Meta-analyses of meta-analyses – opportunity or blind-alley?

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse a current trend in the history of science that we have identified over the last ten years, which is increasingly present in the publication field and has also reached educational science. We claim that the number of meta-analyses has achieved a critical mass that almost naturally gave rise to the possibility of meta-analyses of meta-analyses. In our study, we outline tendencies and formulate dilemmas and suggestions regarding what the emergence of meta-analyses of meta-analyses may mean for the development of educational science and how it may yield usable research results.