Confirmational Response Bias and the Quality of the Editorial Processes Among American Social Work Journals

Abstract

Objective: To experimentally test for confirmational response bias among social work journals and to assess the time-liness and quality of the referee review process. Method: A positive and a negative version of two stimulus articles were sent to two randomized groups of 31 social work journals; journals were stratified by prestige; the timeliness of journal responses were recorded; four judges rated the quality of referee reviews against a high-quality referee review from a prestigious clinical psychology journal. Results: The differences in acceptance rates between positive and negative versions of the stimulus articles were significant in one case and not significant in the other. Combining the results of this experiment with a previous experiment produced significant results overall; the quality of 73.5% of the referee reviews were inadequate. Conclusion: There are substantial problems of bias, timeliness, and quality in the editorial decisions and review processes of social work journals.