Standardized mean difference on very small dataset

Think carefully about using the standardized mean difference, as it confounds the objective effects of the intervention with the design of the study. Heterogeneity is always a critical factor in the conclusions you can draw from retrospective meta-analyses.

If your measurement has a natural unit, it is generally agreed that this is a valid way to aggregate different studies.

You would not know this from the easily accessible literature on how to do a meta-analysis. I’ve collected a lot of papers in a separate thread, but the most important ones are described here: