meta.sub.gen {vcmeta}

Confidence interval for a subgroup difference in average effect size

Description

Computes the estimate, standard error, and confidence interval for a difference in the average effect size (any type of effect size) for two mutually exclusive subgroups of studies. Each subgroup can have one or more studies. All of the effects sizes should be compatible.

Usage

meta.sub.gen(alpha, est, se, group)

Arguments

alpha

alpha level for 1-alpha confidence

est

vector of estimated effect sizes

se

vector of effect size standard errors

group

vector of group indicators:

• 1 for set A

• 2 for set B

• 0 to ignore

Value

Returns a matrix with three rows:

• Row 1 - estimate for Set A

• Row 2 - estimate for Set B

• Row 3 - estimate for difference, Set A - Set B

The columns are:

• Estimate - estimated average effect size or difference

• SE - standard error

• LL - lower limit of the confidence interval

• UL - upper limit of the confidence interval

Examples

est <- c(.920, .896, .760, .745)
se <- c(.098, .075, .069, .055) 
group <- c(1, 1, 2, 2)
meta.sub.gen(.05, est, se, group)

# Should return:
#                Estimate         SE          LL        UL
# Set A:           0.9080 0.06170292 0.787064504 1.0289355
# Set B:           0.7525 0.04411916 0.666028042 0.8389720
# Set A - Set B:   0.1555 0.07585348 0.006829917 0.3041701