rice. In Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, irrigation systems are more prevalent. Conversely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand primarily rely more on rain-fed lowland cultivation (Mutert and Fairhurst 2002 ). Despite these differences, all these countries face common challenges—balancing the increasing demand for rice with sustainable agricultural practices and addressing the impact of climate change.

According to the IPCC ( 2007 ), in the agricultural sector, global paddy rice cultivation contributes approximately 30% and 11% of global methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, respectively. In Southeast Asia, rice cultivation is a major contributor to GHG emissions in the agricultural sector, with an average of 20% of total GHG emissions at the country level, as indicated by national GHG inventory data (Zhang et al. 2024 ). For instance, in Thailand in 2019, rice cultivation contributed 54.7% of total GHG emissions (Mungkung et al. 2022 ). Open-field burning of rice straw after harvest releases carbon dioxide (CO2) at 70%, CH4, carbon monoxide (CO) at 7%, and N2O at 2.09% (Singh et al. 2024 ). This burning process also leads to the depletion of soil organic matter content (Connor et al. 2020 ). It is estimated that global rice production must increase by 30% by 2050 in order to satisfy the projected rice demand for the growing world population (Yuan et al. 2022 ). However, growing more rice will eventually result in increased GHG emissions.

In this region, rice can be grown up to three times per year with the use of irrigation (Mutert and Fairhurst 2002 ). The production of rice poses great challenges with its usage of 34 to 43% of global irrigation water (Surendran et al. 2021 ). In Asia, irrigation consumes over 80% of freshwater resources, and more than half of that is used for rice irrigation (Surendran et al. 2021 ). This intensive water usage significantly contributes to area-based water scarcity (Silalertruksa et al. 2017 ; Mungkung et al. 2019 ). To address this challenge, the water footprint has been introduced. It serves as a tool to assess the link between agricultural production, water resources, and environmental impacts, with the aim of improving water use efficiency, sustainability, and management (Silalertruksa et al. 2017 ; Rusli et al. 2018 ). Over-application of agro-chemical inputs is another major constraint for sustainable rice production in Asia (Terano et al. 2015 ; Devkota et al. 2019 ; Flor et al. 2020 ; Nguyen et al. 2022 ). In certain countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand), rice production is characterized by high levels of agrochemical inputs to achieve self-sufficiency and support exports in rice production (Cho and Zoebisch 2003 ; Olabisi et al. 2015 ; Ali et al. 2018 ; Digal and Placencia 2018 ; Atieno et al. 2020 ; Fritz et al. 2021 ). This has resulted in adverse health effects and has had negative environmental impacts (Sapbamrer 2018 ).

Rice fields are not just for agricultural productivity but also providers of various ecosystem services. They contribute to cultural (recreation, cultural identity, tourism), regulating (biocontrol, pollination), and provisioning services (soil nutrients) in Southeast Asia (Settele et al 2018 ). In light of these valuable contributions, it becomes evident that climate change poses a significant threat to these ecosystem services, particularly in SEA, which is recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. Those unsustainable farming practices mentioned above lead to environmental degradation and make it even more difficult to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In response to these challenges, sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) have emerged within rice cultivation systems. These practices mainly include climate-smart agriculture, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, nutrient management, organic farming, and straw management. SAPs have been shown to be effective in reducing agro-chemical application and the amount of water used, and in increasing crop yield (Seerasarn et al. 2020 ; Ha and Bac 2021 ). SAPs in rice cultivation have the potential to achieve several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including zero hunger (SDG 2), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), life below water (SDG 14), and life on land (SDG 15). Therefore, there is a need to increase farmers’ uptake of SAPs in Asia and to improve societal benefits.

To date, no comprehensive review has systematically summarized sustainable rice farming practices and identified determinants of adoption in this region. Thus, this study aims to address this gap by providing a critical review that not only examines the methods used in previous studies but also synthesizes their findings, ultimately identifying key research gaps. The objectives of this study are threefold. Firstly, it aims to identify and summarize the most common SAPs for rice cultivation that have been implemented in SEA countries, including a detailed analysis of their sustainability levels, as discussed in Section 3.1 . Secondly, it aims to analyze and evaluate the existing literature on the determinants of adoption, including the factors that influence farmers’ decision-making. Lastly, it aims to highlight the methodological approaches used in previous studies and assess their strengths and limitations.

2 Materials and methods

Most systematic review studies on motivation and the factors determining the participation of AES or adoption of SAPs were conducted mainly on a regional or global scale. For example, Serebrennikov et al. ( 2020 ) conducted a systematic review and identified factors influencing the adoption of SAPs in Europe. They found that farmers’ environmental and economic attitudes and their sources of information have a strong impact on their adoption of organic farming. Sapbamrer and Thammachai. ( 2021 ) conducted a global systematic review of factors influencing farmers’ adoption of organic farming. They found that extension agents, farm associations, and the government are three key drivers for this adoption. Guo et al. ( 2020 ) conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on the adoption of sustainable intensification (SI) in Southern African farming systems. They identified nine relevant drivers of the adoption of SI among smallholder farmers including age, education, extension services, gender, household size, income, farming organization membership, size of arable land, and access to credit. Begho et al. ( 2022 ) reviewed factors influencing farmers’ adoption of sustainable crop farming practices in South Asia. They discovered that factors such as education, training and extension programs, soil quality, irrigation, income, and access to credit play a significant role in influencing farmers’ decision-making. A systematic review conducted by Jones et al. ( 2020 ) highlighted the importance of both financial and non-financial motivations in influencing participation in payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs in the global south. Foguesatto et al. ( 2020 ) reviewed the literature on factors influencing the adoption of SAPs worldwide. Their study suggests that farmers’ perceptions are influenced by economic and psychological factors. They discovered the majority of papers they reviewed ignored the inclusion of psychological factors involving farmers’ adoption decisions. Furthermore, the constructs (i.e., farmers’ perception) were poorly measured in those reviewed papers concerning psychological factors.

This review primarily focuses on the voluntary adoption of sustainable practices, regardless of whether they are supported by the government or NGOs. This study is based on identifying factors that motivate or hinder farmers’ independent decision-making about SAPs, rather than evaluating the impact of external interventions. We concentrated on factors found to be statistically significant in predicting SAP adoption. As this study includes research on using multiple methods such as various regression models or structural equation modeling, a comparison of the effect sizes of these influential factors is beyond the scope of this study. In our study, SAPs include approaches that not only enable rice farmers to implement environmentally friendly practices but also contribute to their economic stability and social well-being. These practices include, but are not limited to, methods such as organic farming, the system of rice intensification (SRI), integrated farming (rice with livestock or fish), good agricultural practices (GAP), integrated pest management (IPM), and rice straw management (RSM). Besides giving an overview of common SAPs for rice production, our review focuses on empirical findings on factors driving or limiting the adoption of SAPs in rice production in SEA. These practices are viable for smallholders, allowing them to make the best use of their resources and land.

2.1 Inclusion criteria

While a number of studies on the technical experiment or economic performance of SAPs in rice cultivation exist, they were omitted in this study. This study included articles that (1) analyzed the adoption of sustainable rice cultivation practices such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions from rice production, decreasing irrigation water use, reducing agro-chemical use, and implementing sustainable straw management; (2) applied statistical methods and used primary data for empirical research in SEA countries; (3) published in peer-reviewed journals and proceedings; (4) published between 1993 and 2022; and (5) published in English. In terms of farmer adoption, the vote-counting method was employed to synthesize evidence from multiple studies in order to categorize the findings into three categories: (1) studies reporting positively significant results; (2) studies reporting negatively significant results; (3) studies reporting non-significant results. This method identified whether a specific variable in a factor exhibits a consistent pattern or mixed results across studies (Priya and Singh 2022 ). However, we recognize the inherent diversity and context-specific nature of studies conducted in SEA, which can affect their comparability. Therefore, we interpret these categorized results with caution. When a variable shows significantly positive results in the majority of the studies, it is considered to have a positive effect on SAP adoption.

2.2 Search methods

We searched relevant articles in several databases including Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar by using the following keywords: “adoption” OR “determinants” OR “factor” plus “attitude” OR “preference” OR “perception” plus “organic rice farming” OR “system of rice intensification” OR “sustainable agriculture practices” OR “integrated pest management” OR “climate-smart” OR “integrated farming” OR “Good agriculture practices” OR “Best management practices” OR “green manure” plus “Cambodia” OR “Indonesia” OR “Laos” OR “Malaysia” OR “Myanmar” OR “Philippines” OR “Thailand” OR “Vietnam” OR “Southeast Asia”.

2.3 Quality assessment

Our systematic review follows the PRISMA guidelines (Moher et al. 2009 ). The flow diagram in Fig. 1 depicts the study selection procedures. A total of 1341 records were initially identified from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. After removing duplicates, 429 articles underwent abstract screening. Out of these, 298 studies were excluded for not being conducted in SEA countries or focusing on unrelated practices. Further, full-text examination led to the exclusion of 33 additional articles due to inappropriate study design or a lack of focus on adoption and rice cultivation. Ultimately, 39 articles met the inclusion criteria for the review.

Diagram outlining steps and results of article screening, adapted from the PRISMA protocol (Moher et al. 2009 ).

2.4 Data analysis

The data were presented based on author, year of publication, country, study population, and findings and recommendations. Several studies have identified and categorized the factors influencing the farmers’ decisions to adopt SAPs. Tu et al. ( 2018 ) classified the factors affecting adoption of eco-friendly rice production into eight subgroups: (1) socio-demographic characteristics (age, education, experience, gender, and labor); (2) perception of risk; (3) perceived usefulness (benefit, selling price, yield); (4) perceptions about environment pollution and biodiversity; (5) perceived ease of use (technical aspect); (6) farm physical characteristics (farm size and plots); (7) social network (membership in organizations), and (8) financial characteristics (perception of outside support and access to credit). Pham et al. ( 2021 ) categorized factors into four groups: (1) plot characteristics (size, ownership, distance, plot problem, quality, land slops); (2) household characteristics (age, education, gender); (3) resource constraints (assets, food expenditure, labor, livestock units index, off-farm income, total cultivated plots); and (4) social capital (political connections, relatives, membership of farmer groups, sharing with peers, contact with extension agents). Priya and Singh ( 2022 ) grouped variables affecting general SAPs adoption into 6 categories: (1) social-economic factors (e.g., age, gender, farm income, etc.), (2) biophysical factors (e.g., farm size, location, distance to market, etc.); (3) institutional factors (e.g., training, input subsidies, policy support, etc.); (4) financial factors (e.g., debt/assets, access to credit, crop insurance, etc.); (5) technological factors (access to knowledge, technical assistance, asset owned, etc.); and (6) psychological factors (e.g., intention to adopt, perception, attitude, etc.). According to recent studies (Dessart et al. 2019 ), behavioral/psychological factors play a significant role in the adoption of SAPs. They grouped them into three clusters from more distal to more proximal: (i) dispositional factors; (ii) social factors; and (iii) cognitive factors. Based on the above-mentioned studies, this study identifies a comprehensive set of six groups for factors affecting SAP adoptions, including (1) socio-demographic characteristics; (2) farm characteristics and farming factors; (3) economic factors; (4) institutional factors; (5) social factors; and (6) behavioral/psychological factors.

In our systematic review, the studies analyzed had significant heterogeneity in methods and measures applied, including the use of structural equation modeling, which did not report the mean and standard deviation data required for traditional effect size calculations. Consequently, we employed a vote-counting method to synthesize the findings and to discern common themes and issues. While vote-counting has limitations, which will be detailed in Section 3.4, and may not capture the full complexity of the studies, it can still provide a useful summary of the findings and offer insights for future research.

3 Results and discussion

This section presents and discusses the results of the systematic review. In terms of the geographical location, seven countries in SEA have relevant publications: Cambodia (1), Indonesia (6), Malaysia (4), Myanmar (1), Philippines (2), Thailand (12), and Vietnam (13) (Table 1 ). However, no relevant papers were found for Laos. A detailed summary with findings and recommendations of each study is shown in Table A1 in the Appendix. Section 3.1 outlines the most common SAPs implemented in SEA. Section 3.2 presents the factors most frequently examined that affect the adoption. Section 3.3 identifies research gaps, summarizes analysis methods, and discusses limitations.

3.1 Rice SAPs adoption in SEA

As shown in Table 1 , organic farming adoption was the most studied ( n = 9), followed by Climate Smart Agriculture including SRI and AWD ( n = 7), integrated farming, integrated rice-fish farming, integrated rice-livestock farming ( n = 6), Good Agricultural Practices/Best Management Practices ( n = 4), and rice straw management ( n = 3). These findings may indirectly indicate the region’s policy priorities. Table 2 presents the sustainability levels of these SAPs and the following section will provide a detailed analysis of each practice.

3.1.1 Organic rice farming (OF)

During the 2000s, organic agriculture gained prominence in Southeast Asian countries thanks to the support of international NGOs and development agencies (Castella and Kibler 2015 ). Adoption of organic agriculture practices can be effective in improving farmers’ livelihood and conserving agro-biodiversity (Limnirankul and Gypmantasiri 2012 ). By reducing agro-chemical inputs, promoting crop rotation, and vegetative buffer zones, organic agriculture has the potential to regenerate agricultural land, prevent soil degradation, and counteract biodiversity loss (Fritz et al. 2021 ). According to Neang et al. ( 2017 ), in Cambodia, around 85% of farmers are rice producers. Cambodian organic rice farmers have lower social status because OFs are perceived as old-fashioned and only used by “poor” farmers (Neang et al. 2017 ). There is not enough of a price premium for organic rice to encourage farmers to adopt this practice (Neang et al. 2017 ). In Indonesia, organic agriculture remains a very small proportion of total agricultural land (0.2 %) despite almost 30 years of civil society initiatives and government efforts to promote OF (Fritz et al. 2021 ). Sujianto et al. ( 2022 ) investigated Indonesian rice farmers’ perception, motivations, and constraints in the adoption of OF and the level of awareness as well as their belief in OF in the future. They conclude that organic rice farmers and conventional farmers have different perceptions of production, quality, health and safety, price and market, environmental concerns, and certification. In Malaysia, the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute is actively supporting organic farming (Somasundram et al. 2016 ). Although the government launched the “Go Organic” program in 2001, the program was not successful, since the adoption rate of OF has remained low (less than 0.1 percent) (Ashari et al. 2018 ). In Thailand, the organic rice sector accounts for 30.4% of total organic products (Kerdsriserm et al. 2016 ). The Thai government has promoted OF through various strategies including “a crop diversification program,” “financial incentives,” and “training programs.” However, the adoption of OF has been slow (Seerasarn et al. 2020 ). In Vietnam, rice farming remains economically viable, so the transition to a more environmentally friendly farming method has been relatively slow (van Aalst et al. 2023 ).

3.1.2 Climate-smart agriculture (CSA)

CSA is sustainable agriculture incorporating resilience concerns, while at the same time, seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Ha and Bac 2021 ). Climate-smart agriculture is a way to combine various sustainable methods to address climate challenges faced by specific farming communities. This involves the adoption of high-yield and drought-tolerant varieties, changing schedules for planting dates, and adopting the system of rice intensification (SRI), minimal tillage, and intercropping (Ha and Bac 2021 ; Duc Truong et al. 2022 ).

System of rice intensification (SRI)

SRI is the most well-known CSA including a set of rice cultivation practices which produce higher yields and increase water-use efficiency while being environmentally friendly. SRI is particularly effective in increasing rice productivity while reducing production costs, hence enhancing farmer profitability (Ly et al. 2012 ; Zaman et al. 2017 ). In rice-producing countries, SRI has been introduced and has been adopted by many farmers in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam (Doi and Mizoguchi 2013 ; Aris and Fatah 2019 ; Ha and Bac 2021 ; Arsil et al. 2022 ; Ly et al. 2012 ). SRI includes a low-cost water-saving technique called Alternative Wetting and Drying (AWD) allowing rice farmers to switch from continuous flooding of paddy fields to intermittent flooding, which has the potential to minimize methane emissions (Samoy-Pascual et al. 2021 ). Mao et al. ( 2008 ) conducted a qualitative analysis of SRI adoption in Cambodia and found that the rice yield increased when farmers changed to SRI implementation. Linquist et al. ( 2015 ) estimated that AWD can lower the global warming potential of rice production by 45–90%. Several factors influenced the decision to adopt AWD, not only socioeconomic factors, but also the institutional arrangements within the irrigation association, and the biophysical conditions relative to the distance to water sources (Samoy-Pascual et al. 2021 ). Nguyen and Hung ( 2022 ) investigated the adoption of SRI and its impact on rice yield in the upland region of central Vietnam. They found that age negatively affects SRI adoption, while family labor, number of plots, and access to credit positively affect adoption. SRI adoption was found to increase rice yield by 15.1%, and their results suggest a need for coordinated policies to support SRI implantation in mountainous areas, particularly in training farmers to use the technique. Furthermore, Mao et al. ( 2008 ) found that low soil fertility, labor shortage, lack of irrigation systems, drainage and water sources, insufficient organic fertilizer, little knowledge of diseases and pest control, and moreover, natural disasters are challenges farmers have to face and may hinder them from practicing SRI.

3.1.3 Integrated farming (IF)

IF is based on the integration of crops and livestock into production systems and maintains a high level of soil fertility and productivity. Moreover, IF seeks to replace external inputs of energy, agrochemicals, and labor with on-farm resources and natural biological cycles and processes (Purnomo et al. 2021 ). Integrated rice-livestock (IRL) farming involves several resource-saving practices and efficient farming methods that minimize the negative effects of intensive farming and preserve the environment while achieving acceptable profits and sustained levels of production (Widadie and Agustono 2015 ). Small-scale farmers will need additional technology and management to enhance their self-sufficiency and resource-use efficiency by integrating crop and livestock systems (Widadie and Agustono 2015 ). The integrated rice–duck farming (IRDF) is also included in this category because it integrates ducks feeding on insects and weeds in paddy rice fields, while at the same time, duck manure is a good fertilizer to nourish the soil. It has served as a model for the Asian sustainable agriculture movement (Suh, 2014). Bunbongkarn (2013) found the factors influencing the adoption of IF are different among farmers in lowland and upland areas. For example, three factors were significantly associated with the adoption in lowland areas, namely participation frequency of integrated farming training programs, income from vegetables, and percentage use of natural fertilizers. For upland areas, the factors are the number of years of experience in practicing IF, the amount of loans for IF, and water adequacy.

Integrated rice–fish (IRF) farming is a more sustainable alternative to rice monoculture, which could reduce pesticide use, increase nutrient recycling, and improve ecological sustainability, while also supporting economic sustainability (Berg 2002 ). IRF may increase farm income and improve farm productivity (Bosma et al. 2012 ). Moreover, IRF and IPM are complementary activities and rice–fish farmers should be an important target group for the development and application of the IPM program in the region (Berg 2002 ).

3.1.4 Good agricultural practices (GAPs) and best management practices (BMPs)

GAPs and BMPs allow sustainable farms to use agro-chemical inputs in moderation, as long as it does not jeopardize their overall sustainability. A report by Premier and Ledger ( 2006 ) highlights the Southeast Asian governments’ efforts to address a uniform standard through the development of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) scheme for Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), a standard applicable to all ASEAN member countries. GAP is the benchmark for a food safety-based plan aiming to satisfy export requirements. This program is designed to certify that GAP-labeled rice is produced according to best practices for (1) farm-level hygienic conditions, (2) management of agricultural equipment and tools, (3) management of inputs, (4) control of production and practices, and (5) control of accounting and documents (Srisopaporn et al. 2015 ).

In Indonesia, Connor et al. ( 2021 ) found that rice farmers can produce rice more sustainably, and their livelihood can be positively improved by national and regional governments’ projects to promote BMPs. In Malaysia, GAP was launched in 2013 to promote sustainable agriculture practices. A study by Terano et al. ( 2015 ) found that Malaysian paddy farmers are willing to practice sustainable agriculture based on GAPs. Since 2012, the Thailand Rice Department (TRD) has been advocating for a comprehensive set of BMPs known as the Cost-Reduction Operating Principles (CROP) aiming to increase farmers’ income by cutting down costs while preserving or increasing yields through the “Three Must Do” and “Three Must Reduce” Footnote 1 recommendations. (Stuart et al. 2018 ). Similar to Thailand’s BMPs, in Vietnam, the “One Must Do, Five Reductions” (1M5R) Footnote 2 program, designed to promote BMPs in lowland rice cultivation, was certified as a national approach by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in 2013 (Tho et al. 2021 ).

We found that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) adoption for rice cultivation was usually investigated together with GAPs/BMPs. For example, Terano et al. ( 2015 ) examined farmers’ adoption of GAP including IPM, and Dung et al. ( 2018 ) studied the factors affecting the adoption of 1M5R and IPM. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a crop protection strategy which has the potential to minimize pesticide application while increasing productivity. Pesticide spray reduction could not only benefit the environment but also reduce workdays used for spraying which could lower input costs and thereby result in higher income for farmers. Josue-Canacan ( 2022 ) investigated the constraints and motivation in IPM adoption in the Philippines. She found that increasing farm productivity and income were key motivations for farmers to attend training programs whereas lack of time and capital were major constraints. In Indonesia, although IPM was implemented in rice cultivation, Bulkis et al. ( 2020 ) found there has actually been an increase in pesticide use among rice farmers in many parts of the country. This has been linked to increasing brown planthopper attacks in various rice-producing areas in Java. Compared to the low IPM adopters, the high IPM adopters earn higher profits (Bulkis et al. 2020 ).

According to GAP/BMP standards, farmers are allowed to use agro-chemicals but only at certain times of crop growth. Therefore, farmers only need to fulfill basic farming practice requirements that are not always beneficial to the environment and do not mitigate climate change. However, they can still serve as a starting point for promoting SAPs with proper implementation and monitoring. GAPs/BMPs could gradually shift farmers toward more sustainable practices, such as reducing the use of agro-chemicals. As such, they can be viewed as a stepping stone toward a more sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture.

3.1.5 Rice straw management (RSM)

Increasing the rice production will also increase a high amount of additional rice straw residues. A common practice in SEA is burning the straw directly in the field. Farmers favor this method of managing crop residues as it offers several benefits. It helps counteract the immobilization of nitrogen induced by the residues, improves control over diseases and insect infestations, eliminates weed seeds and seedlings, and assists in eradicating rodents (Kaur et al. 2022 ). However, open-field rice straw burning has not only a negative impact on human health but also emits significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) (Romasanta et al. 2016 ), which increase GHG emissions and air pollution (Connor et al. 2020 ). In addition to destroying soil organic matter, burning also reduces beneficial soil bacteria (Mandal et al. 2004 ). Farmers may rationalize rice straw burning, despite the fact that they realize this could lead to high risks for human health and the environment. For example, farmers may think burning is the only option if the fields are difficult to access (Connor et al. 2020 ).

Keck and Hung ( 2019 ) examined in Vietnam two practices: (1) rice residue burning or (2) incorporating rice residue into the soil, and evaluated the associated costs and benefits. Their analysis revealed that while burning residues may have negative ecological consequences, it remains economically rational for farmers. Consequently, they contend that persuading farmers to shift away from this prevalent practice would require financial compensation to cover additional expenses. Connor et al. ( 2020 ) investigated several options for rice straw management (Connor et al. 2020 ), namely rice straw incorporation, rice straw burning, rice straw composting, rice straw compacting, biogas production from rice straw, urea-treated rice straw, and rice straw collection (self-propelled baler, roller baler, loose straw collection). Each of these practices has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on how well farmers handle the practices. For example, the incomplete decomposition of rice straw produces methane emissions (Wassmann et al. 2000 ).

3.2 Factors influencing the adoption of SAPs

This review identified a total of 138 variables, including eight socio-demographic characteristics, 53 farm management factors, 18 economic factors, 12 institutional factors, one social factor, and 45 behavioral factors. A detailed list of variables can be found in Table A2 of the Appendix. We only include variables that appear in at least two or more studies in this manuscript because variables that are rarely found in the literature provide less information for policy reference. However, we should include those variables with statistical significance, even if they only appear once in the analysis because such variables as behavioral/psychological factors are emerging in recent studies and require further research (Priya and Singh 2022 ). Table 3 thus summarizes the 74 key factors out of a total of 137 variables that influence adoption.

3.2.1 Socio-demographic factors

The age of farmers has been used as an essential explanatory variable in most SAP adoption studies, they indicate that young farmers are more likely to adopt new practices (Priya and Singh 2022 ). In this review, the effect of farmers’ age was examined in 21 papers. Only six studies thereof found this factor to be negatively significantly correlated with adoption, namely concerning younger farmers. Whereas two studies found elderly farmers are more likely to adopt SAP. Moreover, 13 thereof have no statistical significance. Global literature indicates a positive correlation between education level and SAP adoption (Priya and Singh 2022 ). The association between education level and adoption was assessed in 26 papers. As demonstrated in Table 3 , there was a more frequent positive correlation between adoption and education level, meaning that farmers with a higher level of education are more likely to adopt SAPs. For example, education was identified as a crucial predictor for BMP adoption in Myanmar (Wehmeyer et al. 2022 ). However, there are 10 papers indicating that this factor was not statistically significant. Farming experience was assessed in 16 papers. Half of them report positive statistical significance. Moreover, the effect of gender on adoption was examined in 13 studies, two thereof show positive whereas five thereof show negative effects on adoption. There are 11 studies assessing correlations between the household variable and adoption. Only one shows negative, and three thereof show positive statistical significance, whereas seven thereof did not show any statistical significance.

3.2.2 Farm characteristics and farming factors

It is generally assumed that farmers with larger farm sizes may be more likely to invest in technology improvements (Dung et al. 2018 ; Song et al. 2020 ). However, in this review, mixed results have been found as described: there are 25 studies examining the correlation between farm size and adoption, with results differing across studies; eight studies found a positive statistical significance, and 13 thereof had no significance. In many developing countries, land ownership is positively correlated with SAP adoption (Priya and Singh 2022 ). Land ownership was assessed in ten studies, four of which found this factor to be positively significantly correlated with adoption, and two thereof show a negative effect. The association between the number of farm laborers and adoption was examined in ten papers. However, seven of which show no statistical significance.

3.2.3 Economic factors

A total of 18 economic factors have been identified (Table A2 in Appendix). Most of the economic variables have appeared only once in our review. As mentioned in Section 3.2 , those factors that appeared less than twice have been removed, since there is limited evidence for concluding that any of those economic factors can be a major driver of SAP adoption. Thus, only six economic variables remain in Table 3 . Having access to credit is often reported as one of the major challenges in SAP adoption (Priya and Singh 2022 ). In this review, access to credit was assessed by ten studies, five of which showed significant positive effects, and only one revealed a significant negative effect on SAP adoption. Seven studies have investigated the effect of off-farm income on adoption. Only two studies show positive and one negative statistical significance. The association between farm income (per year) and adoption was investigated in five studies. The result shows this had a significantly positive effect on adoption. The higher the farm income, the more likely farmers will adopt the SAPs. Many studies recommended that governments provide incentives to farmers for the conversion to SAPs (Digal and Placencia 2018 ; Tu et al. 2018 ; Yanakittkul and Aungvaravong 2020 ).

3.2.4 Institutional factors

The influence of institutional factors, including membership of cooperatives, farmers’ associations, and seed growers’ associations, has been examined. Among these, only 6 studies reported a statistically significant positive effect on adoption, while the remaining studies found no statistical significance. Access to extension services and information has consistently been identified as an important factor in fostering adoption (Dung et al. 2018 ; Tran et al. 2019 ). Our results are in line with previous studies that access to extension impacted positively on adoption. Nine studies investigated the effect of participation in SAP training, with six of them demonstrating a positive statistical significance on adoption. Additionally, participation frequency in integrated farming training was examined by three studies, and the results show that this factor has a positive effect on adoption. Moreover, government support also emerges as a significant factor in integrated rice farming (Purnomos et al. 2021).

3.2.5 Social factors

Tran-Nam and Tiet ( 2022 ) suggested that social factors such as peer influences, and social and personal norms are critical components for the adoption of organic farming. In our review, there is only one study that examined one of the social factors, namely whether neighbors practicing SAPs influence the adoption. However, that study found there was no statistical significance; hence, it is not listed in Table 3 .

3.2.6 Behavioral/psychological factors

Out of 39 studies reviewed, seven investigated the influence of behavioral/psychological factors on SAP adoption. Although 45 variables were identified as behavioral/psychological factors, the evidence of these influencing factors on SAP adoption is very limited due to only seven papers paying attention to behavioral factors. We include behavioral/psychological variables with statistical significance, even if they appeared only once in the analysis because they are emerging in recent studies and require further research. Knowledge about SAPs was analyzed in seven studies, and knowledge about climate change was analyzed in two studies. Farmers’ attitudes, perceptions of SAPs, and farmers’ knowledge were found to have a positive statistical significance on adoption. Farmers who perceive the benefits of SAPs and have a positive attitude toward them are more likely to adopt SAPs. However, Myanmar farmers perceive GAPs as difficult to apply despite their benefits (Oo and Usami 2020 ). Support expectations from the government and institutions have impacts on rice straw management practices (Connor et al. 2020 ). Among the behavioral factors, farmers’ attitudes toward SAPs were found to be a significant predictor of adoption. The review also found that perceived behavioral control, pro-environmental motivations, risk perception, and subjective norm were important factors for SAP adoption, which is consistent with the findings by Adnan et al. ( 2017 ), Dessart et al. ( 2019 ), and Jones et al. ( 2020 ). Understanding the underlying factors that influence farmers’ decision-making and their attitudes toward SAPs is crucial for promoting sustained adoption of these practices. Therefore, more research on investigating the correlation between behavioral/psychological factors and SAP adoption needs to be encouraged.

3.3 Identification of research gaps, analysis, and limitations

There are several research gaps that warrant attention in future studies. First, while the existing literature primarily focused on the adoption of specific sustainable practices, further research is needed to investigate the synergies and trade-offs among different SAPs across all three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. This includes exploring how these practices interact and contribute to the overall sustainability level in rice cultivation. Second, there is a need for more research on the social factors that influence adoption such as social norms and networks, and which social factors interact with other factors such as economic and institutional factors to influence adoption. Third, despite the growing importance of behavioral/psychological factors in adoption studies globally, very few relevant studies have been conducted in Southeast Asian countries, and hence, there remains a significant gap in the literature. Fourth, most studies were conducted in a single country, while there is a need for comparative studies across different countries in Southeast Asia. Such studies can provide insights into the factors promoting or hindering the adoption of specifically targeted SAPs in different contexts.

In our review, we observed that a majority of the studies employed regression analysis ( n = 33), with the most common subtype being specified as logit, probit, or multiple linear regression, cox model ( n = 1), and tobit regression ( n = 1). The remaining articles ( n = 4) used structural equation modeling. Additionally, we examined whether the conceptual models used in the studies were derived from established behavioral models. Only five studies explicitly mentioned the application of theoretical behavioral models such as the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Health Belief Model (HBM), and Value-Belief-Norm (VBN). Some studies categorized farmers into different groups, such as adopter group and non-adopter groups ( n = 12), as well as subgroups based on levels of adoption, including overall adoption, partial adoption, discontinued adoption, and continued rejection ( n = 1) (Table A1 in Appendix). These classifications allowed for a more nuanced understanding of the adoption patterns among farmers.

It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this systematic review. First, the search was limited to articles published in English, which may have excluded relevant literature published in other languages. Second, while efforts were made to ensure the quality of the studies included, it is possible that some bias or error may have been introduced due to limitations in the study design or implementation of the reviewed papers. Furthermore, it is crucial to address the limitations of the vote-counting method: (1) it can oversimplify the data, potentially leading to a loss of detailed information from individual studies; (2) there is a risk of interpretative bias, as aggregating results may not accurately represent the varied contexts and methodologies of the studies; and (3) it does not account for the magnitude of effects, which is critical in understanding the impact of the studied factors. Despite these limitations in the vote-counting method, it can still provide a foundation for more in-depth analyses and future research directions.

4 Conclusion and recommendations

This systematic review focuses on investigating the increasing empirical studies about SAPs implemented in rice cultivation and factors influencing farmers’ adoption in SEA countries. We found that the adoption of organic farming is the most studied topic in SEA countries, followed by GAPs/BMPs and CSA/SRI. The results suggest that SAPs can be effective in achieving food security, improving rice productivity, reducing agro-chemical inputs, mitigating the impact of climate change, decreasing water consumption for irrigation, and promoting farmer livelihoods. However, the evidence in this review demonstrates that the adoption rate of those SAPs is low in the SEA region.

The factors influencing farmers’ adoption of SAPs in SEA countries exhibit a complex interplay of similarities and differences. To enhance the adoption of SAPs for rice cultivation in SEA, it is essential to learn from the experiences of SEA countries. Organic farming and climate-smart agriculture have been extensively studied in the region, and the government should continue to promote them. Evidence shows that subsidizing organic inputs could increase the likelihood of adoption in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Increasing awareness of farmers and enhancing the extension systems is emphasized in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Based on this systematic review, the following recommendations are made to enhance the adoption of SAPs for rice cultivation in Southeast Asia.

4.1 Knowledge exchange and collaborative research

It is important to establish knowledge exchange platforms and collaborative research initiatives that facilitate cross-border sharing of experiences, expertise, and research findings among farmers, researchers, and policymakers across SEA. There is a need to increase awareness and education among farmers and policy makers. In some cases, countries in SEA may prioritize economic development over environmental conservation, leading to a lack of investment in agri-environmental programs. Furthermore, farmers’ knowledge about climate change and sustainable agricultural practices is an important factor that can influence their decision to adopt SAPs and their ability to implement these practices effectively. Therefore, there is an urgent need to enhance farmers’ knowledge through multifaced approaches such as increasing extension services and establishing field schools and information campaigns for farmers. Encouraging farmers’ participation in SAP training and raising the frequency of participation could increase the SAP adoption rate.

Although the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices such as organic farming has been gaining popularity, there is still a lack of understanding on how behavioral/psychological factors influence farmers’ decision-making in Southeast Asian countries, particularly in relation to rice cultivation. In order to promote the adoption of SAPs and ensure the long-term sustainability of rice cultivation, it is important to understand the trade-offs that farmers face when considering these practices. Future research should focus on identifying the factors that influence farmers’ trade-offs between different agricultural practices in rice cultivation. One potential area of investigation is how both psychological factors and the effects of governmental policies and support programs such as economic incentives and non-monetary incentives influence farmers’ decision-making. To address the existing gap of neglecting the exploration of synergies and trade-offs among different SAPs, it is imperative for future research to investigate the interrelationships and potential conflicts between various SAPs in the context of rice cultivation.

4.2 Develop supportive policies

Governments in SEA should develop relevant policies that incentivize the adoption of SAPs by designing comprehensive agri-environmental programs. These programs often require significant resources to implement, and therefore, it is essential to have supportive policies to encourage farmers’ engagement. Governments can provide financial incentives to farmers who adopt SAPs. Although regulations and financial incentives may encourage initial adoption decisions, they may not be sufficient to support long-term changes in farmers’ practices (Defrancesco et al. 2018 ), especially in Southeast Asian countries where budget limitations may be a challenge. Furthermore, subsidies for any SAPs have been argued as being unsustainable, and farmers may switch back to conventional farming if financial support for SAPs were to be discontinued (Mills et al. 2017 ; Dessart et al. 2019 ).

Public policies can play a crucial role in improving farmers’ access to credit as it is an essential factor for the success of farmers and their agricultural businesses. Incentives can be particularly effective when they are designed to address the specific needs and constraints of farmers. For example, in areas where access to credit is limited, providing loans at low-interest rates can help farmers invest in new equipment and inputs necessary for SAP adoption. Our review suggests that policy interventions should focus on enhancing institutional support and economic incentives and on improving access to credit, information, and training.

Data availability

The data may be obtained from the authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code may be obtained from the authors upon reasonable request.

Three must do: (1) limiting crop planting to two times per year; (2) using high-quality seeds, and (3) recording farming production costs and income. Three must reduce: (1) seed rate applications, (2) incorrect fertilizer application practices; (3) unnecessary chemical applications.

One must: farmers must use certified seeds; five reductions: (1) seed rate, (2) nitrogen fertilizer, (3) pesticide, (4) water, and (5) post-harvest loss

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Chang, SHE., Benjamin, E.O. & Sauer, J. Factors influencing the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices for rice cultivation in Southeast Asia: a review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 44 , 27 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-024-00960-w

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Role of miRNAs interference on ovarian functions and premature ovarian failure

• Narjes Nouri 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Olduz Shareghi-Oskoue 2 , 3 ,
• Leili Aghebati-Maleki 4 ,
• Shahla Danaii 5 ,
• Javad Ahmadian Heris 6 ,
• Mohammad Sadegh Soltani-Zangbar 2 , 3 ,
• Amin Kamrani 2 , 3 &
• Mehdi Yousefi 2 , 3 , 7  

Cell Communication and Signaling volume  20 , Article number:  198 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Premature ovarian failure is a to some extent unknown and intricate problem with diverse causes and clinical manifestations. The lack of ovarian sex hormones presumably is effective in the occurrence of ovarian failure. Our progress in this field has been very little despite undertaken scientific research endeavors; scholars still are trying to understand the explanation of this dilemmatic medical condition. In contrast, the practice of clinical medicine has made meaningful strides in providing assurance to the women with premature ovarian insufficiency that their quality of life as well as long-term health can be optimized through timely intervention. Very recently Scientists have investigated the regulating effects of small RNA molecules on steroidogenesis apoptosis, ovulation, gonadal, and corpus luteum development of ovaries. In this literature review, we tried to talk over the mechanisms of miRNAs in regulating gene expression after transcription in the ovary.

Video abstract

Introduction

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-systematize RNAs that function in gene regulation accompanying a main role in cell activity, proliferation, and development [ 1 ]. The supervisory part of these small RNA molecules has currently surveyed in ovarian cells, uncovering their influence on steroidogenesis, gonadal development, ovulation, apoptosis, and corpus luteum development. Herein, we reviewed the current understanding of miRNA biogenesis, mechanism, and the act that miRNAs play in gene expression regulation following transcription, as well the current evidence of miRNAs practice in ovarian development and function [ 2 ]. Ovulation and oocyte growth happens inside the ovaries. Ovaries granulosa cells provide estrogen for ovaries itself and also endocrine signals to other organs and tissues [ 3 ]. Ovarian somatic cells work for the growth and maturation of the oocyte very near to the rise of luteinizing hormone (LH), creating a physiological reaction above ovulation. This answer involves, encouraging steroidogenesis, meiosis, follicular maturation, cumulus cells development, progesterone secretion, and luteinizing, eventually oocyte maturation [ 4 , 5 ]. It has been discovered that Dicer (ribonuclease III) knockout, which is in charge of pre-small RNA processing into functional small RNAs caused disruption in the several biological events inside the ovary including folliculogenesis, oocyte development, ovulation leading to infertility [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. siRNAs, miRNAs, and piRNAs are the principal small RNAs work for the healthy functioning of the ovary. PiRNAs mainly pay to the heathy functioning of the germ cell [ 11 ]. With regard to complicated miRNAs play during fetal development, fetal gonadal steroidogenesis includes many genes linked expression [ 12 ].

Premature ovarian failure is a intricate disease with prevalence of 1 in 250 women below the age 35 and 1 in 100 women below 40 [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. POF characteristics consist of increased estrogen level, decreased gonadotropin hormone level, lack of menstruation that pay to female infertility and medical condition prior to the menopause [ 16 ]. Additionally there is some adverse outcomes to POF including heightened probability of cardiovascular diseases, weakened sexual function and fragile bones [ 16 ]. Three categories of cells are found in Ovarian follicles: oocytes, granulosa and theca cells. Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) affect granulosa and theca cells through specific receptors, which are vital for the follicles growth and development and this normal folliculogenesis process is changed in POF [ 17 , 18 ].

Scientific investigations have identified the role of gene defects like X chromosome and autosomes abnormalities in the POF emergence, particularly structural differences and X chromosome translocation with autosomes trisomy of X, Turner syndrome, pre-mutations and mutations of X associated genes and also aberrations of autosomal associated genes have been detected in POF cases [ 18 , 19 ].

In addition to genetic and chromosomal parameters interfering in the appearance of POF, other determinants are including autoimmunity, enzymes, and environmental factors [ 18 , 20 ].

Profile of effective miRNAs in the ovary

miRNAs are expressed in the ovary function for the managing of mammalian reproduction. miRNA expression profiles have recognized in various species containing human, mouse, bovine, sheep, chicken, fish, swine and equine species [ 21 ]. miRNA expression in each organ is closely related to organ function. The expression and function of miRNAs depend on the cell types is different. The ovary contains oocytes and many somatic cell types such as granulosa cells, theca cells, and cumulus cells. In total, 58 miRNAs were mainly expressed in bovine fetal ovary compared to somatic tissue. Eight miRNAs bta-miR-10b, bta-miR-99a, bta-miR-199a-5p, bta-miR-199a-3p, bta-miR-100, bta-miR-424, bta-miR-214and bta-miR-455) expression were 10 times higher in fetal bovine ovaries than in the pool of somatic tissues. Additional examination indicated that bta-miR-10b together with bta-miR-424 were extremely amplified in oocytes germinal vesicle (GV)[ 22 ]. Analogous expression arrays proposed to the maternal inheritance of these miRNAs and might possibly stay engaged in transcription throughput zygote gene activation. Numerous miRNAs function in maturation of oocyte, like miR-7, miR-2, miR-100, miR-184, miR-9b, let-7, miR-133, miR-79, miR-252 and miR-275 indicating different miRNA expression in several stages of the egg [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. miR-133 and miR-2 are meaningfully amplified in metaphase I (MI) compared to GV stage, and both prevent cyclin B translation through abridging the 3′-UTRs of the crab cyclin B gene [ 24 ]. Several miRNAs, like the let-7 family, showed a species-independent housekeeping character in the ovary [ 26 , 27 ]. Granulosa cells express miRNA differentially during luteal and follicular stages. miR-503 expression decreased in both the luteinization and FSH-reactive follicular growth stages however increased in the following pre-ovulatory stage [ 6 ].

Xu et al. characterized the cumulus granulosa cells of human (CGCs miRNA profile), and introduced let-7 family as the profusely amplified miRNA in cumulus granulosa cells of both women with healthy cycling and women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) [ 27 ]. Comparing to the women with heathy cycling, the expression of miR-1307-3p, miR-10a-5p, miR-1273g-3p, miR-423-5p, miR-185-5p, miR-199a-3p, and miR-483-5p intensely boosted in the GC cells of women with PCOS. miR-483-5p expression overpowers both mitogen-activated protein kinase 3 (MAPK3) and Notch3 with decreasing expression in CGCs through direct bounding to MAPK3 and Notch3 mRNAs 3′-UTRs [ 27 ]. Bioinformatics and Gene regulation studies have discovered the effective sequences of pronouncedly expressed miRNAs in the ovary which contributing in the cellular events including cell proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis affecting ovaries functioning; and endocrine arrangement [ 28 ]. Moreover, recently it has been revealed that miR-143 prevents early follicle development through decreasing cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) 4 and 6 as well B1, D2,and E2 cyclins expression in early granulosa cells [ 29 ]. Additionally, miR-181a prevents the mice ovaries granulosa cells growth through direct impacting of activin IIA receptor [ 30 ]. miR-26b impedes the ataxia telangiectasia gene mutation (ATM) and in follicular ovaries granulosa cells promotes apoptosis [ 31 ]. In conclusion, miR-212 and miR-132 do some touches on ovulation and luteinization through endocrine system regulation [ 32 ].

miRNAs and ovarian function

Mirnas impact on ovarian follicle development.

Depending on the species, the oocyte can remain suspended in the primordial follicle in the prophase of meiosis 1 for months and years. Follicle growth is initiated by cyclic signals with unknown origin. At this stage, the egg creates a thick extracellular matrix that forms the zona pellucida, which leads to the relative separation of the egg from the pre-granulosa cell layer. At this stage, pre-granulosa cells are differentiated into cubic granulosa cells and begin to multiply. Follicle growth continues with successive growth of oocyte and granulosa cells. The granulosa cells fluid-filled antrum is created among the granulosa cells layers (antral follicle). At the same time that granulosa cell and oocyte growth carry on, the granulosa cells excrete follicular liquid, leading to the creation of the antral hollow in the widening follicle. This vital liquid contains of proteins and other molecules providing nutrition as well signaling molecules among dissimilar cells inside of the follicle. The antrum formation encouraged granulosa cells departure and differentiation into cumulus cells. The cumulus granulosa cell layer is the oocyte nearby layer, maintaining straight interaction with oocyte by means of trans-zonal reactions spreading from cumulus cells in order to contact the oocyte surface in the porous zona pellucida. Cumulus cells and the oocytes impact each other through autocrine elements, gap junctions, and probably with transference of tiny extracellular vesicles (exosomes/micro-vesicles), sharing molecules among the granulosa cells and the oocytes seems indispensable for the follicle’s maturation, since either oocyte or the granulosa cells could not last by their own. Since these cells are dependent to each other, the gene expression regulation in both cells is vital for emerging the healthy babies. Numerous research work has confirmed the differential expression of miRNAs in diverse sections and time points inside the ovary, including oocyte development, luteal action and follicle maturation [ 33 ].

During different phases of follicle development, diverse growth elements indicate dissimilar properties on phase-specific purposes in disparate cell categories [ 2 , 34 ]. As well miRNAs critically function in the different phases of follicle development, covering tiny follicles (1.5–3.5 mm), average follicles (4.0–5.5 mm), pre-ovulatory follicles, early corpora lutea, late corpora lutea, and corpus albicans. The utmost profusely expressed miRNAs through the different stages of development are miR-125b, miR-21, let-7a, let-7b and follicular stage over-expressed miRNAs are miR-145, miR-199a-3p and miR-31 with noticeable reduction in the follicular-luteal transformation. In the contrary, miR-21, miR-142-3p, and miR-503 are expressed at minor quantities in the follicular periods with marked rises in luteinized tissues [ 35 ]. Based on a study, miR-181a expression decreased in mice pre-antral and antral follicles relative to mature follicles similarly miR-181a inhibited activin receptor IIA expression (acvr2a) as well reduced the phosphorylation of intracellular signal transducer activin and Suppressor of Mothers against decapentaplegic homologue 2 (Smad2) in rat granulosa cells, affecting the granulosa cell proliferation and ovaries development [ 30 ]. Folliculogenesis starts with collapsing clusters of germ cells and primary follicles formation. Zhang et al. with in situ hybridization presented that pre-granulosa cells express miR-143 and miR-143 which hinders primordial follicles formation through pre-granulosa cell proliferation suppression and declining cell cycle-specific genes expression, like cyclin D2, CDK6, and CDK4 [ 29 ]. Since, across folliculogenesis, above 99% of ovarian follicles turn into atresia, miRNAs function in the follicle growth and atresia have lately been recognized. Since, disparate miRNAs expression is designed for healthy, pre-atretic and more atretic follicles [ 31 ] For this reason, P-miR-1281, Hsa-miR-936, mmu-miR-1224, hsa-miR-26b, P-miR-466g-b, hsa-miR-10b, P-miR-1275, R-miR-26b, hsa-miR-574-5p, hsa-miR-1275, hsa-miR-149*, and hsa-miR-99a a miRNAs expression increased, while hsa-let-7i, R-let-7a, hsa-miR-92a, hsa-miR-92b, P-miR-923, R-miR-739, hsa-miR-1979, hsa-miR-1826, hsa-miR-1308, P-miR-1826, and ssc-miR-184 expression decreased in follicles. Increased miR-26b expression, in follicular atresia, promotes DNA breaks and increases apoptosis in granulosa cells by direct objecting ATM and follicles trigger atresia through granulosa cells apoptosis [ 36 , 37 ]. Considering miRNAs function in the trigger of apoptosis in granulosa cell, miR-34s initiates cell apoptosis and stops growth by p53 activation as well p21 cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor [ 38 , 39 ].

Tu et al. stated in a study on pig ovarian follicles that miR-34a encouraged apoptosis in granulosa cells through targeting beta B (INHBB) gene inhibition [ 40 ]. Carletti et al. stated that luteinizing hormone (LH) caused higher expression of miR-21 in rat granulosa cells and miR-21 silencing in vitro triggered apoptosis in granulosa cells [ 41 ]. Based on very advanced research findings miRNAs play key role in the oocyte maturation and the eggs move in to the meiosis stage at the initiation of DNA synthesis and stays in the MI stage till meiosis continues. Prior to ovulation, oocytes turn in to secondary oocytes following the first meiosis and are stopped in meiosis metaphase II (MII) up to fertilization [ 7 , 25 ]. Xiao et al. stated that transgelin 2 (TAGLN2), with encoding an actin protein, contributes to ovaries growth and maturation. Furthermore, miR-133b controls oocyte development with targeting TAGLN2 at both mRNA and protein producing levels [ 25 ]. Dicer as a ribonuclease works in the synthesis and production of functional mature miRNAs in both granulosa cells and oocytes of the mice ovaries follicles [ 35 ].

Similarly, Dicer work in pre-ovulation follicles development has been clarified. Lei et al. stated that temporary inactivating of Dicer1 in follicular granulosa cells caused augmented supply in the pool of primordial follicles, hastened early recruitment of follicles and an upsurge in corrupt follicles in ovaries with temporary Dicer knockout (cKO) [ 6 ].

miR-503 is an ovary-specific miRNA, Dicer1 affects follicle maturation by knockdown of miRNA and miR-503 sequences. Inactivating Dicer1 in female rats led to atypical follicles formation and infertility [ 6 , 7 , 42 ].

Based on research studies Dicer functions importantly in follicle growth and oocyte maturation. Number of elements like members of TGF-β superfamily [ 43 , 44 ], Ligand stimulating of type I activin receptor-like kinases (ALKs) and Smads [ 45 , 46 , 47 ] are regulated by miRNAs impacting follicle development. Recently in a study has been revealed that miR-224 expression regulates TGF-β/Smad signaling, miR-224 overexpression promotes TGF-β1-mediated granulosa cell proliferation together with Smad4, whereas miR-224 suppression partly overpowers TGF-β1-mediated granulosa cell proliferation, representing critical work of miR-224 in folliculogenesis [ 48 ].

Secondary and early antral follicles miRNA content

Because of the need for isolation of small follicles out of pure populations and inadequate available procedures for ex vivo studying of folliculogenesis, a few investigations have been advocated for studying miRNAs role in tiny and developing follicles, moreover, even though there are range of molecular protocols for optional silencing of miRNA genes in early follicles development, most of the trials are intricate and often subject to fail also due to the miRNA progressive regulatory abilities, certain knockout could not abolish the preceding synthesized miRISC, thus fail to change function. Consequently, large part of ongoing research inspecting miRNA properties in folliculogenesis could be introductory in vitro inferences, clarifying some of the inconsistent data driven from the studies presenting proof of miRNA in vitro expression contribution in variable facets of granulosa cell function [ 34 , 49 , 50 , 51 ]. Majority of the ovarian investigations largely depend on the cultivated granulosa cells or immortal granulosa cell lines, even though lack of in vivo functional studies always has been felt. Findings of in vitro experimentations without specific linking to studied in vivo effects cannot either specify the endogenous in vivo position, or justify the miRNAs properties and require precise validation and confirmation in order to be adequately comprehended. Early scientists’ inferences could provide to some extent the outline for upcoming research and medical practice either with confirming or discrediting the impact of these small RNA molecules in ovarian biology. Since, it is of a highly importance to verify many facets of inter- and intracellular complex signaling, in this way, in vitro experiments can be major implements to aid deciphering the codes of cellular communications. One example can be the constant study of transforming growth factor (TGF) regulation mediated miRNAs signaling pathway. TGF-β1 superfamily Proteins function critically in follicles’ maturation, and related miRNAs regulate this complex signaling pathway. Yao et al. revealed that miR-224 expression affected 16 TGF-β1 reactive miRNAs detected in cultured granulosa cells of pre-antral murine [ 48 ]. Based on bioinformatics studies, smad4, a TGF-β1 signaling intracellular effector [ 52 ], previously recognized as a miR-224 potential target. Increased expression of miR-224 declined the protein amounts of smad4 in cultivated granulosa cells, though it indicated a slight influence on mRNAs expression [ 48 , 53 ]. Regarding GABRE as a TGF-β1 reactive gene, p53 and p65 are tumor suppressor genes regulate GABRE and miR-224 and p53 and/or p65 Knockdown leads to boosted amounts of miR-224 as well higher granulosa cell proliferation through TGF-β1 signaling [ 54 ]. A current study verified that miR-224 connects to the pentraxin 3 (ptx3) from 3'UTR head, a gene which is vital for cumulus cells growth [ 55 ]. It is assumed that after LH stimulation miR-224 expression should be reduced however the findings of these studies displayed irrelevant alterations in miR-224 level. This research claimed that TGF-β1 instigated a cut in miR-224 level, accordingly the amplitude in ptx3 and LH/hCG treated cumulus cells growth is inevitable [ 55 ]. Strangely, this finding opposes earlier findings indicating miR-224 rise responding to TGF-β1 in immature mice pre-antral granulosa cells [ 48 ].

Antral follicles miRNA content

During development of primary antral follicles, luteinizing hormone receptor (LHCGR) level in granulosa cells is elevated through estradiol and follicle-stimulating hormone. The LH rise results in ovulation; therefore, this stimulation is indispensable for opting of the main follicle(s) and for ensuing LH-reactive molecular events within granulosa cells. The LH upsurge stimulates key modifications in genes function in pre-ovulation granulosa cells, resulted in modifications in several pathways inside the cells, comprising miRNAs, transcription factors, and matrix renovation factors [ 56 , 57 ]. Alterations in miRNA expression after LH upsurge redirect general variations in gene expression [ 32 ].

Using a bioinformatics approach, Troppmann et al. analyzed the 3′UTR sequences of the LHCGR gene in search of miRNAs that might regulate its expression [ 58 , 59 , 60 ] Their analysis identified miR-513a-3p as a potential regulator of LHCGR. This miRNA was detectable in whole ovarian lysates in addition to human granulosa cells collected from large antral follicles of women undergoing assisted reproduction. Further test of the gene sequence for miR-513a-3p identified it as an X-linked gene appeared only in animals. To decide either there is a connection between the expression levels of miR-513a-3p and LHCGR, scientists measured the levels of both gene collected yields of human luteinized granulosa cells during oocyte retrieval in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) all along cultivation earlier calculated in lab environments [ 60 ].

During sample gathering, dropped LHCGR and heightened miR-513a-3p expression was observed. By time pass, levels of miR-513a-3p increased as LHCGR levels decreased. Thus, they demonstrated an inverse association between expression of LHCGR and miR-513a-3p, supporting the role of miR-513a-3p in affecting expression of LH receptor in granulosa cells [ 60 ].

miR-212 and miR-132 placed in 11700016P03Rik gene intron number 1 and thus both are contributed in the transcript of pri-mRNA. LH signaling causes cAMP-regulatory element-binding protein (creb) activation and Creb in neurons regulate miR-212 and miR-132 expression, therefore this could enlighten the reason of rise in miR-212 and miR-132 expression after LH activation [ 32 , 61 ]. Bioinformatics survey has been performed with the aim of finding miR-132/212 miRNAs from the 3′UTR of ovarian mRNA databank and 77 sequences detected and recognized indicating ctbp1 as of a particular attention. Ctbp1 (carboxy-terminal binding protein 1) act together with steroidogenic factor 1 (sf-1), thus modulate promoter activity and regulate steroidogenesis in adrenal cells [ 62 ]. A comparable character however has not been confirmed yet suggesting for miR-132/212 in affecting steroidogenesis in granulosa cell. Granulosa cells stimulation by LH/hCG indicated no change in ctbp1 mRNA amounts, though meaningfully reduced ctbp1 protein amounts suggesting an activity for miRNA following transcription [ 32 ]. Recent data in bovine oocytes proposes that miR-212 regulates the oocyte-specific FIGLA expression [ 63 ]. Therefore, further studies are needed for miR-132/212 function evaluation in the ovary. The role of miRNA-21 in carcinogenesis has been studied, it has been found that miRNA-21 expression is raised in most of tumor. In the ovary tissues miR-21 is controlled after in vivo hCG/LH activation, intensely expressed in human granulosa cells affecting granulosa cells growth and maturation [ 32 , 41 , 64 ]. Granulosa cells apoptosis happens by the omission of miR-21 through particular inhibitors; therefore miR-21 acts for granulosa cells maintenance in the follicles prior to the ovulation [ 41 ]. Notably, in vivo miR-21 action blockade through using blocking oligonucleotide into the ovarian bursa stopped ovulation [ 9 , 41 ]. Also In vivo inhibition of miR-224 can lead to impaired ovulation [ 55 ]. Similar studies demonstrated inactivation of specific associated miRNAs can imitate the Dicer-knockout phenotype in ovaries, implicating miRNAs critical functions in ovulation. Lately, miR-125b has been recognized as a downstream influencer of the androgen receptor in mouse granulosa cells [ 65 ]. Androgens upregulate miR-125b expression in granulosa cells, and blocks apoptotic pathways leading to increased granulosa cell maintenance [ 65 , 66 ].

Corpus luteum miRNA

The corpus luteum (CL) is made following ovulation and on account of the differentiation of mural granulosa cells. The corpus luteum is an endocrine gland works as hormonal provision for primary pregnancy and therefore is reduced in the lack of pregnancy, and also nearly prior to the beginning of the subsequent menstrual cycle. Lately, one research has pointed to the query of miRNA interference in luteal function, though many further research has recognized a number of significant miRNAs comprising miR-17-5p, let-7b, miR-125, miR-378, and miR-122 inside luteal tissues at disparate physiological phases (CL development, pregnancy, and regression). Through line of investigations miRNAs interfering regulatory mechanisms in the CL practice has been perceived. Since thorough lack of Dicer is lethal to embryos, therefore the scientists produced a Dicer hypomorphic mouse (dicerhypo) produces lower amounts of Dicer and lives up to adulthood. The lack of CL in Female dicer hypo mice leads to infertility, a disorder with frequent abortions in females [ 8 ].

Researchers suggest that the luteal tissue vascularization absence originates from the lack of some miRNAs (like miR-17-5p and let-7b) that affect the anti-angiogenic elements, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (timp1) miR-17-5p and let-7b replacement by straight transfection into the pregnant dicerhypo mice bursa may somewhat save the mice by enhancing vascularity and raising progesterone amounts. Though, one dose administration could not be able to keep pregnancy, the interference of other factors is possible [ 8 ]. Also, a group of researchers applied a bovine model to investigate miRNA expression alterations affecting CL function in periods of higher levels of progesterone compared to the time that CL bears regression, noticeable changes in miRNA production were perceived [ 67 ]. Since miRNA-378 cause the CL up-regulation with no recession further studies need to be conducted so as to recognize the likely character of this miRNA in CL up-keep. Based on preceding investigations, miRNA-378 acting in apoptosis through dropping the expression of interferon gamma 1 receptor (IFNGR1) gene. Consequently, Quantitative RT-PCR experimentations proved the link between higher levels of IFNGR1 mRNA and miR-378 with CL in the mid and late phases of CL upkeep, though minor levels of miR-378 in CL regression. Increased protein expression supported the possibility of post-transcriptional regulation of IFNGR1, however no change in IFNGR1 mRNA amounts within luteal regression has been seen [ 67 ]. CYP19, recognized as an estrogen-synthesizing aromatase enzyme, expressed nearly prior to ovulation and beginning of CL production. miR-378 can lead to CYP19 downregulation in porcine granulosa cells [ 68 ]. As well, a hairpin pre-miRNA inside the intron number 1 of the peroxisome proliferator-activated coactivator γ-1β (PGC-1β) gene produces miR-378 and miR-378 [ 69 ]. Although we found no reports of PGC-1β activity in ovarian cells, genetic alterations of the gene PGC-1α recognized in women with PCO [ 70 , 71 ]. Therefore, in vivo studies are essential for confirming the biological activity of this miRNA because most cases of miR-378 in ovarian function have been reported by in vitro experiments.

miRNA in the oocyte

With oocyte growth in the follicle, maternal mRNA and proteins are collected, relied on even fertilization and the embryonic genome activation. miRNA biogenesis pathway involved genes expression status in the mammalian oocytes and cleavage time embryos was examined through PREGER databank [ 72 , 73 ]. Revealed by research, Drosha, DGCR8 and Dicer mRNA levels, as vital compartments of the miRNA pathway, upsurge throughout mammalian oocyte development. Most of oocytes and early embryos expressing miRNAs biogenesis pathways are unresponsive to α-amanitin, an RNA polymerase enzyme, leads to chiefly raised miRNAs expression in cleavage-time embryos [ 73 ]. Owing to the finding of distinctive alterations in miRNA biogenesis in the oocyte, our comprehension of oocyte biology has been impacted, herein we tried to discuss miRNA expression alterations and their significance in the human oocyte understanding. Typically, mouse oocytes, are studied for oocyte miRNA research, which above full-length Dicer expression, as well generates a particular oocyte figure that is not indicated in other species [ 74 ]. The mice and rats dicer gene consists of an MT-C retrotransposon promoter inside intron 6, which resulted in the yield of a short amino-terminal isoform of dicero (Dicero), specifically essential in the endogenous siRNA production for mouse oocyte function [ 74 ]. Therefore, it is predicted that the bulk of RNA species created in the mouse oocyte are consist of siRNAs and miRNAs. Dicer/AGO2 pathway produce double-stranded siRNAs, however dissimilar to miRNAs, siRNAs are not relied on DGCR8. Dicer Omission bases infertility in females and atypical metaphase spindles in mouse oocyte development, like parent AGO2-zp3-cKO and Dicer-zp3-cKO mice, therefore approving preceding research [ 7 , 74 , 75 ]. Conversely, DGCR8-zp3-cKO oocytes develop and fertilize with no obvious aberrations [ 76 ]. These preceding investigations confirmed the necessity of ago2 and dicer signaling communications for mouse oocyte development but not dgcr8. The origin of metaphase failure through maturing is unidentified, it might because of particular cytoskeletal regulation and cell cycle progression interfered genes directing endogenous siRNAs [ 42 , 74 , 77 ]. Majority of oocyte-related miRNA investigations have been conducted in rodent species expressing a shortened form of dicer with no expression in other species. Consequently, it is worth to inspect the siRNA and miRNAs corresponding functions in further species. Line of research led on bovine oocytes and as well other species, showing that miRNAs perform practically in oocytes developments [ 78 , 79 ]. Similar investigation studied the function of miR-212 in the FIGLA regulation. FIGLA is an oocyte-related transcription factor that is necessary for follicle maturation and the synchronized expression of the zona pellucida proteins, ZP2, ZP3, and ZP1 [ 80 ]. According to number of research investigating the influence of miRNAs in the FIGLA expression regulation, studying the possible connection spots in the 3′UTR of bovine FIGLA mRNA by means of MicroInspecto software. This examination recognized miR-212 as a controller of FIGLA expression in bovine germinal cells. miR-212 and miR-132 expressions in tandem are co-regulated in granulosa cells after LH-rise in follicles [ 32 ].

Examining the expression outline of miR-212 of bovine tissues presented that it is pronouncedly expressed in the oocytes germinal vesicle with an inclination to escalation in the cleavage time of the embryo till the eight-cell stage, when the cow embryo experiences this transmission from the mother zygotic gene regulation. This expression outline is in consistence with other miRNAs expected to regulate transcript throughput in maternal-zygote transmission, consisting Zebrafish miR-430 [ 78 ], Xenopus miR-427[ 79 ], and mouse miR-290 [ 81 ]. The miR-212 expression in embryo and oocyte is counter-correlated with the expression of FIGLA, representing a possible miR-212 negative controlling function [ 63 ]. By means of FIGLA in miR-212 transfected cell culture models it has been displayed that miR-212 connects to the FIGLA mRNA 3′UTR head. miR-212 transfection simulates declining in FIGLA protein expression in the stage of eight-cells bovine embryos, representing the function of miR-212 in the control of FIGLA transcription factor [ 63 ]. Comparable research has merged miR-181a and miR-196a in the regulation of maternal oocyte related NPM2 and NOBOX genes [ 82 , 83 ].

Up to the present time, some investigations have been accomplished concerning miRNA expression changes in human oocytes. In research, human MII oocytes genes expression was studied compared to human blastocysts [ 84 ]. By means of "Genome Survey Microarray", oocytes biosynthetic genes miRNA amounts and blastocysts were comparatively examined. Candidate genes narrow down was made, together with "housekeeping" genes as well human embryonic stem cells genes identified. A category of miRNAs has been derived from the nonhuman primate PREGER gene expression databank [ 73 ]. Similarly, non-human mammals, Drosha and Dicer gene yields were identified in human oocytes as well blastocysts. It has been found that, three nucleotides repeat gene 6B (TNRC6B), is a piece of the RISC complex, has been mainly expressed in oocytes. Exportin 5 (XPO5), responsible for transferring pre-miRNAs to the cytoplasm, was pronouncedly expressed in the blastocyst. Dicer, Drosha, Gem (nuclear organelle)-associated protein 5 (GEMIN5), and TNRC6B elevation in the oocyte have been comparable to what identified between mouse oocytes and blastocysts [ 72 , 73 , 85 ]. MOV10 mRNA, involved in human oocytes RISC complex [ 86 ] was untraceable in non-human primates however markedly increased in the human blastocyst [ 84 ]. PIWIL1 miRNA, part of the RISC assembly, affects germinal stem cell upkeep in Drosophila, nevertheless has not been discovered neither in human samples nor non-human primates [ 73 , 84 ].

miRNAs and urogenital disorders

Lately several groups of researchers have stated that disparate expression and disarray of miRNAs are attributed to ovarian diseases, like POF, PCOS and ovarian cancer [ 87 , 88 ].

miRNAs and POF

POF is ovary related disorder caused by various factors and is mostly reported as the incidence of amenorrhea, hypergonadotropism and hypoestrogenism in women below the age of 40 [ 89 ]. Investigations conducted on ovarian tissue and plasma recognized interfered miRNAs in the creation of POF condition. Dong et al. found that the miR-22-3p plasma level was declined in Han Chinese patients POF group in comparison to the control group. It was identified that miR-22-3p expression was associated with decreased ovarian maintenance [ 90 ]. Based on preceding research, different miRNAs in plasma of women with POF and women with healthy cycling are presented, with different roles in affecting signaling pathways [ 87 ]. In addition, Kuang et al. recognized 63 increased and 20 decreased miRNAs in ovarian biopsies of 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD)-prompted mice POF mockups in comparison to the biopsies of healthy mice [ 16 ]. Advanced studies proved that the miR-29a and miR-144 downregulation in POF samples and their potential function in prostaglandin synthesis regulation through directing PLA2G4A, however increased expression in variety of miRNAs, including, miR-151, miR-672, miR-190 and miR-27b, affects the hormonal stimulating and apoptosis [ 16 ]. Recently studies specify that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) miRNA are connected with vulnerability degree of disease. In A study regarding miRNA polymorphism the connection between joint genotypes and haplotypes of miR-146aC > G, miR-196a2T > C, and miR-499A > G in Korean women with POF has been recognized; based on their findings the miR-146a and miR-196a2 transcriptional aberration persuaded by SNPs miRNA with potential function in POF development [ 91 ]. Effective miRs in immunopathology of POF are inclouding.

Since both TRERNA1 and miR-23a expression are varied in POF, probably TRERNA1 and miR-23a cooperatively act to control granulosa cell apoptosis [ 92 ]. Since, Granulosa cells are in charge of producing steroids and LH receptors to protect and ensure the ovaries healthy work, and profuse granulosa cell apoptosis pay to the creation of POF through decreased ovarian healthy function [ 93 ]. Overexpression of TRERNA1 can lead to decreased apoptosis rate in KGN cells. Thus, TRERNA1 probably pay to POF by stopping apoptosis in granulosa cells, and increasing its expression can be effective in the treatment of POF. Irregular and differential expression of miRNAs could be considered as possible biosignals for variety of diseases [ 94 ]. For instance, miR-21 overpowers the ovaries granulosa cells proliferation through directing SNHG7 in early ovarian insufficiency coupled with PCO (polycystic ovary syndrome) [ 94 ]. Also miR-23a can encourage apoptosis in granulosa cells, representing its contribution in POF [ 95 ]. miR-23a overexpression inhibits the SIRT1 expression, decline in the SIRT1 expression, hinders the p-ERK1/2 expression which leads to rise in apoptosis of GCs, TRERNA1 can suppress the miR-23a which is promoting KGN cell apoptosis [ 96 , 97 ].

miR-146b-5p

Based on conducted research, miR-146b-5p indicate an encouraging influence on early ovarian failure in mice. miR-146b-5p cooperates with lncRNA DLEU1, a significant key in ovarian cancer development, consequently heightened DLEU1 expression and lowered miR-146b-5p expression in POF. DLEU1 cooperates with MiR-146b-5p which presented in both KGN cells nuclei as well cytoplasm samples. Though, DLEU1 encouraged cell apoptosis and abridged the miR-146b-5p preventive properties on cell apoptosis [ 98 ]. Granulosa cells (GCs) as follicular somatic cells are in charge for excreting steroid derivatives and supplementing vital nutrients for follicles generation [ 93 , 99 ]. Accordingly, GC unhealthy function and risen apoptosis results in POF progression. Based on research, DLEU1 pronouncedly expressed in POF patients, caused GC apoptosis. Since, DLEU1 heightened expression in POF can support syndrome development through intensifying cell apoptosis, therefore DLEU1 suppression could probably benefit in POF treatment. MiR-146b-5p has been stated to contribute in mouse POF through overpowering γH2A phosphorylation and disabling Dab2ip/Ask1/ p38-Mapk pathway [ 100 ]. miR-146b-5p overexpression causes reduction in G cells apoptosis. Thus, miR-146b-5p performs a protecting role in POF through stopping cell apoptosis therefore might control the miR-146b-5p expression, and might be worked in the clinic for POF treatment. DLEU1 can cooperate with miR-146b-5p, also DLEU1 is detectable in GCs nucleus and cytoplasm samples and more remarkably, DLEU1 and miR-146b-5p are not affected by the expression of each other, however DLEU1 repressed the miR-146b-5p apoptotic effect. The lncRNAs are responsible for sponging miRNAs to stop their work nevertheless not affect expression status, DLEU1 with sponging miR-146b-5p could promote apoptosis in GCs, in so doing encouraging POF [ 98 ].

miR-144-5p expression allegedly has been utilized as a predictive bio-signal for many cancers including breast esophagus [ 101 ], gastric [ 102 ]. Contrary to mentioned findings, one research stated that decrease in expression of miR-144-3p and miR-144-5p recurrently detected in bladder cancer cells and silencing miR-144-5p stopped tumor cell growth through encouraging cell cycle arrest [ 103 ]. These miRNAs function intricately in a range of biological practices so as to uphold body [ 104 ]. Likewise, exosome miR-144-5p in BMSCs is capable to object PTEN, CTX-damaged GCs apoptosis involved protein. PTEN adversely influences the PI3K/AKT signaling inducing apoptosis or cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase [ 105 ] granulosa cells apoptosis ultimately resulted in premature ovarian failure (POF) then infertility.

miR-15a Overexpression results in growth prevention of and aging mouse ovary granulosa cells [ 106 ]. In a research on mice POI, it was discovered that miR-15b heightened expression causes POI and endogenous α-Klotho mRNA suppression together with instigating the function of lower hand transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1)/SMAD pathway [ 107 ]. As well, in cultivated mice granulosa cells treated with elevating dosages of cisplatin, it has been revealed that miR-125a-5p triggered granulosa cells apoptosis through dropping signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3). Since STAT3 is worked in several reproductive purposes through transducing signs responding to growth factors and cytokines, this discovery delivers different visions toward POI comprehension [ 108 ].

Interleukin (IL)-1 receptor-attributed kinase (IRAK1) and tumor necrosis receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6), are two important scaffold/ adaptor/proteins in the IL-1 and Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathway, identified as positive regulators for nuclear factor (NF)-κB function, expressed by IκBα and IRAK1 and TRAF6 phosphorylation are assumed to be directed by miR-146a as a part of the NF-κB-prompted negative feedback [ 109 , 110 ]. NF-κB has been confirmed to be engaged in the other biological processes [ 111 ], immune reactions, apoptosis and inflammation. The caspase signaling cascade is an imperative pathway for apoptosis, and caspase-8 and caspase-9 activation leads to cell apoptosis, with cleaving the cell apoptosis executor caspase-3 to degrades the substrate poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) [ 112 ]. Consequently, it was presumed that miR-146a pays to the ovarian granulosa cells apoptosis through caspase cascade by directly targeting IRAK1 and TRAF6 [ 113 ] (Fig.  1 and Table 1 ).

According to the figure, several miRs induce apoptosis in granulosa cells by targeting different molecules and signaling pathways. miR-146a activates apoptosis by targeting TRAF 6. Downstream signaling of TRAF6 leads to the production of anti-apoptotic molecules such as survivin, XIAP, and cIAPs which are inhibitors of caspase 3 and 7. In another way, miR-146b can induce apoptosis by inhibiting DIAB2 expression. Mir23a by targeting SIRT1 leads to the activation of caspase 3 and apoptosis. miR-144 by targeting PTEN leads to the activation of MDM2 and FOXO, and apoptosis occurs. miR-15 leads to apoptosis by inhibiting SMAD4

Conclusions

POF is a prevalent medical condition accompanying intricate molecular mechanisms. Herein we tried to review miRNAs as a group of critical regulatory elements after transcription in the development of POF. With regard to ability of an individual single miRNA in repressing expression of numerous genes, and probability of a single gene expression adjustment by several miRNAs, copious miRNAs are expressed in GC interfere in the maintenance and healthy practice of ovarian follicles, including ovulation, atresia, and ovarian steroidogenesis through directing certain molecules and manipulating variety of signaling pathways, like TGFB. Furthermore, miRNAs interfere decisively in female reproductive diseases, like POF, GCT, and PCOS, by influencing GC.

Prospects and clinical applications of miRNAs in the treatment of premature ovarian failure

Due to the advances made in genomic and proteomic sciences, more comprehensive information about more miRNAs and their role in human health, diseases and also treatment has been provided. miRNAs have always had important effects in important cellular activities including transcription, gene translation and epigenetics. In this article, we have presented several reports on the effect of microRNAs on the important pathological processes of premature ovarian failure. Knowing the role of each of these miRNAs in the ovary can help in the early diagnosis of the disease and choosing the best treatment for the patient. As a result, conducting other specific researches on the types of effective miRNAs and their mechanism of action in the ovary, can help in timely diagnosis and treatment of the ovarian disease including premature ovarian failure.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Interleukins

Natural killer cells

• Premature ovarian failure

Small mothers against decapentaplegic

Transforming growth factor-beta

Phosphatase and tensin homolog

Polycystic ovary syndrome

Tumor necrosis factor receptor associated factor 6

Interleukin-1 receptor associated kinase 1

Small interfering RNA

Assisted reproductive technologies

Activin receptor-like kinases

Luteinizing hormone receptor

Luteinizing hormone

Cumulus granulosa cells

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by Student Research Committee, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran [Grant No. 70649].

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Student Research Committee, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

Narjes Nouri

Stem Cell Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

Narjes Nouri, Olduz Shareghi-Oskoue, Mohammad Sadegh Soltani-Zangbar, Amin Kamrani & Mehdi Yousefi

Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, PO Box: 516-6615573, Tabriz, Iran

Immunology Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, PO Box: 516-6615573, Tabriz, Iran

Leili Aghebati-Maleki

Gynecology Department, Eastern Azerbaijan ACECR ART Center, Eastern Azerbaijan Branch of ACECR, Tabriz, Iran

Shahla Danaii

Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Pediatric Hospital, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

Javad Ahmadian Heris

Research Center for Integrative Medicine in Aging, Aging Research Institute, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

Mehdi Yousefi

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MY contributed to the conception and design of the study. NN contributed to write the manuscript and references gathering, LA-M and SD contributed to references gathering. NN and OS-O contributed to figure designing. AK contributed to table designing. MSS-Z and JAH contributed to the final editing of the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Nouri, N., Shareghi-Oskoue, O., Aghebati-Maleki, L. et al. Role of miRNAs interference on ovarian functions and premature ovarian failure. Cell Commun Signal 20 , 198 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12964-022-00992-3

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Received : 17 August 2022

Accepted : 22 October 2022

Published : 23 December 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12964-022-00992-3

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