A couple of weeks ago, there was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education regarding three individuals who fabricated and often successfully published a number of research reports. One of the hoaxes targeted a journal I review for, and this became a particular relevant issue for me as a revised version of the work cited my guidelines for authors reporting qualitative research.
I gathered enough information to believe the authors veered pretty far from their original intent, or research design, if you consider this a type of theory-testing approach. The premise appeared to be to test how many outrageous or invalid or bad (based on their standard) research reports these authors could publish in journals. They appeared to work primarily in critical and/or feminist and/or other cultural studies disciplines and to favor qualitative methodologies, although I admit I did not conduct my own systematic study of the hoax articles. They used real alternative identifies so presumably in the instance of qualitative reports, provided authors' personal context for each report. Because it is rarely possible to get a paper accepted without requests for revisions, the papers were in some instances rejected and in other instances revised. This is where I have a particular issue with this process. It is one thing to claim that you can throw anything against the wall and make it stick (get it published) but in my view a different matter entirely to incorporate reviewer recommendations and reshape a poorly written paper into one that is acceptable. The weakness inherent in the peer and editor review process is that we tend to believe authors are honest and conduct revisions by incorporating omitted material or refining processes, rather than piling additional lies over the original fabrication. What remains might in fact reflect a "silly" topic but could appear to be a credible and scholarly report. In the end, I believe that the assertion that the authors could get crap articles published is undermined by their willingness to rewrite those articles, sometimes multiple times, so they might be publishable. Far better in my view is to work within the system and have the bravery to openly and honestly criticize your peers and/or their processes. For this reason I am very attracted to the work of John Ioannidis and others of his ilk. Photo of faux bird taken by me in Copenhagen, Denmark during fall of 2016.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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