{"id":499,"date":"2017-04-07T11:39:33","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/?p=499"},"modified":"2017-04-07T11:42:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:42:34","slug":"rigour-in-journal-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/?p=499","title":{"rendered":"Rigour in journal articles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>These points are taken from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bera.ac.uk\/event\/critical-and-theoretical-approaches-to-edtech-research\">a talk by Sara Hennessy<\/a> about assessing rigour in papers submitted to the B<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/journal\/10.1111\/(ISSN)1467-8535\">ritish Journal of Educational Technolog<\/a>y.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is the account analytical or purely descriptive?<\/li>\n<li>Do the authors critique the literature and present a balanced account or does the review gloss over known issues with educational technology initiatives?<\/li>\n<li>How do the theoretical assumptions and explanations of the case compare with alternative explanations?<\/li>\n<li>Are links made in the discussion\/conclusions back to the conceptual framework?<\/li>\n<li>Are the findings critically interpreted in relation to the existing literature?<\/li>\n<li>Do the research questions convey genuine inquiry or do they assume that educational technology is a Good Thing?<\/li>\n<li>What is the theory of change?<\/li>\n<li>Were there any potential sources of bias?<\/li>\n<li>What measures were taken to counter them? eg were any counter examples sought when collecting and analysing data?<\/li>\n<li>Does reporting seem selective? Are the analyses systematic and explicit? Is the account reflective and evaluative?<\/li>\n<li>Was there any kind of control in a technology intervention design?<\/li>\n<li>Are there threats to validity and reliability? Does inadequate control of extraneous factors threaten validity of theoretical inferences from data?<\/li>\n<li>Are limitations acknowledged?<\/li>\n<li>Could reactivity have played a role? Did novelty value of shiny new tools increase motivation?<\/li>\n<li>How robust are the claims \u2013 how adequately is the argument supported by the evidence provided?<\/li>\n<li>Does the sampling strategy permit empirical generalization to a larger population?<\/li>\n<li>Who is the audience? Is the work relevant and current?<\/li>\n<li>Are there clear conclusions that generalized beyond specific case\/context? Do they apply in other institutions?<\/li>\n<li>Is the work applicable \/ of interest in other countries? Is the focus overly parochial?<\/li>\n<li>Is educational technology serving only the privileged in developing countries who already have access?<\/li>\n<li>SES and gender inequity, rural\/urban divide, language, computer literacy, bandwidth and intermittent connectivity \/ electricity maintenance, technical support, gatekeepers \/ stakeholders, culturally appropriate content\u2026.<\/li>\n<li>Is the research innovative or, at least, original<\/li>\n<li>What is the significance and contribution to existing knowledge \u2013 theory? methodology? empirical data?<\/li>\n<li>Has the innovation been tested with real users?<\/li>\n<li>Are there any convincing learning outcomes?<\/li>\n<li>Are there explicit implications for practice? Policy?<\/li>\n<li>Many reports of interventions motivated by \u2018how can I use\u2026\u2019 rather than educational need<\/li>\n<li>How is it used, by and with whom, how often, for what purpose, under what conditions, with what support\u2026<\/li>\n<li>What is the role of the teacher? Has pedagogy-focused professional development been offered? What cultural shift in teacher and learner roles is necessary?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These points are taken from a talk by Sara Hennessy about assessing rigour in papers submitted to the British Journal of Educational Technology. Is the account analytical or purely descriptive? Do the authors critique the literature and present a balanced account or does the review gloss over known issues with educational technology initiatives? How do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,60],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-professional-development","tag-bjet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}