Janice M. Morse

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TOWARD CERTAINTY: QUALITATIVE META-SYNTHESIS

                “The truth is not a thing of fact or reason,” he chortles.
“The truth is just what everyone agrees on.”

—David Côté (2005, p. 167)

Meta-synthesis includes various techniques for integrating the findings of studies addressing a similar topic, into a more “general” theory. The technique is used in both qualitative as well as quantitative research, so we have to be careful not to confuse qualitative meta-synthesis with quantitative meta-synthesis techniques. Quantitative meta-synthesis and meta-analysis use statistical techniques, usually for combining trials and comparing effect sizes to determine efficacy (Cumming, 2012). These statistical methods are well developed, commonly used, and various software packages have been developed to facilitate these analyses. They are also a component of the Cochrane systematic reviews (Noyes, Popay, Pearson, Hannes, & Booth, 2008).

On the other hand, qualitative meta-synthesis is still in the developmental phase. There are several types of “metas”: Noblitt and Hare introduced meta-ethnography in 1988; Patterson, Thorne, Canam, and Jillings describe a “meta-study” in three analytic phases (meta-data, meta-method, and meta-theory); and Sandelowski (2006) worries about “meta-jeopardy.” Thorne (2008) defines meta-synthesis as: “research approaches that integrate the collective products of extant bodies of qualitative research findings using systematic, formal processes for the purpose of generating overarching inductively derived claims about phenomenon of interest.” These claims “extend beyond the scope of what would have been achievable within the temporal, spatial, or epistemological confines of individual studies.”

But when attempting synthesis, there is a problem for qualitative researchers. While replication is an important part of validation for quantitative researchers, qualitative research does not intentionally replicate. That is, if someone has “done “a qualitative study on a particular topic, in a particular group, in a particular context, unless there is a reason to suspect that study is lacking something, then qualitative researchers usually accept that study as “done,” and select an allied topic or explore the topic in a different population or context. The primary reason is that reading the findings—about the theoretical structure of a study—interferes with the inductive processes of the second project, and therefore is a threat to validity. Processes of verification within the conduct of qualitative research are designed to ensure rigor during construction. In fact, “not having any new findings” is a criteria for rejection from the journal Qualitative Health Research.

Data for a meta-synthesis are obtained from several similar theories that address the same phenomenon. Qualitative researchers do not intentionally replicate, so that studies will be “similar,” but not precisely the same as each other. Perhaps researchers have not seen the first study when they conducted the second, or they used a slightly different theoretical perspective, or method or sample, or they worked at a different level of analysis.¹ Researchers may have used different labels for categories and themes in their studies, or created a different type of model, so that the studies appear to be different. In fact, if you ask five researchers to study the same phenomenon (or even used the same data), you would not be very likely to get similar results (but not the same results). Each investigator may have examined these data from his or her own perspective, thereby producing different results. Very occasionally in his or her struggle to understand all aspects of the concept, the other studies may have been conducted by the same researcher, and the meta-synthesis is the combination of all of these studies. An example of this is Beck’s research program exploring postpartum depression (Beck, 2013, 2015, 2016) and the meta-synthesis of postpartum depression (2002, 2007, 2013).

One of the most important tasks in meta-synthesis is locating relevant and pertinent studies about the same topic.²

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