At 09:44 AM 5/4/01 -0700, Carl Huberty wrote:
> Why do articles appear in print when study methods, analyses,
> results, and conclusions are somewhat faulty? [This may be considered as
> a follow-up to an earlier edstat interchange.] My first, and perhaps
> overly critical, response is that the editorial practices are faulty. I
> don't find Dennis Roberts' "reasons" in his 27 Apr message too satisfying.
i was not satisfied with my own list either but, these are reasons why
screw ups do occur
> I regularly have students write critiques of articles in their
> respective areas of study. And I discover many, many, ... errors in
> reporting. I often ask myself, WHY? I can think of two reasons: 1)
> journal editors can not or do not send manuscripts to reviewers with
> statistical analysis expertise;
unfortunately ... an editor has to beg sometimes to get reviewers and,
sometimes ... beggars can't be choosers ... this is the reality of journal
article submission reviewing ...
in addition ... a paper about say ... topic A ... has both content and
methods ... and, you cannot always just find a person with skills in both
... so, what are you to do? you have to get 2/3 people to AGREE to review a
paper ... and, we know that these are not all in tune to the same things
... thus, one might focus on methods/data ... another might focus on
content theme ...
>and 2) manuscript originators do not regularly seek methodologists as
>co-authors.
well, put yourself in the place of an untenured faculty member ... trying
to get HIS/HER name as a sole author on sufficient stuff ... try to do it
without a co-author ... you get more P and T points
> Which is more prevalent?
> For whatever it is worth ...
let's put all of this in the proper perspective ... there is just FAR too
much emphasis on getting papers submitted and published (especially in the
social sciences ... we are NOT medicine where miraculous breakthroughs DO
happen) ... the editorial load is too great for the resources at hand (free
... to boot!) ... so much of the stuff we do in the sake of scholarship is
really .... on the fringe of quality and usefulness ... but, we put more
and more pressure on faculty to be "part of the game"
when will we wise up? we need LESS stuff done, but what's done should be of
better quality over longer periods of time ... and of greater potential
import ...
if we pick up say most of the good journals in our field ... and honestly
read papers and ask ourselves ... does this really matter? is this really
important?
if we are honest ... i would bet at least 50%-75% ... would be rated NO
but, it goes on your VITA ... guess that is what counts, right?
>
>Carl Huberty
==============================================================
dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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