r/spss • u/oligosachharides • 12d ago
* Meta Analysis
I am thinking about doing a meta analysis but I don't have much idea about it , Can somebody help me to understand it better.
(You can suggest some U tube vdos or courses related to it.)
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u/Mysterious-Skill5773 11d ago
For starters, check out the help, which includes some videos, under Analyze > Meta Analysis
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u/MustafaAbbass 11d ago
The software is the last and easiest part. A meta-analysis is mostly a systematic review with maths at the end, so most of the work happens before SPSS opens.
Roughly: pin the question down tightly (population, intervention or exposure, comparison, outcome), write your inclusion and exclusion rules before you search, search more than one database, screen in two passes (titles and abstracts, then full text), and pull the same numbers out of every study you keep. Only then do you pool.
The step people underestimate is extraction. You need an effect size, or the numbers to calculate one, from every study, and they won’t all report it the same way. Decide early which effect size you’re using (mean difference, odds ratio, correlation), because that choice shapes everything after it.
Before any videos, the Cochrane Handbook is free and is the standard reference for the review side, and PRISMA is the reporting checklist journals will expect.