Recent ucsfemergmed_rw items

A normative model of peer review: qualitative assessment of manuscript reviewers’ attitudes towards peer review

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Objective: Peer review is considered crucial to the selection and publication of quality research, yet little is known of the values, beliefs and attitudes of peer reviewers towards the process of peer review. This study elicits reviewer beliefs about the process in order to produce a normative model of peer review. Methods and Findings: The 72 subjects were experienced reviewers at Annals of Emergency Medicine and had completed at least 5 reviews in the past 2 years. Subjects participated in 40 minute structured telephone interviews focusing on reviewer attitudes, beliefs and values towards the process of peer review. Subject responses were coded and categorized using grounded theory to produce a qualitative profile of reviewers' attitudes towards peer review and generate a normative model of the peer review process. This model was found to closely adhere to conventionally held beliefs 2 about the process of peer review. However, within it were revealed...

Peer Review: Consensus and Contradiction, a Qualitative Approach

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Manuscript peer review is considered crucial to the selection and publication of quality scientific research, however, the practice is being increasingly challenged as a non-standardized process of unknown scientific validity with substantial weaknesses. Scientific disciplines appear to be confronted by a process of limited efficacy, resistant to rational maneuvers for its improvement, which yet continues to receive strong support from its practitioners. When a practice’s efficacy in achieving its goals is questionable and yet the practice persists, questions of its social functions arise which can only be addressed by qualitative research. This paper describes a normative model of peer review based on a qualitative profile of the attitudes of 72 peer reviewers towards the practice of manuscript peer review (obtained from extensive structured interviews). Masked by consensus amongst respondents about methods and goals were concerns centering on a series of contradictions...