Meta-Analysis Short Course 
  
Michael Bosnjak
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy School of Economics and Management  

In a nutshell, meta-analysis can be described as a set of statistical methods for aggregating, summarizing, and drawing inferences from collections of thematically related studies. The key idea is to quantify the size, direction, and/or strength of an effect, and to cancel out sampling errors associated with individual studies.
Meta-analytic techniques have become the standard methods for aggregating the results from thematically related studies in the social/behavioral sciences.  

The overall goal of this short course is to provide a brief overview of the different approaches belonging to the umbrella term ´meta-analysis´, to sketch their conceptual foundations, and to point participants to special issues and problems when evaluating and/or conducting meta-analytic studies.