In a journal with a theoretical and empirical section, where they should be?
They are theoretical research that summarize empirical research. Take a look here: http://www.ccace.ed.ac.uk/research/software-resources/systematic-reviews-and-meta-analyses
I would say they are empirical research because they don't just summarise existing research but find out new things about it: it is meta-research. Someone described systematic reviews as primary research (Garg, maybe?) with the unit of analysis being the published paper rather than the experimental subject.
I could agree that meta analysis are both, however, you form also hypotheses in a meta-analysis. So i do not understand why they are not hypothesis driven?
I would say that it was Empirical research. It includes different studies of facts already done . It also finds out some new findings.
I would also agree with Anjali and Paul Whaley. It is research, since you not just summarize or describe the studies but also find new results.
You can also conduct meta-analysis of theories - which seems to be a combination of the two because you develop empirical results of the systemic structure of theories.
Dear Francesco, I assume that you wish to publish a systematic review (performed by you) on a certain topic and possibly a meta-analysis of the evidence collected through this systematic review. So I assume that you have an empirical research question, and you have searched the literature for the available evidence, which can be also analysed (that is pooled).
To my opinion your goal is empirical (unless you are not developing methods to perform SR or meta-analysis). To give you an impression, consider that meta-analysis is typically viewed as an observational study prone to a number of bias and confounding (recall the "publication bias" for instance). If you have an SR or a meta-analysis over a specific topic, I would restrict your target journal to the empirical field of your research question. I hope I was clear. Best
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