Peer Review

• What is it?

  Takes place before a research study has been published and is conducted by other experts in the same field of psychology.
• E.g. an expert in memory would review research into memory before it is published.
• All psychologists must agree to have their work peer reviewed and it is completed anonymously to try and maintain the integrity of it.
• Acronym to remember:

  Peer Views Are So Overrated
• Peer-

  Provide recommendations about whether it should be published or not
• Views-

  Check the validity of the researcher, Check whether the conclusions are truthful.
• Are-

  Assess the appropriateness of the procedure/methodology.
• So-

  Judge the significance of the researcher to the wider context.

  Can we generalise the conclusions?
• Overrated-

  Assess the works originality and ensures other relevant research is detailed.
• Also.... check for originality(plagiarism).
• And.... other researchers are fully credited.
• Weakness- Anonymity are breed criticism for rivals

  Researchers could be wrongly judged.

  Peer reviews are anonymous, creating opportunity to criticise rival psychologists, may be overly critical.

  Limited funding for new research competition.

  Inaccurate/unfair criticisms maybe made.

  Valid reflection.
• Weakness- Publication bias

  Difficult to find a suitable peer to conduct the review.

  Someone less knowledgeable may carry incorrect conclusions, pass a poor quality.

  Reviewers may less readily to accept research which demonstrates new theories.

  Result in publication bias.

  New/innovative research may be resecured .
• Strengths- Prevents substandard work being published.

  Prevents any substandard research from entering mainstream publications.

  Protecting the reputation.

  Less opportunity for plagiarism.

  Journals being trusted.

  Be sure research is valid/ high quality.