12 Disseminating the Results of Research
12.1 Introduction
In this final chapter, I describe important processes and structures for disseminating (i.e., broadcasting, publishing, etc.) the results of your research.
Naturally, methods for dissemination will evolve across time. Today, researchers often share their research via several online platforms, including social media and videos (e.g., YouTube). I encourage you to share your research across all of the platforms that you like.
12.2 Three primary modalities: written, graphic, and spoken
Most scholarly works are presented in primarily written formats. However, there is much truth to the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”. For most people and in many contexts, graphic expressions (e.g., diagrams, charts, photos) are much more intuitive and easy-to-understand than written text. Thus, top-tier journal articles typically include many excellent graphics to aid the reader.
- These are some of the primary advantages of written works and static graphics:
- Any person can consume those works (e.g., via reading or visual inspection) as quickly or as slowly as they prefer.
- The consumer can quickly/easily jump around from one section to another to find the information that they believe is most pertinent to them.
More recently, the ubiquity of audio–video recording devices has enabled a dramatic increase in researchers who use spoken modalities (e.g., podcasts, recorded interviews) to disseminate their research via the internet. Depending on your interests, you may enjoy acquiring some basic audio–video production skills to create your own audio–video dissemination products—or you can collaborate with other persons who can help you do those things.
- These are some of the primary advantages of audio–video works:
- The general population tends to enjoy and share audio–video content more than written works or static graphics. Thus, audio–video content can end up spreading quickly across a large proportion of the general population.
- Visual metaphors or visual examples can often be conveyed in a manner that is easier to understand than in writing or a static graphic.
However, an important limitation of audio–video works is that it is often difficult or time-consuming for the consumer to jump around to the parts that they believe are most pertinent to them. Searchable and navigable transcripts can help mitigate those difficulties, but those features are often “luxuries” that aren’t available on many platforms.
One technique to get the “best of both worlds” is to produce a written work that includes useful graphics (e.g., a scholarly journal article), and then also produce one or multiple audio–video works that summarize or emphasize portions of the main written work.
12.3 The APA JARS
The American Psychological Association (APA) encourages all psychologists to adhere to its Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS).
The JARS were introduced by the APA in 2008 and then updated several times since then.
The JARS contain specific guidelines for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research, and the guidelines are organized according to various types of research-designs such as experiments, non-experiments, meta-analyses, longitudinal studies, and more.
Many of the guidelines are about the design of your entire research project (including your data-collection), not just your manuscript.
Anytime you or your team start thinking about doing a research project, it’s a good idea to read the relevant sections of the JARS so that you can design your entire project to adhere to the JARS. Otherwise, if you wait to look at the JARS until after you’ve already collected your data, it will likely be too late for you to change many features of your research design to adhere to the JARS.
Here’s a good tip: as you and your team are designing a research project, use the JARS as a checklist for the research design. Then, as you and your team are writing the manuscript, use the JARS as a checklist for the manuscript.
The APA Publication Manual is another excellent resource for writing a manuscript. It explains the proper structure and format of an APA-style manuscript. However, researchers who are unfamiliar with APA-style mustn’t feel intimidated by it, because reviewers and editors will almost always accept a good manuscript even if it doesn’t perfectly adhere to all of the small details of APA-style.
12.4 The peer-review process
You might remember in Chapter 5 I briefly mentioned I would discuss the peer-review process in this chapter. We’ve arrived!
In the context of scholarly works, peer-review is the process in which other scholars (called peer-reviewers or simply reviewers) read and provide feedback about a manuscript before they decide whether to recommend that the manuscript be published.
Historically, and still today, peer-reviewers are not paid for their service. Most researchers perform peer-reviews because they believe in the importance of the peer-review process to produce rigorous research publications. There are debates about whether it would be better to restructure the incentives for reviewers and authors—but those debates are beyond the scope of this book.
There are several traditional reasons why reviewers are not paid. One reason is based on a concern that money will incentivize the reviewers to do hasty/poor-quality reviews to get paid more money for more reviews. Some argue that money will subvert the pure motive to help the scientific process for its own sake. Either way, many ideas for improving the peer-review process are slowly being implemented in journals.
Here’s how the peer-review process works in a journal:
Most journals are led by a journal editor who typically makes the final decision about whether to publish a manuscript into the journal.
Submitting a manuscript: The author of a manuscript must decide which journal they want to submit their manuscript into. Traditionally, authors submit their manuscript to only one journal at a time—they do not send it to multiple journals at once. That is because the peer-review process takes a lot of volunteer time and effort from the journal editor and reviewers, and their time and effort would be wasted if the author were to send their manuscript into multiple journals at once, because only one journal can publish the manuscript (two journals won’t publish the same exact article).
Anonymizing: The journal editor will typically require that the authors anonymize their manuscripts, such that they don’t contain the names of the authors nor any other information that would easily reveal the authors’ identities. The purpose of that is to help ensure the reviewers base their reviews solely on the merits of the manuscript, instead of the author’s relationships or reputations. That is called a double-blind peer-review (or double-anonymized review, or double-masked review), because the author(s) don’t know the identities of the reviewers who are assigned to their manuscript, and the reviewers also don’t know the identities of the authors. (Some journals allow the reviewers to know the identities of the authors, and other journals reveal the reviewers’ identities on the published version of the article.) Thus, the reviewers don’t directly communicate with the authors.
Reviewing: The editor picks one or multiple reviewers (typically two) who are known as experts on the topics of the manuscript. The reviewers individually read the manuscript and write their reviews, which they send only to the editor. Depending on the journal, this can take anywhere from weeks to months.
Editor’s final decision: If the reviews point out many flaws or indicate the manuscript isn’t a good fit with the journal’s scope, the editor might decide to reject the manuscript. Otherwise, they might invite the authors to revise and resubmit (R&R) their manuscript for a second round of reviews. Either way, if the manuscript reaches a point where the editor is happy with it and/or happy with the reviews, the editor will accept the manuscript for publication in the journal.
12.5 Conferences
A scholarly conference is a (typically large) meeting (typically hosted by a professional organization or a university) where researchers share and discuss original work (e.g., via poster sessions, workshops, etc.), typically after the work is peer-reviewed specifically for that conference by other attendees. For many attendees, the purpose of the meeting is typically:
- meeting potential new collaborators and friends
- obtaining immediate feedback on one’s work
- fast dissemination of one’s work
In the past, conferences were very important for fast dissemination of written works, especially before the existence of the internet. However, because the internet enables researchers to share their results immediately across the world, nowadays one of the primary purposes of conferences is social. Humans are social creatures, and we enjoy meeting new people who enjoy the same things we enjoy, and catching up with old friends. Thus, if you want to make friends in a domain of research, I encourage you to focus on the social aspects of conferences.
Besides socializing, conferences are still a venue for researchers to share their research results. In the domain of Psychology, researchers often present their results at a conference to collect feedback from other attendees, and then after the conference they submit their manuscript to a journal. However, after a manuscript has been published in a journal article, it is not acceptable to submit that same manuscript for a conference.
In most domains of science and/or research, it is typically not acceptable to submit research to a conference if the research was previously presented at a conference. This has been traditionally viewed as wasting the time of the attendees. However, some scholarly domains allow it under special circumstances and with clear disclosure that the presentation is a repeat.
There are countless formats that a conference organizer could include in their conference. Here are some of the most common formats:
poster session: researchers bring a printed poster (typically with large visual elements, rather than a ton of text) that summarizes their research project, and dozens of those posters are hung in a large room. Authors stand near their poster to be ready to discuss their project with anyone who is interested, while dozens (or even hundreds) of attendees mingle throughout the room to chat. Poster sessions are a great place to meet new people.
panel session: a small group of experts is assembled to chat about a topic in front of an audience. The panel is typically led by a moderator who asks questions and helps to ensure each panelist is given a fair amount of time to speak. The session is typically one hour or so.
symposium: a collection of back-to-back short presentations on one theme presented to one audience. Typically, there is a designated person called a discussant who is an expert on the theme of the symposium and provides commentary and/or critiques on the research presented. The session is typically one hour or so.
12.5.1 Professional Organizations for IWO Psychologists
Most conferences are organized by professional organizations (also known as professional associations, professional societies, or professional bodies) such as the APA and SIOP (the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology). Just within the APA, there are at least 50 divisions that focus on specific aspects of psychology, and each of those divisions hosts their own conferences and fosters their own communities. Thus, you can easily find a community that enjoys the same topics as you.
For a list of all of APA’s divisions, see: https://www.apa.org/about/division.
There are countless professional organizations that IWO Psychologists engage in. Below is a small list of some popular ones. You should search for other ones that may be more specifically focused on your interests.
More specific to IWO/Management/HR:
- SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology)
- AOM (Academy of Management)
- SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management)
- ATD (Association for Talent Development)
- SMA (Southern Management Association)
- EAWOP (European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology)
Broadly about psychology (some may have divisions for specific topics):
- APA (American Psychological Association) and its many divisions
- APS (Association for Psychological Science)
- SEPA (Southeastern Psychological Association)
- SWPA (Southwestern Psychological Association)
- WPA (Western Psychological Association)
- EPA (Eastern Psychological Association)
Others:
- SPSP (Society for Personality and Social Psychology)
- AEA (American Evaluation Association)
- INGRoup (International Network for Group Research)
12.6 A relatively new type of scholarly output: pre-prints
You might remember in Section 5.2.1 I described several of the most common types of scholarly outputs, including:
- manuscript: an unpublished written work.
- conference poster: a traditionally physical but now sometimes digital summary of a research project, which is presented on one (typically large) “page” called a poster. The poster is typically dominated by graphics, instead of a ton of text.
- conference paper: a paper that was peer-reviewed by other attendees of the conference and accepted for the conference. The paper is typically the basis for a spoken presentation at the conference, and the paper may be published in a collection of all of the papers from that conference (called the conference proceedings or conference transactions).
- journal article: a written scholarly work (i.e., an article) that is published in a scholarly journal. Most journals are peer-reviewed journals, meaning each article is peer-reviewed before being accepted for publication.
- edited book: a published book that is organized by an editor (whose role is similar to a project leader), typically with multiple contributing authors.
- authored book: a published book that is typically written by only one author.
There is a relatively new type of scholarly output which is called a pre-print. A pre-print is a manuscript that is publicly posted on the internet (typically on a website such as PsyArXiv that is dedicated to hosting pre-prints). Pre-prints are almost always time-stamped (meaning: everyone can see the date and time when the pre-print was uploaded), and they are often assigned a DOI so that readers may easily cite the pre-print, just like they would cite a journal article.
Keep in mind: in the context of scholarly works, the word posted doesn’t have the same meaning as published. In that context, we say something is published if it appears in a journal article or some other outlet that is managed by a publisher. We wouldn’t say a pre-print is published, even though it is publicly posted. Pre-prints are manuscripts (i.e., unpublished written works) that are publicly posted on the internet.
Some journals won’t accept a manuscript if it has already been posted as a pre-print. Before you post a pre-print of your manuscript, if you already know you want to eventually submit it to be published in a journal, it would be wise for you to make sure you understand the pre-print policy of the specific journal(s) you’re targeting.
Because pre-prints aren’t subjected to the rigorous peer-review process of journal articles, readers may need to be extra-careful before trusting the validity of any results in a pre-print (experts are generally better at discerning whether a result is valid).
However, there are several reasons why researchers are increasingly posting their manuscripts onto pre-print websites. Here are some:
Many researchers want to make their research results freely available for the benefit of the general public as soon as possible. Whereas most journals require subscriptions or one-time payments for readers to access an article, pre-print websites are free.
Many researchers have become frustrated with lengthy waits for peer-reviews. Long wait-times delay the dissemination of results to the general public.
Researchers question how much better the final peer-reviewed article is, versus the original manuscript, and whether the improvement is worth the lengthy wait.
12.7 Open Science
“Open science is a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefits of scientists and society as a whole.” —UNESCO
There are ongoing debates about the advantages and disadvantages of open science versus alternatives that involve paid subscriptions (e.g., paywalls) and proprietary methods and results that are not publicly shared. Much of the debate boils down to beliefs about what are the appropriate incentive structures to produce the best outcomes (and keep in mind: people disagree about what are the important outcomes to prioritize).
After the widespread availability of the internet in the early 2000s, interest in Open Science started growing at a rapid pace. Journals are increasingly offering authors the option to make their articles Open Access (i.e., publicly available) if the author pays an upfront fee. Other journals are making all of their articles Open Access by default.
An important resource for Open Science is the Open Science Framework (OSF) which is a free, web-based platform (created by the Center for Open Science) for pre-registering your studies and for sharing research files (including pre-registrations, data, analysis code, pre-prints, etc.).
OSF is also the host of several pre-print servers, including PsyArXiv which is probably the most relevant pre-print server for IWO Psychologists.
When you start a new research project, it’s a good idea to discuss with your team any expectations about how much of the project’s design, methods, data, and results will be open to the public. If you want any or all of your project to be open, you can create a free page for your project on OSF.
IWO Psychologists often work with private companies that aren’t interested in broadcasting their private business. In those situations, the IWO Psychologist can try to negotiate with the company to produce a dataset that hopefully makes it impossible or nearly impossible for anyone to personally identify any persons in the data, or identify any other sensitive information.
12.8 Miscellaneous advice for dissemination
After your written scholarly work is published, consider reaching out to news outlets (e.g., local or national news stations, university news outlets, etc.) and other media outlets (e.g., podcasts and video interviews) to disseminate your findings. Often, to obtain the attention of such outlets, you must be your biggest advocate and reach out to them first.
Consider creating a video summary of your research and posting it onto your team’s YouTube channel or other social media platforms.
You might remember in Section 5.2.2.5 I provided a small list of popular journals that IWO Psychologists publish in. Below, I’m including that same list for your convenience. There are dozens of high-quality journals I omitted from this list, simply because I didn’t want the list to be overwhelming for you. If you’re ever wondering what other journals might be good to look into, a quick internet search should be helpful.
- Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP)
- Personnel Psychology (P. Psych)
- Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior
- Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP)
- Journal of Business and Psychology (JBP)
- Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (JOHP)
- Academy of Management Annals
- Academy of Management Review (AMR)
- Human Resource Management Review
- Academy of Management Journal (AMJ)
- American Psychologist
- Psychological Bulletin