Lesson 10: Peer Review Flashcards
Peer review
Research proposals are submitted to a panel of psychologists for peer review who decide if the research is worth funding. Once a piece of research is conducted, and the research report has been written, it needs to published in a scientific journal so other psychologists can read about it. Before being published, it goes through peer review again.
This time, psychologists conduct an independent scrutiny of a research report deciding whether or not it should be published. These psychologists work in a similar field to the research. They assess its validity, significance and originality. The appropriateness of the methodology and experimental design used are also assessed.
What can the reviewers do with the manuscript?
They can accept it as it is, accept it with revisions, suggest the author make revisions and re-submits it, or reject it without the possibility of re-submission. The editor of the scientific journal makes the final decision about whether to accept or reject the research report based on the reviewers comments/recommendations.
Purpose of peer review
To ensure the quality and relevance of research (methodology, data analysis etc), to ensure accuracy of findings, and to evaluate proposed designs for research fundings. Peer review prevents the dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, personal views and deliberate fraud.
Positives of peer review
Independent scrutiny increases the probability of errors being identified as authors and researchers are less objective about their own work.
The double blind procedure can be used so the researcher who conducted the study is kept anonymous, and the researcher also does not know who will peer review their work.
Involves a specialist psychologist in the field judging the work, and they will have exceptional knowledge and expertise in order to make the best judgement. However, it is not always possible to find an appropriate expert to review a research proposal or report. This means that poor research might be positively peer reviewed because the reviewer did not really understand it.
Negatives of peer review
Journals tend to prefer positive results because editors want to increase the standing of their journal. This results in a bias in published research which leads to a misinterpretation of the facts. For example, research, which finds gender differences, is far more likely to be published than research which finds no difference between men and women leading to a potential misinterpretation that men and women are very different when they are actually not.
Peer review can be an unfair process whereby some reviewers have connections with certain universities and therefore favouritism or bias might occur towards researchers depending on their institutions.
