Research Synthesis: What are Meta Analyses?

Meta-Analysis is performed to gain insights beyond the specific contexts of individual studies. Generalizations across studies can help us to understand the bigger picture and tell us what individual studies contribute to the earth as a system.

The accumulation of thousands of studies addressing particular questions in the environmental sciences has presented a compelling need for robust, replicable and unbiased methods for synthesizing results across studies. Research synthesis methodology provides a tool kit of powerful procedures to accomplish these goals.

Within the SynCom activities for research synthesis, Prof. Dr. Helmut Hillebrand (University of Oldenburg & HIFMB) offered a Research Meta-Analysis Workshop.

The online course comprised an overview of all steps necessary to perform a meta-analysis, starting with systematic literature search and the definition of selection criteria. Common metrics (effect sizes), construction of a comprehensive database, statistical models and heterogeneity were discussed. Finally, important quality aspects of a meta-analysis were assessed. The participants had the opportunity to gain hands-on experience and perform a meta-analysis in R.

On Sep 21^st (2023) the participants had the opportunity to discuss open questions and get feedback on own synthesis ideas and analyses. The participants thought that the workshop provided valuable and interesting insights into meta-analysis and are already discussing the information gained from the workshop for their own studies.