title: Meta-evaluation of meta-analysis: ten appraisal questions for biologists.
abstract: Meta-analysis is a statistical procedure for analyzing the combined data from different studies, and can be a major source of concise up-to-date information. The overall conclusions of a meta-analysis, however, depend heavily on the quality of the meta-analytic process, and an appropriate evaluation of the quality of meta-analysis (meta-evaluation) can be challenging. We outline ten questions biologists can ask to critically appraise a meta-analysis. These questions could also act as simple and accessible guidelines for the authors of meta-analyses. We focus on meta-analyses using non-human species, which we term 'biological' meta-analysis. Our ten questions are aimed at enabling a biologist to evaluate whether a biological meta-analysis embodies 'mega-enlightenment', a 'mega-mistake', or something in between.
authors.affiliation: Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. s.nakagawa@unsw.edu.au.|Diabetes and Metabolism Division, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, 384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia. s.nakagawa@unsw.edu.au.
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakagawa
authors.affiliation: Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Daniel W A
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Noble
authors.affiliation: Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.|School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Alistair M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Senior
authors.affiliation: Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Malgorzata
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lagisz
mesh_terms: D004282:Documentation; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017594:Publication Bias; D011642:Publications
keywords: Biological importance; Effect size; Meta-regression; Meta-research; Non-independence; Publication bias; Quantitative synthesis; Reporting bias; Statistical significance; Systematic review