Meta-Analysis

Oyunbold Oyunsuren
103131024

Outline
I.

What is meta-analysis?

II. Advantages and disadvantages of meta-analysis

III. How to conduct meta-analysis?
IV. Some issues in meta-analysis
V.

Writing Meta-Analyize report

What is MetaAnalysis?
Some Basics of Meta-analysis

What is MetaAnalysis?
Types of Meta-Analysis

Advantages and disadvantages of metaanalysis

Advantages
Cheaper to conduct
research
Can provide strong
evidence for hypothesis
Can gain data from
different types of studies
An excellent way of
reducing the complexity
and breadth of research
This method can be
replicated by others
Can determining future
research
Easily finding patterns
across studies
The study gathered
through this method are
objective and any

Disadvantages
Potential for publication
bias and skewed data
One poorly conducted
study can place the result of
the entire meta-analysis at
risk
This method is limited to
reviewing only for
quantitative researchers.
It is quite difficult to find
relevant data in this field of
study.
Requires advanced
statistical techniques
Not all studies provide
adequate data for inclusion
and analysis

How to conduct meta-analysis?

There are several stages to do the meta-analysis:
1.

Define the meta-analytic research question

2.

Locate the relevant literature

3.

Calculate effect sizes and code moderating variables

4.

Analyze the meta-analytic database

5.

Report and interpret the results

How to conduct meta-analysis?

1.

Define the meta-analytic research question

Purpose of this step:

Determine what hypotheses your meta-analysis will test
Estimate the strength of an effect
Determine moderators of an effect
Determine what types of studies you will include in your
analysis

How to conduct meta-analysis?

1.

Define the meta-analytic research question

Goals for this step:

Hypotheses should have theoretical value
Should have specific inclusion criteria to make locating
studies easier
Included studies should be appropriate for the hypotheses
being tested

How to conduct meta-analysis?

2.

Locate the relevant literature

Purpose of this step:

Obtain the population of studies related to your research
hypotheses
Modify the hypotheses and inclusion criteria of your analysis to
better fit the literature

Goals for this step:

Should find every study that has investigated the effect of interest
Make your hypotheses better address the questions that
researchers have investigated in primary research

How to conduct meta-analysis?

3.

Calculate effect sizes and code moderating

variables

Purpose of this step:

Determine what effects you will examine in each study
Compute a specific estimate of the size of each effect
Determine the value of your moderating variables for each
effect

Goal of this step:

Accurately determine effect size estimates and moderator codes
Should try to have estimates for every effect

How to conduct meta-analysis?

4.

Analyze the meta-analytic database

Purpose of this step:

Perform descriptive analyses to determine the overall
strength and consistency of the effect
Perform moderator analyses to determine if study
characteristics influence the effect size

Goal for this step:

Analyses should be valid
Analyses should directly answer the research questions

How to conduct meta-analysis?

5.

Report and interpret the results

Purpose of this step:

Summarize the results of your analyses
Relate your analyses to the research questions
Draw conclusions based on your analyses

How to conduct meta-analysis?

5.

Report and interpret the results

Goals for this step:

Verbally describe the implications of your analyses
Report any limitations you see regarding your analysis
Violation of assumptions
Power
Representativeness
Suggest areas of future research

Some issues in Meta-Analysis

Writing Meta-Analytic Report

The easiest way to write up a Meta-analysis is to take advantage of this
parallel structure by using the same sections found in primary research. When
writing a quantitative literature review you should therefore include sections:
IntroductionMethodsResultsDiscussion-

Writing Meta-Analytic Report

Introduction-

Writing Meta-Analytic Report

Method-

To describe how you collected your studies and how you obtained quantitative codes
from them
To describe how you coded moderator variables
To describe how you calculated your effect sizes
You should also describe any unusual issues you were forced to deal with during
searching, coding, or calculating of your effect sizes

Writing Meta-Analytic Report

Result-

To describe distribution of your effect sizes

To describe each categorical moderator you want to test
To describe each continues variable you want to test
To describe the ability of a statistical model to explain your distribution of effect sizes

Writing Meta-Analytic Report

Discussion-

Web Sources & Book

DeCoster, J. (2004) , Meta-analysis Notes, Northwestern University
http://www.dissertation-help.co.uk/dissertation_guide/Meta-analysis-ad
vantages-disadvantages.htm
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/000711010X502733/abstract
http://journals.lww.com/jhypertension/Abstract/1996/09002/Advantages
_and_disadvantages_of_the_meta_analysis.4.aspx
http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/43144/pros-and-cons-of-meta
-analyses
https://explorable.com/meta-analysis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8934372
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis

Thank you
for your
attention!