Summary
Contents
Subject index
Meta-Analysis
Meta-Analysis
Chapter Outline
- Some Examples of Meta-Analyses
- An Earlier, Practice-Relevant Example
- The Present Status of Meta-Analysis in Quantitative Nursing Research
- Study Suggestion
Key Term: meta-analysis
In a meta-analysis (the prefix “meta” is from the Greek and means “beyond”), the principal findings of the primary analyses of several similar studies are combined (actually synthesized rather than analyzed) to produce a statistical summary of the “state of the evidence” bearing on a particular topic. This is quite different from the traditional narrative review of the literature (e.g., Lindenberg, Alexander, Gendrop, Nencioli, & Williams, 1991). The procedures for conducting meta-analyses are very complicated. Those of you who are interested in pursuing such matters are referred to Glass's (1976) article; the articles by O'Flynn (1982), Abraham and Schultz (1983), Lynn (1989), and Brown and Hedges ...
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