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Cited by 445

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Accumulating Evidence: Procedures for Resolving Contradictions among Different Research Studies

Light, Richard, Smith, Paul·1971·Harvard Educational Review

Abstract

Significant knowledge in the social sciences accrues ever too slowly. A major reason is that various research studies on a particular question tend to be of dissimilar designs, making their results difficult to compare. An even more important factor is that social science studies frequently produce conflicting results,which hinder theoretical developments and confuse those responsible for the implementation of social policies. In this pioneering effort the authors suggest criteria for determining when data from dissimilar studies can be pooled. Methods for recognizing fundamental differences in research designs, and for avoiding the creation of artificial differences, are offered. A paradigm, labeled the

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Metadata

Authors
Light, R., & Smith, P.
Venue
Harvard Educational Review
Published
1971-12-01
Volume
41
Issue
4
Pages
429-471
ISSN
  • 0017-8055 (ISSN-L)
  • 1943-5045
OpenAlex
W1560647893
Cited by
445
References
0
FWCI
6.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Accumulating Evidence: Procedures for Resolving Contradictions among Different Research Studies. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.17763/haer.41.4.437714870334w144
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Light, R., & Smith, P. (1971). Accumulating Evidence: Procedures for Resolving Contradictions among Different Research Studies. Harvard Educational Review. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.41.4.437714870334w144

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.