Striving for Complementarity Between Narrative and Meta-Analytic Reviews

Abstract

Since the seminal publication of Norris and Ortega (2000) , meta-analysis has emerged as an important tool for synthesizing the research in individual domains of applied linguistics including second language acquisition (SLA). In recent years, meta-analyses have mushroomed (see e.g. Goldschneider and DeKeyser 2001 ; Mackey and Goo 2007 ; Li 2010 ; Spada and Tomita 2010 ; Jackson and Suethanapornkul 2013 ; Shintani and Ellis 2013 ; Kang and Han 2015 ), fueling the conception that this type of research synthesis is more accurate and reliable than the traditional narrative review. At the same time, though, issues and concerns have arisen about the validity and reliability of meta-analyses. This special issue is the first attempt to examine the complementarity of the meta-analytic and the traditional narrative review approaches and as such is very timely. Guided by a coherent framework provided by the editors, authors reported syntheses of the research on three topics—processing instruction (PI), the role of aptitude in (instructed) second language learning, and the teaching of pronunciation—as well as explicitly addressing how they went about their syntheses. Consequently, this special issue makes both a substantive and a methodological contribution to the field of applied linguistics in general and to SLA in particular.