Hello,
I am currently working on a systematic review and targeting ( Automation in construction) Journal. I reviewed about 20 papers of their systematic review published papers in the last two years. I found that the average number of papers used in the study is about 100. Moreover, the search engines are usually (Scopus and Web of Science). My question is, my identified articles are only 24 (from Scopus only). Would that be enough ?? my topic is a specific topic related to BIM, which means the papers are expected to be lower than average.
Kindly give me some advice or recommendations
Thanks in advance
I agree Worku. Number is not important for qualitative assessment. For quantitative meta-analysis, the rule of thumb is 10 studies for all analyses.
A systematic review per se does not require a minimal number of paper but rather covers a topic to assess all possible sources of references to answer a specific question. Knowing that on a specific topic there are few studies is per se an interesting information for researchers in this specific field (even if no meta-analysis can be done). For meta-analysis you would have an issue for sample size. However, in the end it is better be sure that studies are similar enough to be pooled in the same model (you don't want to compare pear and apples). Here you have an important difference between qualitative and quantitative assessment.
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