A Meta-analytic Examination Of

As more and more divorcing couples use mediation rather than the traditional litigation process to resolve their divorce issues, the effectiveness of mediation has captured the attention of researchers. However, the results vary across divorce mediation and litigation outcome studies. Because a quantitative review has never been performed and the overall efficacy of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution process has not been determined, it was decided to conduct a meta-analysis on this literature. Based on the five studies that met the established inclusion criteria incorporating 71 couples, 569 cases, and 320 participants, it was found that mediation produced a grand effect size of .36. This small, but moderate, effect size reveals that across the included studies mediation is a beneficial alternative to litigation for divorcing couples. Several dependent variables measuring process, outcome, and emotional satisfaction, as well as spousal relationship and increased understanding of the children’s needs were aggregated across the studies and rendered moderate positive effect sizes. The results also provide direction for future research and implications for the practice of mediation.