Meta-analysis

A meta-analysis is a study of studies. Say you have 15 studies you've identified that measure the market share for widgets. Instead of collecting your own data, you do an analysis of the subject using study results as your data points. It's a way of creating primary data out of secondary data.

During the recent election, you might have seen the "poll of polls." That was the networks way of "averaging" the various polls done because the results were so inconsistent. A way of clearing out the clutter.

Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia says: "In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses." Read the entire article and follow its links. I conducted a Google search on this and found lots of stuff, too, so read them.

And post a comment. I'd like to know what you think.

You often see meta-analysis in medical research. Medical studies are often conducted with a very small number of participants, so a good meta-analysis is actually stronger than any one of the studies. But I don't think until recently that the role of informational "bubbles" or "cascades" has been sufficiently recognized. That is, 100 researchers, all of whom read each other's work, can manufacture a false consensus. But that's for another blog posting.

Entrepreneurship informs everything I do. For my entrepreneurial real estate blog, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing and publishing, to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.
In short, knowing how to do literature searches and meta-analyses is a basic entrepreneurial skill, so you had better at least learn about it.