Peer Reviews

• The evaluation of research or professional work of a psychologist carried out by other research or practitioner psychologists
• Three purposes of peer reviews:

  • Publication of research in academic journals and books
  • Involves a study being scrutinised for scientific rigor and to establish if it is flawed before publication
  • Allocation of funding
  • Public and charity organisation use it before allocating grants for research
  • Assessing the research rating of university departments
  • Future funding for uni departments depends on receiving a good rating from peer review
• Process of conducting peer review

  1. Researcher submits article to the journal
  2. Article initially assessed by journal editor
  3. If accepted then it's sent to a reviewer - expert in field - who is kept anonymous from articles author
  4. Reviewers submit comments to editor, they may then reject the article or return it to make revisions
  5. The journal then publishes the research article
  6. Revised article is submitted to the editor for publication
• Evaluation of peer reviews

  + can establish the validity of scientific research prior to publishing

  + protects the good name of psychology, ensuring that the public have confidence in it

  + confidentiality of peer reviewers allows them to be honest and objective in their assessment

  _ slow and expensive, using peers to reviews adds time to publishing reviewers with them also needing to be paid

  _ difficult to find experts which means poor research can be passed as they don't fully understand

  _ open to bias as peers can make judgements on research based on their own perceptions and experience