This approach seems strange to me. The paper says that
" If citation behavior is rationale [sic], i.e. studies that successfully applied a treatment and detected greater biological effects are cited more frequently, then we predict that larger effect sizes increases study relative citation rates."
I see no reason to predict that effect size should have anything to do with citation rates. Citation rates should, and probably do, reflect many things that have nothing to do with effect sizes (usefulness of methodology and conceptual innovation are two that come to mind). Large effect sizes in studies of uninteresting problems aren't likely to be cited. Even small effect sizes in studies of important issues are likely to get cited.
Why the prediction that rational citation behavior should correlate with effect size?
Hal Caswell On 10/3/12 6:26 PM, Chris Lortie wrote:
Dear Ecolog, My colleagues and I are interested in whether citations, frequently used as a proxy for merit (i.e. most highly cited work), relate to the biological significance of the study. As ecologists, we used a large set of effect sizes from eeb to test this idea. If you are interested, it is OA, online early here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/5375525681v282l2/ We found that there was no relationship between citations and effect sizes in ecology and we also found that papers rejecting hypotheses had larger effect sizes. This is really fascinating. We made some fun interpretations of this but would love to have additional feedback on how we should move forward either with citations in general or how to best use effect sizes. One idea we have been kicking around is an effect size databank online. This would provide a real opportunity for broad synthesis and be useful in contrasting efficacy of various treatments. Imagine a simple online tool that you visit when you complete a study and you enter your effect size estimates into. Of course, full datasets etc would be fantastic but this would be a neat synthetic tool. Any ideas appreciated. cheers, chris.
-- Hal Caswell Senior Scientist Biology Department MS-34 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole MA 02543 +1-508-289-2751
