Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2022 Nov;17(6):1704-1736. doi: 10.1177/17456916221079611. Epub 2022 Jul 14.
A metastudy is a set of many tiny studies (microstudies) created from a much larger collection of possibilities. Metastudies can yield many of the benefits of time-consuming replications and meta-analyses but more efficiently and with greater attention to generalizability and the causal effects of moderators. Statistical precision and power are higher than in studies with the same total sample size but with fewer conditions and more participants per condition. In this article, we describe metastudies and their benefits, demonstrate how to conduct a metastudy using the well-known risky-choice framing effect as an example, and report on the generalizability of that effect. In three metastudies (total = 2,338), the framing effect generalized well across most of the potential moderators tested, as was expected. Surprisingly, however, the effect was up to twice as large when the certain option was replaced with a slightly risky option; prospect theory predicts the opposite, and fuzzy-trace theory predicts no difference. Metastudies provide a relatively quick and not-so-painful way of examining an effect's generalizability without waiting for a meta-analysis. Both individual labs and multilab networks are encouraged to shift from traditional studies to metastudies.
元研究是一组由大量可能性中创建的许多微小研究（微研究）。元研究可以产生许多耗时的复制和荟萃分析的好处，但更高效，更注重可推广性和调节因素的因果效应。与具有相同总样本量但条件较少且每个条件下参与者更多的研究相比，统计精度和功效更高。在本文中，我们描述了元研究及其好处，展示了如何使用众所周知的风险选择框架效应作为示例进行元研究，并报告了该效应的可推广性。在三项元研究中（总计 = 2338），该框架效应在大多数经过测试的潜在调节因素中很好地推广，这是预期的。然而，令人惊讶的是，当确定选项被替换为略微冒险的选项时，该效应的大小增加了一倍；前景理论预测相反，模糊跟踪理论预测没有差异。元研究提供了一种相对快速且不太痛苦的方法，可以在不等待荟萃分析的情况下检查效果的可推广性。鼓励单个实验室和多实验室网络从传统研究转向元研究。
