PSYC 109

Meta-Analysis: Extra-Credit Summary Report Assignment

This is worth up to 10 points (out of 500). Respond to the questions below. Click on the blank line under each question and start your response; it will be indented and this will make it easier to review. Submit by the assignment deadline: Tuesday, May 6, before midnight. Attach your assignment to an e-mail, sent to the class account (psyc109@uvm.edu). IMPORTANT: Make the citation the SUBJECT of your e-mail. Any assignments submitted that do not follow this convention will not be graded. In addition to class notes, you may find the information at this web page to be helpful: http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Meta-analysis

Questions

1. What is your name? Raphael Bernstein

2. Copy in the APA-formatted citation for the article you are summarizing. Regehr, C., Glancy, D., & Pitts, A. (2013). Interventions to reduce stress in university students: A review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 148(1), 1–11. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2012.11.026

3. What about this topic interests you? This topic interests me because it is relevant to me, as a university student. I am also very interested in intervention treatments, especially for disorders like anxiety and depression. They are definitely important to learn more about, given how little they are utilized and suicide rates among college students.

4. What question do you think the researchers were trying to answer? The researchers were investigating whether or not interventions intended to reduce stress in university students were effective.

5. What methods did they report for finding all of the studies that might have been included in their summary? The researchers reported choosing only studies that used random assignment in forming their experimental and control groups or parallel cohort design. They used twenty-four studies that dealt with a variety of different intervention treatments, and had a total of 1,431 participants.

6. What did they report about the general quality of their source studies? Limitations of the research included were that the sample was not representative of the average student and certain types of interventions were excluded. The sample was not representative, because the studies consisted mostly of female students from the West. While cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness approaches were examined, not enough data was available to look at other important types of interventions, such as psycho-education and arts based treatments.

Meta-Analysis Extra-Credit Assignment Page 2 of 2

7. What variables did they summarize, and how did they do it? The variable being studied in this analysis was the effectiveness of stress intervention treatments. This variable of effectiveness was measured by the variable of decreased anxiety symptoms. In particular, they looked at whether participation in these interventions was correlated with reduction of symptoms.

8. What do you think were the major strengths of this publication? (3-5 sentences) I think that one strength of this publication is that the design was sensitive not only to the target question. In addition to finding an answer to their initial question, secondary outcomes were also uncovered. Another strength is that they address some limitations and how future research should respond to these limitations. For instance, they suggest that a future direction should be to focus more on male students, since their own research neglected this particular group of people.

9. What were the most important limitations in the source studies that then limited the scope of this paper’s conclusions? One limitation is that other types of interventions are left unexplored, which the authors acknowledged. This is problematic, because it seems that understudied interventions could be easier to distribute. Also, in light of the issue of the under-utilization of intervention programs, it seems that something like an arts based program would be important to further investigate, because it would attract many different students that may not otherwise seek treatment.

10. Imagine that you want to explain this research to a friend or relative who isn’t familiar with meta-analysis and with the topic itself. Write out a 2-3 paragraph summary that explains the basics of meta-analysis and combines that with a summary of the research. A meta-analysis is when the data of many different studies is analyzed to reveal any trends. An advantage of meta-analysis is that it takes advantage of a variety of different research, so the overall sample is far more representative than any single, regular study could accomplish. This means that more weight may be placed in the findings of a meta-analysis. This also means that an effect unobserved in a smaller sample can be drawn-out by combining the data to form a larger, more representative pool. This meta-analysis was intended to see if different intervention treatments for university students are effective. This meta-analysis used data collected in Western cultures, majorly from women. It was found that cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness approaches were correlated with decreased anxiety symptoms. Secondary outcomes discovered were decreased levels of depression and cortisol. The researchers feels that universities should implement these programs, and make them easily accessible to students.