Last Sunday, we held a meta-analysis study group within our laboratory. As a goal, I want to hold such study groups on research methods at least once a year. Previously, Dr. Geng, a project assistant professor in the Yamada Lab, held a session on Lag Sequential Analysis when he was a student. This time, the topic was meta-analysis.

Meta-analysis is a method to analyze the results of studies conducted on the same main topic from the perspective of various variables, integrate findings, and identify issues. It feels like performing a literature review more scientifically by incorporating statistical processing. Literature reviews are extremely important. This is to demonstrate the originality of your own research. Without originality, your work might end up being called mere self-satisfaction. In the Yamada Lab, apart from Mr. Kaku, an academic cooperation researcher, writing review papers has not yet been widely realized, but I strongly encourage doctoral students to take on this challenge. However, regarding “how to conduct a meta-review,” there are often many questions. Therefore, we decided to hold this study group to help everyone learn the methodology and deeply understand the significance of literature reviews.

Each student summarized the definition and methods of meta-analysis, along with important elements involved (such as statistical power and effect size), gave presentations, deepened their understanding of meta-analysis, and read and discussed actual meta-analysis papers as case studies. After that, we conducted a practical session using R with actual data to try performing a meta-analysis. Everyone had set up their environments in advance. It turns out that a lot can be done with meta-analysis using tools like R. Since SPSS also has features for meta-analysis, I feel that the options are expanding.

This time, Mr. Cho, a research student who is currently preparing to write a review paper, designed the overall session and created the schedule with support from Dr. Geng. Thank you for your hard work. It was a truly great learning experience. Thank you, Mr. Cho and Dr. Geng.

This kind of study group is actually something we used to do in the Akahori Lab as well. I think that was really beneficial. We are planning another session for the second semester this year, so I am looking forward to it!