Realist review

How it is used

Focus on relationships between context, mechanisms and outcomes.

Example sentences

1. The realist review asked why mentoring helped novice teachers in some schools but not others.

   The question concerns how context changes an intervention's effects.

2. Our realist review refined the explanation as evidence from new settings emerged.

   Evidence is used to refine an explanatory account.

Common collocations

• conduct a realist review
• realist review approach

Related terms

• theoretical frameworkThe theory or set of connected theories that a study uses to explain its problem, shape its questions and interpret its findings.
• systematic reviewA review that uses a clear, pre-planned and repeatable method to find, select and evaluate all relevant studies on a specific question.

More terms: Literature Review

• literature review
• literature
• research gap
• seminal
• synthesize
• draw on
• build on
• primary source
• secondary source
• database
• meta-analysis
• body of literature