NERC 2024 Advanced Training
Meta-Analysis for Environmental Scientists
Date and venue: April 8-11, 2024 at the University of East Anglia, Norwich
This is a 4-day training course on meta-analysis for environmental sciences. The course will involve combination of lectures and practical sessions where students will be trained in methodology and practice of conducting meta-analysis using worked examples in metafor package in R. In addition, students will conduct their own mini-meta-analyses by working in small groups on an assigned environmental topic with 8-10 primary research papers provided per topic. Students would need to decide on the specific research question, effect size metric to use and inclusion criteria, design the extraction spreadsheet, extract the data from the primary studies, conduct meta-analysis using R, and present their results.
Tutors
Elena Kulinskaya is Professor in Statistics at LSHTM and Emeritus Professor at UEA. Statistical methods for meta-analysis and research synthesis have been one of her main research interests for the last 15 years. She has authored a book on meta-analysis (Wiley, 2008) and a large number of research papers on methodology of meta-analysis. She has also worked, as a part of a team, on a number of highly cited systematic reviews. Prof. Kulinskaya is organiser of Quantitative Synthesis Methods Group in the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE). She regularly teaches short courses on meta-analysis at various universities and conferences in the UK and abroad (Switzerland, Australia, Romania).
Julia Koricheva is Professor of Ecology at RHUL with expertise in methodology and applications of meta-analysis in ecology. She has published over 30 meta-analyses on topics ranging from impacts of climate change to effectiveness of forest management as well as methodological papers on publication and related biases in meta-analysis. She has co-edited “Handbook of meta-analysis in ecology and evolution” (Princeton Univ. Press). Prof. Koricheva regularly teaches short courses on meta-analysis in ecology in the UK and abroad (at >20 universities in 15 countries since 202l).
We are sorry, due to oversubscription, the registration for this course is now closed.
The course is aimed at UK participants. For them, participation and accommodation at UEA are free and travel within UK will be reimbursed up to £150.
Places on the course will be allocated first to the NERC-funded PhD students and UKRI funded early career environmental scientists, followed by ECRs working in sectors aligned to NERC science remit.
If a number of applicants exceeds the number of funded places, waiting list will be created and allocation of places from the waiting list will adhere to the same principles as described above.
For queries please contact cmp.fps@uea.ac.uk
The programme of the course
Day 1/Module 1: Introduction to meta-analysis: statistically combining effect sizes
Morning - Lectures on types of effect sizes and their calculation and combining effect sizes across studies; Practical on calculation of effect sizes and combining them across studies in fixed and random effects models using metafor package in R.
Afternoon – Students start to work on mini-meta-analysis projects in small groups (formulate questions and inclusion criteria, choose effect size measure, design data spreadsheet, start data extraction).
Day 2/Module 2: Exploring heterogeneity and dealing with biases
Morning - Lectures on exploring the causes of heterogeneity in effect sizes by meta-regression and dealing with publication and related biases in meta-analysis; Practical on meta-regression and testing for biases with metafor package in R
Afternoon – Continuing work in small groups on mini-meta-analyses projects (finalizing data extraction and running the analyses)
Day 3/Module 3: Interpreting and reporting the results of meta-analysis
Morning - Lectures on avoiding non-independence (including phylogenetic dependencies), dealing with missing data and variable research quality, format of meta-analytic report, review of case studies of meta-analyses in environmental sciences
Afternoon – Students complete their meta-analysis projects and prepare Power Point presentations for the final day
Day 4: Morning - Student presentations of the results of mini-meta-analysis projects
Afternoon - Consultations for students planning meta-analyses in their own projects
Training outcomes After successfully completing this course students should be able to conduct a meta-analysis on their own and interpret the results of published meta-analysis, including the ability to:
- formulate questions for systematic review / meta-analysis
- formulate inclusion criteria for a review
- critically appraise study reliability/susceptibility to bias
- design spreadsheets for data extraction
- extract data from published studies
- conduct meta-analysis using R, including calculation of the overall effect size, assessment of heterogeneity and meta-regression
- conduct sensitivity analyses and test for bias
- write a report on the results of the meta-analysis