Guidelines for the Use of Literature Reviews in Master’s Theses in Public Health

Literature reviews constitute a core competence for public health professionals. Many public health graduate students thus choose to conduct a literature review for their thesis, but may face challenges delivering a high-quality systematic review due to time and resource constraints. Informed by the principle of constructive alignment, this article thus provides guidelines for conducting a systematized literature review on quantitative studies within the scope of a master’s thesis in public health, incorporating key elements of a systematic review (i.e., transparency, reproducibility) in a pedagogical context. Based on the authors’ research and supervision experience with the methodology at Stockholm University, this description of best practice presents 12 steps for successfully completing a quantitative systematized literature review, including formulating research questions, conducting searches, extracting and synthesizing findings, and thesis writing, while outlining the tasks of students, supervisors, and examiners in alignment with different learning outcomes. This guide can be used by postgraduate educators to effectively enhance the skills of future public health professionals.