WAOP/KLI Seminar

Semester

Semester 1, 2024-2025

Type of course

Joint Seminars

Date

January 24, 2025

Location

Brussels*

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Duration

1 day

ECTS

0.5 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course

Staff

Anja van den Broeck (KU Leuven)

*Please be aware that this seminar will take place in Brussels, Belgium. This is an exception, the following seminars will take place in the Netherlands.

 

WAOP/KLI Seminar: How can you design an attractive meta-analysis in Work and Social Psychology: Examples from self-determination theory.

This seminar focuses on how meta-analyses can be leveraged to address compelling research questions, with Self-Determination Theory (SDT) serving as a guiding example.

Meta-analyses are a powerful tool for synthesizing findings, identifying patterns, and advancing theoretical understanding across research domains. Using SDT as a case, we will explore how meta-analyses have shaped this influential motivation theory, uncovering key insights and revealing fruitful avenues for future research.

SDT posits that individuals thrive when their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are satisfied. These needs form the foundation for autonomous motivation, which drives engagement and persistence, in contrast to controlled motivation, which arises from external or internal pressures. Despite its widespread application, research on SDT has faced conceptual and methodological challenges. Meta-analyses (e.g., Van den Broeck et al., 2016) have played a critical role in addressing these challenges, synthesizing evidence, and refining our understanding of motivation at work.

 

During this seminar, you will:

• Learn the principles of conducting and interpreting meta-analyses to advance theoretical frameworks.
• Explore how meta-analyses have been used to evaluate and extend SDT’s applications, providing a template for other research domains.
• Engage in interactive exercises and discussions on applying these methods to their own research questions.

 

The seminar is designed for PhD students who want to learn more about how to design meta-analyses. No methodological skills will be required, we will only touch briefly upon the methods used within meta-analyses. In all, this seminar will equip participants with the tools to build impactful theories.

Pre-seminar readings will be provided to maximize learning, including recent meta-analytic work on SDT and practical guides on theory-building through meta-analysis.

 

Program

10.00 – 11.15: why write a meta-analysis? Questions we asked in previous work 

11.30 – 12.45: Organize the literature: An overview of the literature 

12.45-13.30 Lunch 

13.03-14.45: The empirical process: The steps we took (and what we learned from it) 

15.00-16.30: Writing an engaging discussion: Wrapping up