At the last SURE webinar of this year, which was held via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday, 29 November, Professor Shalini Singh from the Faculty of Management Sciences shared her in-depth understanding and experiences of how the focus of traditional literature reviews can shift through Integrative Reviews.

Prof Singh is an Associate Professor and lectures in the Department of Operations and Quality Management at the Durban University of Technology. She studied Chemistry, Quality and Nanotechnology at the Durban University of Technology, Oxford University, and the University of Valladolid. Prof Singh has also lectured at universities in Switzerland, Germany, and India. She has supervised a host of Masters and Doctoral students and has publications in Air pollution, Quality, Nanotechnology and Research Methodology.

During her presentation, Prof Singh shared fundamental theoretical principles and practical information emphasizing how Integrative Reviews require superior critique and synthesis in order to culminate a robust literature.  When engaging with theoretical and/or experimental work, she further explained how critical it is to maintain Quality Assurance through the principles of Validity, and Quality Control through the principles of Reliability, which are the hallmarks of Integrative Reviews.

The question and answer session supported the need for additional workshops to train DUT researchers/academics and for this methodology to be progressively scaffolded into the undergraduate curriculum from Year 1.  Given the encouraging feedback from colleagues, additional academic and professional development workshops on Integrative Reviews are to follow in 2023.

Pictured: Prof Shalini Singh (Guest Speaker) presented an informative Session on Integrative Reviews, which was moderated by Dr Anisa Vahed (SURE: Project Leader and Manager).

Dr Anisa Vahed