A Meta-Review of Education Meta-Analyses: Relevance, Applicability, and Accessibility of Findings

One of the key goals of meta-analyses is to provide educators with relevant evidence to guide their decisions in practice. This meta-review examined the extent to which education meta-analysts have used strategies that likely increase the relevance, applicability, and accessibility of research to practitioners. We reviewed 103 meta-analyses of school-based academic interventions, coding for: (a) stakeholder engagement in review phases; (b) reporting of study population, setting, and intervention characteristics and testing them as moderators; and (c) accessibility of the findings to a wide audience using effect size metrics and visualizations. We found limited stakeholder involvement. Certain characteristics such as grade level were commonly reported and used to explored heterogeneity, while others, like material and training costs, were rarely considered. Effect size transformations were not common, and traditional forest plots were the most prevalent visualization method. We propose future research directions to improve the relevance, applicability, and accessibility of meta-analysis findings for educational practice.