> See, here is the problem:  you or a workshop leader may say "all of
> the things I am about to tell you are 'true' and tested and *YOU* can
> find the relevant studies in the literature".

No, you're putting words into my mouth.  I specifically offered a "start with," 
list nothing more and nothing less.  I guess you want me to offer an "on and on 
and on" list.  You going to replicate and try to prove every one of them?  You 
want me to do the evaluation for you?  How do you check my evaluation?  Maybe 
you don't like to do a bibliographic search or the thrill of the hunt and want 
things handed to you.  But, even then, there is a subjective element to the 
selection and omission process.

> 
> The first time I heard this I wondered "Well, how do I know that the
> studies *I FIND* are the studies *YOU ARE REFERRING TO?*
> It is not enough to simply provide an author's name and say
> "look him/her up" -- if that can be called a demonstration of the grasp
> of a literature or scholarship, it is a very, very poor form of scholarship.

Last time I looked, I offered titles, not just names.  And, when I next offered 
names, they were the authors.

> The person making the presentation, the person making claims on
> the basis of the research literature, is under the obligation to clearly
> identify specific references that are being relied upon for no other
> reason then to allow others to determine whether those references
> are being accurately presented.

Again, I didn't merely provide a name.  I provided a work, many of which are 
research based.  And, I kept it to a barely manageable number.
> 
>> There's a
>> plethora of peer reviewed stuff out there just in your discipline of the 
>> works
>> I cited:  Deci, Dweck, Amabile, Gardner, Kohn, Goleman, Boyatzis, Frankl, 
>> that
>> "Mikhalyi guy," Rogers, Gilbert, Brooks, etc, etc, etc.
> 
Well, all of the people I listed above are or were accomplished, recognized, 
and respected researchers and pracitioners.

> Yes, I been given a list of names before and then told "let's play a
> guessing game:  which specific articles am I relying on?"

And, the opinion piece is, then, "fluff" by its very nature?  And, if the op-ed 
piece is by one of the researchers based on his/her research?  If that's what 
you think, you're doing these people a gross injustice.  And, let's face it 
honestly, too often the peer-review journals are heavily politicized in their 
selection for a variety of reason.

> This become more pressing when one confuses an opinion piece
> with a empirical research study -- the conclusions one presents in
> an opinion piece is not the same as the conclusions based on
> valid research.

I told you the titles I'm relying on--for starters.  Besides, you don't have to 
accept my list if you read all these works and others.  I pointedly said, I 
didn't mention all the works by any given author.  So, for example, I didn't 
list Stanford's Carol Dweck's SELF THEORIES, or Harvard's Teresa Amabile's 
PROGRESS PRINCIPLE or Daniel Goleman's EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.  I'm not obliged 
to list everything in print.  It's a starter list!


>> Of course, peer review
>> isn't necessarily infallible end-all, especially if a work being reviewed 
>> goes
>> against established norms and is banished to the hinterland.  You know, Deci,
>> for example, ran into that decades ago.
> 
> Again, people who teach research methods typically cover research
> sources and how to evaluate them. Peer review is not infallible but
> works well enough to catch the most egregious failures in research and
> its interpretation.  

It doesn't always want to encourage the innovators and challengers to an idea 
or conclusion in which others have a vested interest or on which they have 
staked their reputation.  And, sometimes peer review fails because of 
reputation, band-wagon effect and other influences.  It's not peer review, it's 
a matter of whose doing the reviewing.  

> However, it is also clear that even when research
> results run counter to "established beliefs", peer review can still work
> if the original results are valid and replicable.  

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Last time I looked those "peers" couldn't walk on the 
surface of the waters.

> The most obvious example
> of this is the research by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren who showed
> that a number of cases of stomach ulcers are caused by the bacteria
> H. Pylori.  When their research was first presented it was rejected
> because medical theory asserted that bacteria could not exist in the
> acid environment of the stomach.  Their view, however, prevailed and
> changed the established view, winning them the 2005 Nobel Prize in
> physiology and medicine.  For more on this point, see:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori#History

Wikipedia?   My, my, my. :-))  Off to my garden and then some football.

Make it a good day

-Louis-


Louis Schmier                                   
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org       
Department of History                        http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta State University 
Valdosta, Georgia 31698                     /\   /\  /\                 /\     
/\
(O)  229-333-5947                            /^\\/  \/   \   /\/\__   /   \  /  
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(C)  229-630-0821                           /     \/   \_ \/ /   \/ /\/  /  \   
 /\  \
                                                    //\/\/ /\    \__/__/_/\_\/  
  \_/__\  \
                                              /\"If you want to climb 
mountains,\ /\
                                          _ /  \    don't practice on mole 
hills" - /   \_




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