Table 1 Description of communities of practice research synthesis project
From: Evolution of Wenger's concept of community of practice
Objectives: | • To examine how CoPs were defined and used in the business and health sectors. |
|---|---|
• To evaluate the evidence of CoPs in the health sector. | |
Search strategy: | • We searched the literature published between 1991 and 2005. |
• Database search: Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, HealthSTAR, ERIC, ECONLIT, AMED, and ProQuest. | |
• Hand-searched Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, Medical Education, and Harvard Business Review. | |
Eligibility criteria | • Primary studies that involved groups, teams, or learning environments that were either labelled as CoPs or were developed using CoP and/or other related concepts (e.g., situated learning, legitimate peripheral learning) as the guiding framework. |
Synthesis approach: | • Meta-narrative approach |
   ○ The research synthesis focused on: | |
â–ª The authors' interpretations of the CoP concept. | |
â–ª The key characteristics of CoP groups. | |
â–ª The common elements of CoP groups. | |
• Meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness of CoPs in the health sector. | |
Search results: | • 1421 articles were obtained; of those, we found 13 primary studies from the health sector and 18 from the business sector. |
Key findings: | • The structure of CoP groups varied greatly, ranging from voluntary informal networks to work-supported formal education sessions, and from apprentice training to multidisciplinary, multi-site project teams. |
• Four characteristics were identified from CoP groups: | |
   ○ CoP members interact with each other in formal and informal settings. | |
   ○ CoP members share knowledge with each other. | |
   ○ CoP members collaborate with each other to create new knowledge. | |
   ○ CoP groups foster the development of a shared-identity among members. | |
• These characteristics, however, were not consistently present in all CoPs. | |
• There was a lack of clarity in the responsibilities of CoP facilitators and how power dynamics should be handled within a CoP group. | |
• We were unable to identify any studies that used experimental, quasi-experimental, or observational designs, and evaluated CoPs for improving health professional performance, health care organizational performance, professional mentoring, and patient outcome. Therefore, it was not possible to conduct a meta-analysis. |