What is a meta-analysis? How is it conducted? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Key terms and concepts that may be included in student responses:
▪ Meta-analysis-statistical technique for summarizing results across several studies
▪ Steps-literature search, determine effect size, examine average effect size across studies, relate the effect size to characteristics of the study
▪ Advantages-pools data from thousands of participants, provides more power to find significant effects
▪ Disadvantages-some studies included in the meta-analysis may have methodological flaws, which may adversely influence the results; file-drawer effect (studies with non-significant findings often don't get published, so are not included in the meta-analysis)