A practitioner's guide to meta‐analysis

Abstract

Conclusion: Meta‐analysis can be a powerful and useful technique. In the short term, the results of meta‐analysis can increase understanding and influence the future endeavors of researchers interested in a particular field. Over the long term, meta‐analysis provides a vehicle by which large bodies of research can be integrated and focused on public policy issues. Administrative structures currently exist to foster the relationship between research findings and public policy. As one example, Saxe (1986) has described the activities of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) established by Congress to provide lawmakers with scientific information in such a way as to be useful for policy decision‐making. OTA is commissioned by Congress to provide assessments of scientific findings, and meta‐analyses are an ideal resource in this regard. Saxe (1986) notes “In almost all cases, the emphasis is on making sense of already collected data, thus literature reviews and methods for synthesizing research results are relied upon” (pp. 61–62). Whether meta‐analysis actually plays an important role in public policy depends on many factors, not the least of which is the care with which meta‐analyses are conducted. Hopefully, our comments here will help investigators conduct methodologically rigorous meta‐analyses of research relevant to the field of community psychology.