Publication Pressure and Burn Out among Dutch Medical Professors: A Nationwide Survey

Tijdink, Joeri K.; Vergouwen, A. C. M.; Smulders, Yvo M.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073381

Cited by 93 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Early-and mid-career scientists have expressed concerns that competition and publication pressures negatively affect how science is done (Anderson, Horn, et al, 2007), and academic age has been found to be negatively correlated with experienced publication pressure (Tijdink et al, 2013). This may lead established scientists to believe that early-career scientists are more likely to engage in QRPs (and thus fit the storybook image less well) than PhD students and established scientists, but studies comparing self-admitted usage of QRPs and misbehavior between scientists of different career-stages have yielded mixed results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, a meta-analysis including studies from various fields of science showed that over 14% of scientists claimed that they had witnessed serious misconduct by their peers, and that up to 72% of scientists reported to have witnessed questionable research practices (Fanelli, 2009). Third, publication pressure and competition in science are perceived as high (Tijdink et al, 2014;Tijdink, Vergouwen, & Smulders, 2013), while scientists have expressed concerns that competition "contributes to strategic game-playing in science, a decline in free and open sharing of information and methods, sabotage of others' ability to use one's work, interference with peer-review processes, deformation of relationships, and careless or questionable research conduct" (Anderson, Horn, et al, 2007). Based on these reports, one would expect scientists' belief in the storybook image of the scientist to be low compared to lay people's belief.…”

Section: "Scientists Are Human and So Sometimes Do Not Behave As Thementioning

confidence: 99%

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Doctoral thesis: The human fallibility of scientists - dealing with error and bias in academic research

Veldkamp¹

2017

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THE HUMAN FALLIBILITY OF SCIENTISTSDealing with error and bias in academic researchRecent studies have highlighted that not all published findings in the scientific literature are trustworthy, suggesting that currently implemented control mechanisms such as high standards for the reporting of research methods and results, peer review, and replication, are not sufficient. In psychology in particular, solutions are sought to deal with poor reproducibility and replicability of research results. In this dissertation project I considered these problems from the perspective that the scien¬tific enterprise must better recognize the human fallibility of scientists, and I examined potential solutions aimed at dealing with human error and bias in psychological science. First, I studied whether the human fallibility of scientists is actually recognized (Chapter 2). I examined the degree to which scientists and lay people believe in the storybook image of the scientist: the image that scientists are more objective, rational, open-minded, intelligent, honest and communal than other human beings. The results suggested that belief in this storybook image is strong, particularly among scientists themselves. In addition, I found indications that scientists believe that scientists like themselves fit the storybook image better than other scientists. I consider scientist’s lack of acknowledgement of their own fallibility problematic, because I believe that critical self-reflection is the first line of defense against potential human error aggravated by confirmation bias, hindsight bias, motivated reasoning, and other human cognitive biases that could affect any professional in their work. Then I zoomed in on psychological science and focused on human error in the use of null the most widely used statistical framework in psychology: hypothesis significance testing (NHST). In Chapters 3 and 4, I examined the prevalence of errors in the reporting of statistical results in published articles, and evaluated a potential best practice to reduce such errors: the so called ‘co-pilot model of statistical analysis’. This model entails a simple code of conduct prescribing that statistical analyses are always conducted independently by at least two persons (typically co-authors). Using statcheck, a software package that is able to quickly retrieve and check statistical results in large sets of published articles, I replicated the alarmingly high error rates found in earlier studies. Although I did not find support for the effectiveness of the co-pilot model in reducing these errors, I proposed several ways to deal with human error in (psychological) research and suggested how the effectiveness of the proposed practices might be studied in future research. Finally, I turned to the risk of bias in psychological science. Psychological data can often be analyzed in many different ways. The often arbitrary choices that researchers face in analyzing their data are called researcher degrees of freedom. Researchers might be tempted to use these researcher degrees of freedom in an opportunistic manner in their pursuit of statistical significance (often called p-hacking). This is problematic because it renders research results unreliable. In Chapter 5 I presented a list of researcher degrees of freedom in psychological studies, focusing on the use of NHST. This list can be used to assess the potential for bias in psychological studies, it can be used in research methods education, and it can be used to examine the effectiveness of a potential solution to restrict oppor¬tunistic use of RDFs: study pre-registration. Pre-registration requires researchers to stipulate in advance the research hypothesis, data collection plan, data analyses, and what will be reported in the paper. Different forms of pre-registration are currently emerging in psychology, mainly varying in terms of the level of detail with respect to the research plan they require researchers to provide. In Chapter 6, I assessed the extent to which current pre-registrations restricted opportunistic use of the researcher degrees of freedom on the list presented in Chapter 5. We found that most pre-registrations were not sufficiently restrictive, but that those that were written following better guidelines and requirements restricted opportunistic use of researcher degrees of freedom considerably better than basic pre-registrations that were written following a limited set of guidelines and requirements. We concluded that better instructions, specific questions, and stricter requirements are necessary in order for pre-registrations to do what they are supposed to do: to protect researchers from their own biases.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: "Scientists Are Human and So Sometimes Do Not Behave As Thementioning

confidence: 99%

Doctoral thesis: The human fallibility of scientists - dealing with error and bias in academic research

Veldkamp¹

2017

Preprint

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“…This concern is understandable in a scientific scenario where researchers are pressured to increase their production of articles for publication, putting at risk the quality and validity of the results presented 33 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integridade científica e pesquisa em saúde no Brasil: revisão da literatura

Pádua

Guilhem

2015

Rev. Bioét.

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Brazil is a country with an emerging and rapidly expanding body of scientific research, and is correspondingly experiencing a significant increase in investment in research and researcher training. It is important to verify the quality and reliability of the knowledge arising from such research, in terms of integrity and adherence to good scientific practices. The aim of this study was to provide an overview scientific integrity in Brazil through an analysis of studies published in scientific journals. A systematic review of the SciELO, PuBMed, LILACS/ IBECS and Web of Science electronic databases was performed, using keywords to select the relevant studies. Following application of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 19 publications were selected and classified into six previously defined categories. However, discussion of scientific integrity remains incipient in Brazil. The subjects discussed were plagiarism and conflicts of interest regarding authorship. Early adherence to principles of integrity are important in the academic training of researchers and young scientists. Keywords: Bioethics. Ethics, research. Scientific integrity review. Scientific misconduct. Fraud. Brazil. ResumoIntegridade científica e pesquisa em saúde no Brasil: revisão da literatura O Brasil é um país com ciência emergente, em rápida expansão, apresentando aumento significativo nos investimentos destinados à pesquisa e capacitação de pesquisadores. Torna-se importante verificar a qualidade e confiabilidade do conhecimento produzido, considerando a aderência aos critérios de integridade e às boas práticas científicas. Buscou-se traçar um panorama sobre o tema da integridade científica no Brasil por meio da análise de reflexões e pesquisas publicadas em periódicos científicos. Foi realizada revisão sistemática nos bancos de dados eletrônicos SciELO, PuBMed, Lilacs/Ibecs, Scopus e Web of Science, utilizando-se palavras--chave para capturar os artigos. Após aplicação dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão, foram selecionadas 19 publicações, agrupadas em seis categorias previamente definidas. A discussão sobre a integridade científica é ainda incipiente no Brasil. Os assuntos mais discutidos foram plágio e conflitos de interesses sobre autoria. Torna-se necessária a abordagem precoce desses conhecimentos no processo de formação acadêmica de pesquisadores e jovens cientistas. Palavras-chave: Bioética. Ética em pesquisa. Revisão de integridade científica. Má conduta científica. Fraude. Brasil. Resumen Integridad científica y investigación en salud en el Brasil: revisión de literaturaEl Brasil es un país con ciencia emergente, en rápida expansión, con aumento significativo de investimentos destinados a investigación y capacitación de investigadores. Así, es importante verificar la calidad y confiabilidad de los conocimientos producidos, considerándose la adherencia a los requisitos de integridad y buenas prácticas científicas. Se buscó el objetivo de esbozar un panorama sobre el tema de la integridad científica en el Brasil a través del an...

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“…At the same time, clinical faculty and residents are facing increased pressure to publish [18,19], and writing a case report is a relatively quick and easy way to engage in scholarship. To meet a growing demand for venues in which to publish case reports, new peer-reviewed journals that focus-sometimes exclusively-on publishing case reports have rapidly emerged over the last several years ( Figure 1).…”

Publication Pressure and Burn Out among Dutch Medical Professors: A Nationwide Survey

Cited by 93 publications

References 33 publications

Doctoral thesis: The human fallibility of scientists - dealing with error and bias in academic research

Doctoral thesis: The human fallibility of scientists - dealing with error and bias in academic research

Integridade científica e pesquisa em saúde no Brasil: revisão da literatura

New journals for publishing medical case reports

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