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[R-meta] About whether to delete the outliers from the dataset

Dear Nick

Apart from the two options you outline (include all, exclude four) I 
assume you have already investigated whether these four studies share 
some common feature which might explain the differences.

I would suggest presenting the full analysis as your main one and then 
presenting the one excluding the four as a sensitivity analysis. If the 
scientific conclusions are unaltered then your discussion is much 
simpler but if excluding them leads to a different conclusion then your 
discussion section needs to provide some suggestion about what is going on.

I think presenting the analysis excluding the four as the main analysis 
is less preferable and, of course, just reporting that analysis and 
ignoring the four altogether is clearly wrong (I know you did not 
suggests that).

Michael
On 10/12/2023 06:32, Nick Chen via R-sig-meta-analysis wrote: