USE OF METAANALYSIS AS A TEACHING STRATEGY IN NURSING RESEARCH COURSES

In order to become knowledgeable consumers of nursing research, nursin g students must be able to critically read research and determine the study's value for nursing practice. As the number of nursing intervent ion studies rises and research topics are studied more extensively, th e use of meta-analysis in the discipline of nursing will also increase . The same scientific rigor demanded of other types of research must b e applied to meta-analysis. In this article two teaching strategies us ing meta-analysis are shared for sharpening both undergraduate and gra duate nursing students' critiquing skills. On the undergraduate level, nursing students can assess the quality of the studies included in a particular metaanalysis. On the graduate level, students can use an ap praisal checklist of criteria for evaluating the actual meta-analysis.