Will the ASA's Efforts to Improve Statistical Practice be Successful? Some Evidence to the Contrary

ABSTRACT

Recent efforts by the American Statistical Association to improve statistical practice, especially in countering the misuse and abuse of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and p-values, are to be welcomed. But will they be successful? The present study offers compelling evidence that this will be an extraordinarily difficult task. Dramatic citation-count data on 25 articles and books severely critical of NHST's negative impact on good science, underlining that this issue was/is well known, did nothing to stem its usage over the period 1960–2007. On the contrary, employment of NHST increased during this time. To be successful in this endeavor, as well as restoring the relevance of the statistics profession to the scientific community in the 21st century, the ASA must be prepared to dispense detailed advice. This includes specifying those situations, if they can be identified, in which the p-value plays a clearly valuable role in data analysis and interpretation. The ASA might also consider a statement that recommends abandoning the use of p-values.     

《南开管理评论》1998年-2002年引文分析研究

本文采用引文分析方法对《南开管理评论》1998年-2002年所发表的论文的引文进行了统计分析,从引文量、引文语种、引文类型、引文年代、引文期刊、引文著者等几个方面做了综合评价,其目的是从文献引证的角度来透视该刊的学术水平和期刊质量,并从中寻求一些带有规律性的结论,为期刊的编辑出版提供一些参考。     

CSSCI与社会科学评价

自加菲尔德创立引文索引系统 50年来 ,科学引文索引的应用范围日益拓宽 ,产生了广泛影响。尽管引文分析存在一定的局限 ,但用此方法评价社会科学是完全可能的 ,而且也是合理的和有必要的。由南京大学和香港科技大学联合研制的CSSCI系统以其收录较为完整的中文人文社会科学期刊数据 ,快捷方便的统计分析 ,多途径的检索功能获得首批用户称赞和学术界的好评 ,它将为我国人文社会科学信息资源的开发利用 ,为繁荣我国人文社会科学的研究和评价作出积极贡献     

论实质意义上侵权法的确定与立法展望

《侵权责任法》的颁布对实质意义上侵权法的影响,包括对实质意义上侵权一般法的影响和对侵权特别法效力判断的影响。《侵权责任法》是绝对一般法。实质意义上的侵权一般法包括适用《民法通则》和《侵权责任法》两种情形。原有司法解释中侵权责任规范的效力取决于所解释的《民法通则》条文的效力。侵权特别法的效力判断分为法律整体判断模式和引致条款判断模式。如果行政法规上的侵权责任规范与《侵权责任法》有冲突,应该适用《侵权责任法》。侵权一般法在未来可能发生的变化,侵权特别法未来的立法空间和立法技术应该区分法律整体判断模式和引致条款判断模式。     

Publication Delay in Iranian Scholarly Journals

Scholarly periodicals in Iran are considered main information resources in the development of knowledge in scholarly areas. About 566 periodicals have publication licenses from the Commission of Scholarly Periodicals Evaluation of Ministry of Science, Research & Technology (MSRT), with sixty-eight published in English. This paper studies the publication delay of twenty-six Iranian scholarly periodicals which are published in Persian in Iran, not those Iranian journals which are published in English in Iran or out of the country. The peer review and scholarly publication processes in Iranian journals are quite lengthy and need improvement. There was no significant relationship between publication delay in Persian scholarly periodicals and their impact factor as presented by the Islamic World Science Citation Center (titled ISC). Finally, the authors offer some solutions for improving the publication system of Iranian scholarly journals and decreasing the publication interval of these journals.     

Scientific consensus,the law,and same sex parenting outcomes

While the US Supreme Court was considering two related cases involving the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, one major question informing that decision was whether scientific research had achieved consensus regarding how children of same-sex couples fare. Determining the extent of consensus has become a key aspect of how social science evidence and testimony is accepted by the courts. Here, we show how a method of analyzing temporal patterns in citation networks can be used to assess the state of social scientific literature as a means to inform just such a question. Patterns of clustering within these citation networks reveal whether and when consensus arises within a scientific field. We find that the literature on outcomes for children of same-sex parents is marked by scientific consensus that they experience “no differences” compared to children from other parental configurations.     

Social Policy's ‘Greatest Hits’

The ‘age of metrics’ or ‘the metric tide’ in the form of bibliometrics has largely by‐passed Social Policy. This study aims to broaden the focus from the most cited articles in Social Policy journals to discover the most cited works in Social Policy or ‘Social Policy's Greatest Hits’. It finds some 24 works with over 2000 Google Scholar citations, but only nine of these are by social policy writers. In terms of total citations, Gosta Esping‐Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism is the clear leader by a significant margin, with the most cited Social Policy (or Social Administration) writers being Peter Townsend, Richard Titmuss, Ruth Lister and Jane Lewis. In addition to total citations, it presents citations per year, and ‘Social Policy citations’ (i.e. the use made of the work within the discipline of Social Policy). This list is headed by Gosta Esping‐Andersen and Paul Pierson, with the leading social policy writer being Jane Lewis. This article presents a set of the ‘most plausible contenders’ for the works with greatest influence within Social Policy or ‘Social Policy's Greatest Hits’. It is concluded that, even with its flaws, bibliometrics is an important approach to exploring the vast field of Social Policy.     

Data envelopment analysis 1978–2010: A citation-based literature survey

This study surveys the data envelopment analysis (DEA) literature by applying a citation-based approach. The main goals are to find a set of papers playing the central role in DEA development and to discover the latest active DEA subareas. A directional network is constructed based on citation relationships among academic papers. After assigning an importance index to each link in the citation network, main DEA development paths emerge. We examine various types of main paths, including local main path, global main path, and multiple main paths. The analysis result suggests, as expected, that Charnes et al. (1978) [Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes E. Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978; 2(6): 429–444] is the most influential DEA paper. The five most active DEA subareas in recent years are identified; among them the “two-stage contextual factor evaluation framework” is relatively more active. Aside from the main path analysis, we summarize basic statistics on DEA journals and researchers. A growth curve analysis hints that the DEA literature’s size will eventually grow to at least double the size of the existing literature.     

Scholarly leadership of the study of leadership: A review of The Leadership Quarterly's second decade, 2000–2009

In a reprise of Lowe and Gardner's (2000) review of The Leadership Quarterly's (LQ) first decade as a premier outlet for scholarly leadership research, we review 353 articles published in LQ during its second decade. Multiple methods were employed to prepare this review, including: interviews with the journal's current Senior Editor and Associate Editors; an assessment of LQ's impact, reputation, and most cited articles through citation analyses; a content analysis of article type (theory, empirical, and methods), contributors (e.g., discipline, nationality, and institutional affiliation), theoretical foundations, research strategies, sample location/type, data collection methods, and analytical procedures; survey and follow-up focus groups conducted with LQ Editorial Review Board members; and qualitative analyses to assess the prevalent themes, contributions, and trends reflected in LQ during its second decade. Drawing from these sources, we describe anticipated directions for future research.