Reviews help scholars consolidate evidence and guide their educational practice. However, few papers describe how to effectively publish review papers. We completed a scoping review to develop a set of quality indicators that will assist junior authors to publish reviews and integrative scholarship.

MEDLINE, Embase, ERIC, and Google Scholar were searched for English language articles published between 2012 and January 2016 using the terms review, medical education, how to publish, and emergency medicine. Titles and abstracts were reviewed by two authors and included if they focused on how to publish a review or outlined reporting guidelines of reviews. The articles were reviewed in parallel for calibration, and disagreements were resolved through a consensus.

A full text review of the 25 articles was conducted, and 196 recommendations were extracted from 13 articles. A hand search of the included articles’ reference lists and expert recommendation found an additional eight articles. These recommendations were thematically analysed into a list of seven themes and 32 items. Additionally, seven evaluation tools and reporting guidelines were found to guide researchers in optimizing their reviews for publication.

In emergency medicine education, review articles can help synthesize educational research so that educators can engage in evidence-based scholarly teaching. We hope that this work will act as an introduction to those interested in engaging in integrative scholarship by providing them with a guide to key quality markers and important checklists for improving their research.

Education scholarship can be conducted using a variety of methods, from quantitative experiments to qualitative studies. Qualitative methods are less commonly used in emergency medicine (EM) education research but are well-suited to explore complex educational problems and generate hypotheses. We aimed to review the literature to provide resources to guide educators who wish to conduct qualitative research in EM education.

We conducted a scoping review to outline: 1) a list of journals that regularly publish qualitative educational papers; 2) an aggregate set of quality markers for qualitative educational research and scholarship; and 3) a list of quality checklists for qualitative educational research and scholarship.

We found nine journals that have published more than one qualitative educational research paper in EM. From the literature, we identified 39 quality markers that were grouped into 10 themes: Initial Grounding Work (preparation, background); Goals, Problem Statement, or Question; Methods (general considerations); Sampling Techniques; Data Collection Techniques; Data Interpretation and Theory Generation; Measures to Optimize Rigour and Trustworthiness; Relevance to the Field; Evidence of Reflective Practice; Dissemination and Reporting. Lastly, five quality checklists were found for guiding educators in reporting their qualitative work.

Many problems that EM educators face are well-suited to exploration using qualitative methods. The results of our scoping review provide publication venues, quality indicators, and checklists that may be useful to EM educators embarking on qualitative projects.

Quantitative research is one of the many research methods used to help educators advance their understanding of questions in medical education. However, little research has been done on how to succeed in publishing in this area.

We conducted a scoping review to identify key recommendations and reporting guidelines for quantitative educational research and scholarship.

Medline, ERIC, and Google Scholar were searched for English-language articles published between 2006 and January 2016 using the search terms, “research design,” “quantitative,” “quantitative methods,” and “medical education.” A hand search was completed for additional references during the full-text review. Titles/abstracts were reviewed by two authors (BT, PC) and included if they focused on quantitative research in medical education and outlined reporting guidelines, or provided recommendations on conducting quantitative research. One hundred articles were reviewed in parallel with the first 30 used for calibration and the subsequent 70 to calculate Cohen’s kappa coefficient. Two reviewers (BT, PC) conducted a full text review and extracted recommendations and reporting guidelines. A simple thematic analysis summarized the extracted recommendations.

Sixty-one articles were reviewed in full, and 157 recommendations were extracted. The thematic analysis identified 86 items, 14 categories, and 3 themes. Fourteen quality evaluation tools and reporting guidelines were found.

This paper provides guidance for junior researchers in the form of key quality markers and reporting guidelines. We hope that quantitative researchers in medical education will be informed by the results and that further work will be done to refine the list of recommendations.