Research Symposium

BIO

Daniel is a first year English major at FSU. He is from Bethesda, MD. His research interests span from English literature to meta-research.

Peer Review in Social Work Journals

Abstract

Our project researches the peer review process of social work journal. We hope to assess the
effectiveness of the peer review process in these journals with the eventual goal of providing input
necessary to improve said process. There have been limited prior studies into this issue, but none have
been executed currently. Additionally, we plan to take a more focused view of the specific areas for
improvement necessary. Our study takes the form of a survey of those who have published work in the
top peer review journals. We plan to frame our study of peer review with respect to reviewer comments
on submitted manuscripts, paying special attention to respectfulness of comments, helpfulness of
comments, and disagreement between reviewers. We compiled a list of peer reviewers from top social
work colleges and sent our survey with some randomized incentives in the form of gift cards. We then analyzed and assessed the results for the primary problem areas in order to make suggestions for
improvements.

Keywords: Social Work Peer Review