How does a PhD student go about doing a meta analysis of a research question?
Good luck to you. I'm trying to do something similar and found that few HCI papers publish enough summary statistics to conduct a proper meta-analysis. Indeed, a lot of the time, their stats seem quite sloppy. 

I've styled my analysis similar to two review papers I found. One from the HCI area as well (Dehn &amp; Van Mulken, 2000) and one from a bit more outfield (Jones &amp; Gosling, 2005).

Neither is a true meta-analysis, but they get as close to formal as I think it's reasonable to get when an actual meta-analysis is simply not an option.


Dehn &amp; Van Mulken (2000) The impact of animated interface agents: a review of empirical research
Jones &amp; Gosling (2005) Temperament and personality in dogs (Canis familiaris): A review and evaluation of past research