Assessment, especially when linked to an infrastructure of rewards for successful performance, is a powerful driver of people's behaviour. In the context of publications it is therefore important that assessment tools focus on what is genuinely constitutive of the quality of educational research (i.e. intrinsic characteristics of quality) rather than on short cuts, which may be easier to quantify but which are only related to quality in highly contingent circumstances (i.e. extrinsic characteristics such as citation indices). Drawing on the European Educational Research Quality Indicators project, this article identifies some of the perhaps unwanted consequences of different approaches to quality assessment.
References
1.
AdlerN.HarzingA.-W. (2009) When Knowledge Wins: Transcending the sense and nonsense of academic rankings, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 8(1), 72–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/AMLE.2009.37012181.
BridgesD. (2006) The International and the Excellent in Educational Research, in SmeyersP.DepaepeM. (Eds) Educational Research: Why what works doesn't work. Dordrecht: Springer.
4.
BridgesD.SmeyersP.SmithR.D. (2009) Evidence-based Education Policy: What evidence? What basis? Whose policy?Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
5.
ChengL.WatanabeY.CurtisA., (Eds) (2004) Washback in Language Testing: Research contexts and methods. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
FairbairnH.HolbrookA.BourkeS.PrestonG.CantwellR.ScevakJ. (2008) A Profile of Education Journals. Paper presented at Australian Association for Research in Education 2008 International Education Research Conference, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 30 November–4 December.
8.
GingrasY. (2008) La Fièvre de l'évaluation de la recherché: Du mauvais usage de faux indicateurs. Montreal: Interuniversity Research Centre on Science and Technology.
9.
GoodhartC.A.E. (1983) Monetary Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
10.
Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) (2009) Research Excellence Framework: Second consultation on the assessment and funding of research. Bristol: Higher Education Funding Council for England. www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2009/08_39 (accessed 26 June 2011).
11.
OanceaA. (2010) The Impacts of RAE 2008 on Education Research in the UK: Main report. Macclesfield: British Educational Research Association & Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers.
12.
PA Consulting Group (2009) RAE 2008: Accountability review. Bristol: Higher Education Funding Council for England.
SmeyersP.BurbulesN. (2011) How to Improve Your Impact Factor: Questioning the quantification of academic quality, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45(1), 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9752.2011.00787.x.
15.
SmeyersP.LeveringB. (2000) Educational Research: Language and content. Lessons in Publication Policies from the Low Countries, British Journal of Educational Studies, 48(1), 70–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467–8527.00134.
16.
StrathernM. (1997) ‘Improving Ratings’: Audit in the British university system, European Review, 5, 305–321.
