Advances in Research Synthesis through Expansion of MetaReviewer's Functionality

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are critical to advancing STEM education research. However, conducting high-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses is resource intensive and time-consuming. The proposed project seeks to increase the efficiency, quality, and transparency of systematic reviews and meta-analyses through the expansion of MetaReviewer, a free, web-based software tool that makes it easier for researchers to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

With previous NSF funding, the project team built MetaReviewer, which in its current version helps researchers extract information from studies and calculate effect sizes to conduct their meta-analyses. This project will develop crucial new features in MetaReviewer to support synthesis projects from start to finish, including functionality to support searching the research literature, managing the resulting citations, and screening abstracts for eligibility.

The new developments will focus on the early steps of a systematic review or meta-analysis study and will build best practices into the software.

This project will advance the field of systematic review and meta-analysis methodology by developing crucial new features to support synthesis projects in MetaReviewer. The three new functionalities include: (a) a literature search portal that will allow researchers to store and analyze literature search strings and the resulting citations, (b) a citation management portal that will support the management and de-duplication of citations, and (c) an abstract screening portal that will apply the latest machine learning algorithms to an interface that allows users to screen abstracts more accurately and efficiently.

Incorporating these features into MetaReviewer’s existing functionalities that support data extraction, and effect size calculation will enhance MetaReviewer for all users and will improve the capacity of researchers to efficiently produce high-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses, helping to advance knowledge across many areas of STEM education. MetaReviewer’s new functionalities will be shared with the research community via workshops, videos, and webinars to ensure high-quality training of applied meta-analysts.

This project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.