PSYC104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Psycinfo, Publication Bias, Meta-Analysis
21 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Research Questions and Literature
Reie – section 3.3 – Week Four
Readings
Finding Information about Science
Scientific vs Non-Scientific Sources of Information:
- Shown information everyday – tv, online sources, friends, social media.
- Must think about:
-What you are being asked to believe?
-What evidence supports this?
-Are there other ways the evidence could be interpreted?
-What other evidence would I need to evaluate these alternatives?
-What are the most reasonable conclusions?
- Journalist should summarise findings and conclusions using everyday terms.
- Not all journalists need to submit writing for peer review, which is an important
process.
Even peer reviewers can be biased (claims, authors, institutions).
- Prevent this by having multiple expert reviewers.
File-drawer problem:
- Publication bias resulting from journals only publishing positive results.
Open access journals:
- Academic journals available online for free and willing to publish a wider variety of
studies than traditional journals.
- PLoS.
Searching for Scientific Publications
Must search scientific databases. PsychINFO (unpublished), PsychArticles. Universities will
have subscriptions to some journals.
Use parameters -> search options that allow one to seek out information that meets specific
requirements.
Use keywords, and then you can add more to expand information about the article to limit
the number of articles shown.
If there are still a lot of articles and cannot think of additional parameters, you should read
all the titles and select those that seems to best align with research needs.
Reading a Scientific Paper
Articles will provide a qualitative summary of research by different authors, using statistical
tool -> meta-analysis to combine multiple studies.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Shown information everyday tv, online sources, friends, social media. Journalist should summarise findings and conclusions using everyday terms. Not all journalists need to submit writing for peer review, which is an important process. Even peer reviewers can be biased (claims, authors, institutions). Prevent this by having multiple expert reviewers. Publication bias resulting from journals only publishing positive results. Academic journals available online for free and willing to publish a wider variety of studies than traditional journals. Use parameters -> search options that allow one to seek out information that meets specific requirements. Use keywords, and then you can add more to expand information about the article to limit the number of articles shown. If there are still a lot of articles and cannot think of additional parameters, you should read all the titles and select those that seems to best align with research needs.
