ReviewSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2026
Effect Size Calculation Procedures in Exercise Intervention Meta-Analyses: A Scoping Review.
Review in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMeta-analyses require the calculation of effect sizes for all included studies. The most common experimental design in exercise intervention studies is the pre-post control design. A number of different approaches exist for calculating effect sizes for this design, and it is currently unknown which calculation methods are actually used in the published exercise science literature and how this might impact results.
methodsWe extracted all meta-analyses (N = 101) published in six journals over a 2-year period where the primary studies used a pre-post control design. We recalculated randomly selected primary study effect sizes in each meta-analysis to determine the calculation methods used and compare them to the reported methods. An example case was used to illustrate the impact of using different calculation methods on meta-analysis outcomes.
resultsWe identified a total of 50 unique combinations of calculation methods among the n = 91 meta-analyses for which we could determine the calculation procedure. Most researchers used change score-based standardized mean differences. These required the imputation of a pre-post correlation, for which most authors used fixed benchmarks instead of evidence-based or previously reported values. Reporting was often incomplete and we identified major issues in the calculation of at least 27 articles. We demonstrate that different calculation methods can yield different meta-analysis outcomes.
conclusionsEffect size calculation procedures vary widely, which can affect meta-analysis outcomes and mislead their interpretation. A considerable number of published meta-analytical findings in exercise science may differ when other reasonable or corrected calculation methods are used. We provide recommendations on how to choose an appropriate effect size method for the pre-post control design. We encourage researchers to transparently report and justify the procedures used and perform sensitivity analyses when performing meta-analyses.
Identifiers
42859949What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.