Reviewing Research Evidences in Psychological Research

With the increase in the number of research in psychology, there is a growing interest in the development of approaches in synthesizing the findings of both qualitative and quantitative studies. Meta ethnography is a method for reviewing qualitative studies whereas meta-analysis is a method for reviewing quantitative studies. For the purpose of demonstrating the applicability of both methods in reviewing research evidence from interpretative studies and quantitative studies, a topic on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was selected. Thus, meta-ethnography approach proposed by Noblit and Hare(1988) was used to review qualitative studies on parental perception of needs/problem in caring for ASD children and meta analytic study was conducted on the Parents' intervention on children having ASD. The findings from both sections of meta-ethnographic and meta- analysis research on parent's perceived needs and parental intervention on children having Autism Spectrum disorder was cross synthesized to demonstrate the applicability of mixed methods in synthesizing and reviewing the literature from qualitative and quantitative work.