Agenda » Learning objectives
Course learning objectives
Basic course
The objective of this course is to introduce students to the logic of a basic meta-analysis and teach them how to perform a meta-analysis, critique a meta-analysis, and avoid common mistakes in meta-analysis. By the end of the course students will understand
- The goals of a meta-analysis
- How to choose a statistical model
- How to choose an effect-size index
- How to enter data for a simple meta-analysis
- How to estimate the mean effect size
- How to quantify and understand heterogeneity in effects
- How to report the results of the analysis
- How to create forest plots
- How to create plots that show the distribution of true effects
- How to avoid common mistakes in all these areas
Advanced course
The objective of this course is to teach students advanced issues in meta-analysis. By the end of the course the student will understand
- How to use subgroup analyses to compare the impact of a treatment in sets of studies that enrolled different populations or employed different variants of an intervention (analogous to ANOVA in a primary study)
- How to use meta-regression to assess the unique impact of continuous or categorical covariates on the effect size (analogous to multiple-regression in a primary study)
- How to assess the potential impact of publication bias on the analysis
- What to do when there are only a small number of studies in the analysis
- How to avoid common mistakes in all these areas
Testimonials
"This is a great workshop for learning Meta-Analysis. The instructor explains everything in detail, the workshop materials are very useful. Overall a very good learning experience."
Weiling Li - Purdue University - Los Angeles 2019
"This is an excellent course, well presented, step-by-step and easy to follow. Great to have all the case studies in paper and soft copy. Michael is extremely knowledgeable and an excellent teacher. I liked the stories, real life examples and openness to answer questions. He was able to make a dry topic very interesting. Also appreciated a grounded clinical perspective of what meta-analysis results infer."
Sharon Carey - Royal Prince Alfred Hospital - Sydney 2020