Psychology revision notes on 'Psychological Research and the Scientific Method'.
The notes are tailored to suit the Psychology AQA A-level Specification A syllabus.
The essay plans are colour coded to make revision slightly more interesting.
VALIDATING NEW KNOWLEDGE
THE ROLE OF PEER REVIEW
PEER REVIEW (AKA refereeing) = the assessment of scientific work
by others who are experts in the same field (peers).
The intention of peer reviewing is to ensure that any research
conducted + published is of high quality.
Peer reviewers are usually unpaid.
There are usually a number of reviewers for each article.
Their task is to report on the quality of the research + then their
views are considered by a peer review panel.
The Parliamentary Office of Science + Technology suggests that
peer review serves 3 main purposes:
1) ALLOCATION OF RESEARCH FUNDING –
Research is paid for by various government + charitable
organisations.
They have a duty to spend their money responsibly so require
reviews to enable them to decide which research is likely to be
worthwhile.
2) PUBLICATION OF RESEARCH IN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS +
BOOKS –
Scientific or scholarly journals provide scientists with the
opportunity to share the results of their research.
The peer review process prevents incorrect/faulty data entering the
public domain.
3) ASSESSING THE RESEARCH RATING OF UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENTS –
All university science departments are expected to conduct research
+ this is assessed in terms of quality.
Future funding for the department depends on receiving good
ratings from peer review.
PEER REVIEW + THE INTERNET
The volume of information available on the internet means new
solutions are needed in order to maintain the quality of information.
Scientific information is available in numerous online blogs, online
journals + Wikipedia.
To a large extent these sources of information are policed by the
‘wisdom of crowds’ approach – readers decide whether or not it is
valid + post comments/edit entries accordingly.
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