What Is A Meta-Analysis In Research?

It is a fact that when we are going to write any kind of the research paper, then we will have to evaluate the results of the previous research in order to derive the conclusion about our own research. Therefore, a systematic method that is used to assess the results of the previous research in order to derive the conclusions of the present research in a quantitative and formal way is known as meta-analysis. This meta-analysis is the most important way to provide a control shape to the random data regarding your research topic.

This meta-analysis is devised to combine the results of the various scientific studies by conducting the statistical analysis. The process of meta-analysis consists of various steps. First of all, you will have to formulate the research question. Secondly, you should conduct an effective research to select and conduct the data related to that topic. Thirdly, you should take a review of all the allowed variables in this regard. Fourthly, you should select an appropriate model for the meta-analysis. There are some advantages as well as some disadvantages of the meta-analysis.

Advantages of the meta-analysis in research

The importance of the meta-analysis in research can be revealed from these points that are given below;

  • Meta-analysis is an important way to generalize the results of the larger population.
  • To maintain the precision and accuracy while conducting such a huge amount of data is the most difficult task for the students. With the help of the meta-analysis, it will be easy for the students to maintain the precision and accuracy. Moreover, you can also increase the statistical power of the data with the help of the meta-analysis.
  • To maintain a consistency in the results while conducting a huge amount of research is also a problem for the students. The only way to maintain consistency in the results is conduct that research with the help of the meta-analysis.
  • You can also easily test the hypothesis with the help of the meta-analysis.
  • It is also an easy task for the students to include the moderators in order to explain the variations in the studies with the help of the meta-analysis.
  • You can also investigate the presence of the different publication biases with the help of the meta-analysis.

Disadvantages of the meta-analysis

Along with the advantages of the meta-analysis, there are also some disadvantages of the meta-analysis. These disadvantages are given below;

  • You will never be able to control the different sources of bias with the help of the meta-analysis.
  • If you are going to perform the data analysis between the differences of the study, then you will find the correlations between the results.
  • It requires a lot of efforts than the other methods of analysis.
  • As we know that most of the processes to conduct the meta-analysis involves the blemished studies that are not a good thing.

This is the basic overview of the meta-analysis. Anyhow, if you are not able to conduct the meta-analysis for your research paper, then you can get help from the PhD dissertation writing services.