application of meta-analysis in social and behavioral science: a review of advantages, disadvantages, and methodological issues

meta-analysis enables researchers to analyze the findings of studies related to the specific area in the form of a specific research question. based on the results of these reviews for the specific subject, development of new theories and experimental models is provided. often, by exploring studies in a particular field, we encounter a large number of studies which were conducted on the same variables. despite the similarity of studied subjects, it seems that the methods, for example experimental vs. survey or populations of these studies are different. since, the result of these studies often is not similar, so we need a method based on combining the various results together to improve our knowledge about the subject of study. in the same way, meta-analysis, with the aim of statistically combining results of previous researches, follows two major processes: 1- in addition to making summary and description on the results of studies in the history of specific subject, it also follows the level of relations or a real difference in the populations of various studies, and 2- it estimates the effect of methodological properties of studies on the level of differences or the estimated relationships in various studies in the specific fields. in the present paper, approaches, goals, advantages, disadvantages of meta-analysis procedure in the field of social, and behavioral sciences were discussed.