Peer review

Question 1

What is a peer review?

Answer 1

Peer review should enable poor scientific practice or fraudulent work to be identified and not published
All psychologists that conduct research will have their work scrutinised in someway and that is conducted anonymously and always conducted by experts in the field

Question 2

What is the process of peer reviewing?

Answer 2

• Other psychologists working in a similar field will scrutinise a research report, will provide recommendations/decions
• Check the validity of the research, all elements of the research is assessed
• Assess the appropriateness of the research and methodology
• Judge the significance of the wider context of behaviour (applicable/generalisable)
• Assess the work for originality (not plagiarised or copied)

Question 3

What is the purpose of peer review?

Answer 3

• To check the quality and validity of the research to ensure that it has a good design (so conclusions are valid)
• To ensure that the research contributes to its field
• To evaluate the proposed design so that it is worthy of being published and receive merit/funding

Question 4

Strengths of peer review?

Answer 4

• It ensures any research conducted and published is of high quality
• Because it is scrutinised it helps prevent scientific fraud
• There will be no plagiarised work or duplication which helps prevent insufficient research from entering the mainstream.

Question 5

Weaknesses of peer review?

Answer 5

• Since the peer reviewers are often anonymous, its possible that they will use this to criticise opponents in their field
• There’s limited funding for new research so the element of competition could bread jealousy amongst researchers. As a result, inaccurate or unfair criticism may beer received following the peer review process
• Appropriate experts can’t always be found to review a research proposal meaning poor research may be passed because the reviewer didn’t really understand it.