peer review

• Psychology journal


  A collection of recent psychological studies
• Psychology journals


  • Published quarterly (4 times a year)
  • Aim to advance and disseminate psychological knowledge
• Examples of psychological journals in Britain


  • British Journal of Psychology
  • British Journal of Clinical Psychology
  • British Journal of Developmental Psychology
  • British Journal of Educational Psychology
  • British Journal of Health Psychology
  • British Journal of Social Psychology
  • Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice
  • British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology
  • Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
  • Legal and Criminological Psychology
  • Journal of Neuropsychology
• Peer review


  The process by which psychological research papers, before publication in a journal, are subjected to independent scrutiny by other psychologists working in a similar field who consider the research in terms of its validity, significance and originality
• Purpose of peer review

  • To ensure that only high quality psychological research is published and is in the public domain
• How peer review is used to validate new knowledge


  1. Psychologists send research report manuscript to a journal

  2. Editor examines topic and sends copies to expert peer reviewers

  3. Peer reviewers read manuscript and assess all aspects

  4. Peer reviewers send comments and recommendation back to editor

  5. Editor decides whether to accept, revise or reject the research

  
• Importance of peer review

  • Checks validity of research
  • Makes judgement on credibility of research
  • Assesses quality and appropriateness of design and methodology
  • Judges importance and significance of research
  • Assesses originality and relation to other research
  • Acts as control mechanism to weed out poorer research and allow only the best to become public
  • Central to validating new knowledge
• Peer review is not without its drawbacks
• In a very small number of cases peer review has failed to detect fraudulent research including fabrication, falsification and plagiarism
• Cases of proven fraudulent research are very rare
• Research that does not 'fit' with previous work


  Often seen as suspect and can be rejected
• Peer review is subject to bias
• There is evidence of both 'institution bias' and gender bias in peer review
• It is impossible to separate research from cultural, political or personal values
• Peer review tends to favour positive results (where results support the hypothesis)
• Many negative findings (where the null hypothesis has been accepted) are either not published or are ignored