BEST EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS - AN INTELLIGENT ALTERNATIVE TO METAANALYSIS

Research review has long been one of the most important scholarly acti vities in all branches of science. While there is sometimes a single s tudy so well-designed, well carried out, and difficult to replicate th at its findings are accepted as conclusive, more often there are many studies on a given topic, no one of which clearly supersedes the other s. These studies may be done by different investigators using differen t methods or different populations. They may arrive at different concl usions. When this is the case, there is a need for reviewers to carefu lly consider the evidence and to put forth conclusions or hypotheses a bout where the weight of the evidence lies.