Although both literature reviews and meta-analysis make significant contributions to the pooled data analysis toolkit, each relies on completed studies to synthesize research findings within a body of work. These approaches are inappropriate for testing novel hypotheses not examined in prior studies. This limitation is noteworthy, as tests of novel hypotheses may play a critical role in synthesizing apparent discrepant findings across studies (e.g., whether discrepancies reflect gender differences that emerge in between-study comparisons). IDA provides an alternate framework for pooled data analysis that retains the rich details of individual studies to simultaneously test novel hypotheses within and across studies. For many questions in clinical psychology, IDA is an important addition to the toolkit for pooled data analysis.
