even in the best journals, you will find crap ... or, serious mistakes ...
consider the following:
1. editors don't always have an easy time finding appropriate reviewers to
review papers
2. reviewing papers (generally speaking) is a gratis activity ...
3. reviews are done usually in one's spare time (whatever "spare" time means)
4. different reviewers look for different things
5. reviews generally are done rather fast ... given #2 ... and things are
missed
6. a reviewer might be good in the content of the paper but, still might
not be a stat whiz
7. you can't expect a reviewer to recheck all calculations, and all the
details ... usually, when found ... it is because they just happen to pop
out to the reviewer
8. too many papers have too much data ... easy to miss something
At 03:59 PM 4/27/01 -0400, Lise DeShea wrote:
>List Members:
>
>I teach statistics and experimental design at the University of Kentucky,
>and I give journal articles to my students occasionally with instructions
>to identify what kind of research was conducted, what the independent and
>dependent variables were, etc. For my advanced class, I ask them to
>identify anything that the researcher did incorrectly.
>
>As an example, there was an article in a recent issue of an APA journal
>where the researchers randomly assigned participants to one of six
>conditions in a 2x3 factorial design. The N wouldn't allow equal cell
>sizes, and the reported df exceeded N. Yet the article said the
>researchers ran a two-way fixed-effects ANOVA.
>
>One of my students wrote on her homework, "It is especially hard to know
>when you are doing something wrong when journals allow bad examples of
>research to be published on a regular basis."
>
>I'd like to hear what other list members think about this problem and
>whether there are solutions that would not alienate journal editors. (As
>a relative new assistant professor, I can't do that or I'll never get
>published, I'll be denied tenure, and I'll have to go out on the street
>corners with a sign that says, "Will Analyze Data For Food.")
>
>Cheers.
>Lise
>~~~
>Lise DeShea, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>Educational and Counseling Psychology Department
>University of Kentucky
>245 Dickey Hall
>Lexington KY 40506
>Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Phone: (859) 257-9884
>
>
>
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==============================================================
dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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