Table 2.

Coding Categories and Descriptions

Indicator	Sub-Categories	Description
Methodology	Narrative	Review does not provide information regarding search procedures.
	Systematic	Review completely or partially identifies procedures used to identify studies.
	Meta-analysis	Systematic reviews described as meta-analyses or that statistically analyzed results.
Area of Focus	Intervention	Review concerned treatment or intervention in terms of their outcomes.
	Feature	Review primarily assessed features or characteristics of studies (e.g. fidelity).
	Other	Review addressed conceptual, historical, or other concerns.
Search Procedures	Database	Indicated use of a database search and number of databases used. Also included reports of search terms including: provided (specific terms); field codes (i.e., terms searched in a specific component of the article); and Boolean operators (i.e., explicit syntax used in the search).
	Hand Search	Indicated a manual search of publications. Additional codes noted whether authors specified the publications searched and whether search of encompassed a single journal or the journal that published the review exclusively.
	Ancestral	Authors reported searching reference lists or literature reviews for articles.
	Consultation	Authors consulted researchers in the field or editors to identify eligible articles.
Selection Criteria	Temporal	Article identified date of occurrence (i.e., when the search was conducted) and date range (i.e., years in which articles were eligible for inclusion).
	Language	Indication of explicit language restriction (i.e., whether language served as basis of exclusion), nonexplicit restriction (i.e., exclusive search of English-language publications) and English-only (i.e., explicit restriction of inclusion to English publications).
	Operational Criteria	Indicated if review concerned specific age groups, disabilities, behaviors, or interventions. Not applicable for reviews unrelated to these factors. If applicable, noted whether authors provided operational definitions for each.
	Sources Reviewed	Provides indication of documents explicitly subjected to analysis. Included peer-reviewed journals, dissertations, book chapters, and other (e.g., conference proceedings). Also indicates whether authors exclusively included peer-reviewed sources or articles exclusive to a single journal.
	Designs	Identified designs of studies included in review. Includes group, qualitative, single-case, not specified, and other (e.g., conference proposals).
	Quality	Authors evaluated and/or excluded studies based on formal assessment (i.e., explicitly outlined or cited quality indicators). Categories for specific indicators (e.g., author created, What Works Clearinghouse) developed following analysis of reported citations.
	Analysis	Refers to procedures used to evaluate effects of interventions; visual analysis (i.e., explicit procedures used to interpret or categorize data), author report (i.e., presents claims provided by study authors or does not specify means of analysis), and effect size. Categories for specific effect indices developed following analysis.