Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Rhae-Ann Richardson-Booker

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Educational Leadership, Research and Technology

Title:A Comparative Study of Extended Meta-ethnography and Meta-Analysis Based on the Fundamental Micro-purposes of
a Literature Review

Committee:
Dr. Brooks Applegate, Chair
Dr. Sue Poppink
Dr. Denise Isom

Date: Monday, August 4, 2008 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
3208 Sangren Hall

Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to explore the results of literature review methods operating out of interpretivist and positivist paradigms. Using existing studies on racial and ethnic matching of African American and Caucasian American clients and clinicians as data, my investigation includes an examination of the research processes and results of an extended meta-ethnography (EME) and a published meta-analysis (PMA). The premise of my investigation is that both review methods include and, furthermore, require some level of interpretation as answers are sought by researchers for their questions or areas of interest. My exploration includes comparing the EME and PMA results using a newly developed analytical framework of the four primary micro-purposes of a literature review.
I consider the same 139 studies used for the PMA for the conduct of the EME. I review each study based on specific EME inclusion criteria and, eventually, excluded from or included in the resultant EME sample of 27 studies, which included 17 more studies than were used in the PMA. After coding and analyzing the data from the EME, I critically analyzed and compared both the EME and PMA research processes and interpretive results, guided by a qualitative perspective that elucidated the similarities and differences manifested in the results.

Findings of this study indicate that EME and PMA share some common ground with both methods systematically identifying, organizing, transforming, limiting, integrating, and interpreting data. Use of the EME led me to elucidate some of the same knowledge generated by the PMA. However, in the end, the conduct of the EME yielded a wider breadth of understanding that is within reach because, with the EME, I could benefit from accessible data that was considered unsuitable for the purposes of the PMA and, therefore, overlooked by the PMA. Regardless of which method is used, the purpose of the study that guides the research process affects what the researcher discovers, the meaning the researcher applies to this discovery, and how this new understanding is integrated back into the broader domain of interest.