Re: Academic Psychologists and Survey Questions
Not every....
There's the sponsored survey - which will mysteriously support the clients' views.
There's the purely academic research survey, which is what scientific studies should be.
There's the research survey done to aid the production of a paper that will be accepted by the journals and enhance an academic's career prospects.
And, sadly, there are the, arguably numerous, scientific studies that fit in neatly with the conclusions that academic boards want to hear. Because funding for academic research, these days, is very contingent on approval from above. And that in turn is contingent on funding the kind of research that won't upset the politicians/press/donors.
Have to declare an interest here - I'm not an academic- but my teaching used to be very informed by what the academic research was saying about how we acquire reading. Research that seemed to dry up once the Behaviourist and business lobbies were able to impose the view that Reading = =Phonics ( and a certain type of phonics that is coincidentally very easy to market). All the academic research that crossed my desk after that was pretty much useless - even for phonics teaching e.g. comparative studies of phonics acquisition between Croat and Canadian learners ( I may have got the countries wrong, though there were a lot of similar ones so it doesn't matter).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
