The metafor Package

A Meta-Analysis Package for R

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faq [2022/09/25 11:23] Wolfgang Viechtbauerfaq [2023/01/24 07:56] (current) – [General Questions] Wolfgang Viechtbauer
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 !!! There are actually many R packages available for conducting meta-analyses. To get an appreciation for what the "meta-analysis package ecosystem" currently looks like, take a look at the [[http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/MetaAnalysis.html|Task View for Meta-Analysis]], which provides a pretty thorough overview of the different packages and their capabilities. !!! There are actually many R packages available for conducting meta-analyses. To get an appreciation for what the "meta-analysis package ecosystem" currently looks like, take a look at the [[http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/MetaAnalysis.html|Task View for Meta-Analysis]], which provides a pretty thorough overview of the different packages and their capabilities.
  
-??? Why can I not just use the lm() and lme(), and lmer() functions to conduct my meta-analysis?+??? Why can I not just use the lm()lme(), and lmer() functions to conduct my meta-analysis?
  
 !!! First of all, meta-analytic models (as can be fitted with the ''[[https://wviechtb.github.io/metafor/reference/rma.uni.html|rma.uni()]]'' and ''[[https://wviechtb.github.io/metafor/reference/rma.mv.html|rma.mv()]]'' functions) make different assumptions about the nature of the sampling variances (that indicate the (im)precision of the estimates) compared to models fitted by the ''lm()'', ''lme()'', and ''lmer()'' functions, which assume that the sampling variances are known only up to a proportionality constant (when using their ''weights'' arguments). Extra steps must therefore be taken to fix up the output to bring the results in line with standard meta-analytic practices. For more details, I have written up a more comprehensive [[tips:rma_vs_lm_lme_lmer|comparison of the rma() and the lm(), lme(), and lmer() functions]]. !!! First of all, meta-analytic models (as can be fitted with the ''[[https://wviechtb.github.io/metafor/reference/rma.uni.html|rma.uni()]]'' and ''[[https://wviechtb.github.io/metafor/reference/rma.mv.html|rma.mv()]]'' functions) make different assumptions about the nature of the sampling variances (that indicate the (im)precision of the estimates) compared to models fitted by the ''lm()'', ''lme()'', and ''lmer()'' functions, which assume that the sampling variances are known only up to a proportionality constant (when using their ''weights'' arguments). Extra steps must therefore be taken to fix up the output to bring the results in line with standard meta-analytic practices. For more details, I have written up a more comprehensive [[tips:rma_vs_lm_lme_lmer|comparison of the rma() and the lm(), lme(), and lmer() functions]].
faq.txt · Last modified: 2023/01/24 07:56 by Wolfgang Viechtbauer