Peer Review Flashcards
What is peer review?
involves reviewing the research’s methodology and making sure the research is credible, valid, reliable and not susceptible to eithical criticism
Why must a psychologist have their findings peer reviewed?
in order to share their findings and to be publised in academic journals
How many peer reviewers are there usually?
between one and three
Who are the peer reviewers?
other psychologists are in a simialr field of psychology
Why are peer reviewers anonymous?
so the researcher does not influence the peer reviewers in any way and peer reviewers can be fully honest about the study
What are 5 things peer viewers will consider?
- whether the research method used was suitable for the aims of the study
- that adequate controls have been used to eliminate the influence of extraneous variables
- scientific procedures have been followed
- look at the interpretation of the findings to see whether other interpretations are possible
- whether the data collected are appropriate and accurately reported
What are the disadvantages of peer review?
even though peer review is meant toensure the avlidity of the research that is published; it is still a flawed process
peer reviewers can be biased in thier recommendations to the journal editor which can result in valid research being rejected or questionable research being accepted
What are 4 possible problems with peer review?
insitutuional bias
competition
the ‘file-drawer’ problem
gender bias
What is insitutioal bias?
reviwers ay respond differently to research depending upon the institution it sassociated with (i.e. uni/charity)
What is competition?
peer reviewers may deliberatley be critical to hamper the progress of the research. They may even steal some of the researchers ideas
What is the ‘file-drawer’ problem?
research that does notfind a significant different or correlation tends to be criticsed more that research that does and is less likely to be published
What is gender bias?
research conducted by women are less likely to be published . Men reviewers may treat research by women differently (and vise versa)
What are the advantages of peer review?
it allocated funding to worthy insitutions. This eans that high quality research centres are rewarded for research and given additional cash and reseouches
it allows for scientific fraud to be identified before publicatio. this means that fraudulent research is less likely to exist in the public domain
