role in com

• peer review = the evaluation of research work of a psychologist carried out by other research psychologists
• three purposes of peer reviews:

  1. publication of research
  2. allocation of funding
  3. assessing the research rating of university departments
• process of conducting a peer review:

  1. researcher submits article to journal
  2. article is assessed by editor
  3. if accepted, article is sent to reviewers
  4. reviewers submits comments to the editor
  5. editor can reject article or return it to make changes
  6. then it is published
• strengths of peer review:

  • can establish the validity of research before publishing
  • ensures confidence in published work
  • confidentiality of peer reviews allow honesty and objectiveness
• limitations of peer reviews:

  • slow and expensive
  • may be difficult to find experts
  • anonymity allows them to discredit research without detection
  • still open to bias as its highly subjective
• format of psychological investigations:

  1. abstract
  2. introduction
  3. method
  4. results
  5. discussion
• abstract = provide a summary of the research and covers the aims and hypothesis which is less than 200 words
• introduction = provides background on relevant theories and studies to explain how aims and hypothesis developed
• method = is a researcher wishes to replicate the research then its a guide. it is broken into 5 sections - sample, procedures , equipment , ethics and design
• result = to present the overall summary of the findings - descriptive statistics , inferential statistics
• discussion= discuss the findings and suggest possible uses and future areas of research - summary , comparison , limitations and modifications , implications and application