Christopher Partlett and Richard Riley have just published an interesting paper in Statistics in Medicine (open access here). They examine the performance of 95% confidence intervals for the mean effect and 95% prediction intervals for a new effect in random-effects meta-analysis.
Meta-analysis
Meta-analysis of Scottish independence polls (update 17th September 2014)
Since my post on Sunday a number of new polls have come out. This post shows the results of the meta-analysis using the six polls whose results have come out since Sunday.
Meta-analysis of last week’s Scottish independence polls
As most readers will know, this Thursday (18th September 2014), residents of Scotland will vote in a referendum to decide whether to become independent of the UK. While the No campaign had previously maintained a reasonably healthy lead against Yes, in recent weeks the race has tightened considerably, on the basis of polls of voting intentions. In particular, two polls have now shown larger proportions saying they will vote Yes compared to the proportions voting No. With a flurry of polls conducted in the last week, each with slightly different results, I decided to perform a simple meta-analysis of the poll results, to estimate the current state of play, based on the available evidence.