Research Library

Having surveyed the history and methods of meta-regression in a previous paper, in this paper the authors review which and how meta-regression methods are applied in recent research syntheses. To do so, they review studies published in 2016 across four leading research synthesis journals: Psychological Bulletin, the Journal of Applied Psychology, Review of Education Research, and the Cochrane Library. They find that the best practices defined in the previous review are rarely carried out in practice. In light of the identified discrepancies, they consider how to move forward, first by identifying areas where further methods development is needed to address persistent problems in the field, and second by discussing how to more effectively disseminate points of methodological consensus.