JEPS Bulletin

Why meta-analysis? A guide through basic steps and common biases

Meta: meta- combining form. From Greek meta ‘with, across, or after.’ Pertaining to a level above or beyond.

Analysis: analysis |əˈnaləsis| noun. From Greek analuō ‘I unravel, investigate’. Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something,

Often times, researchers and students find themselves going through a dense amount of papers on a certain topic only to find results that don’t really seem to point towards a coherent or homogenous conclusion. Does this treatment work?
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Luís Miguel Tojo

Luís Miguel Tojo is a MSc student in Cognitive Neuroscience (Neuropsychology) at Maastricht University, Netherlands, since 2012, having finished his BSc in Psychological Sciences at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He is currently Vice President of EFPSA (2013-2014) and has been the Research Officer for the Junior Researcher Programme since early 2012. His research interests cover neuroprotective factors against neurodegenerative diseases and brain insults, and neuropsychopharmacological approaches to mental illness.

On the Importance of Behavioural Research

The overarching point of this article will be to convey that behavioural psychology may be out-of-fashion, but still has many things to contribute to modern psychology.

All science is ultimately born of philosophy (see Pepper, 1942) and therefore there is no reason why this science should play second fiddle to any other. However, in the rat race to make strides in the science of behaviour, principles of science are often discarded in favour of convenience. The dominant school of thought in psychology at present is cognitivism. This school adopts a predominantly top-down approach to psychology. This involves simplifying phenomena into their perceived component parts, in order to study them. This phenomenon may constitute a set back for the way research is conducted and human behavior ultimately conceptualized. Allow me to illustrate why this is a problem.

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Shane McLoughlin

Shane McLoughlin is a graduate of the Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dun Laoghaire, who awarded him with a B.Sc. in Applied Psychology in 2012. He is currently researching and writing on the modern behavioural science of Relational Frame Theory, an approach to language and cognition. His research interests are rooted in the philosophy of science, particularly applied to the study of effective thinking and fallacies which lead to ineffective thinking.

How to Design Effective Figures for Journal Articles

Graphics and figures we design are the first thing editors and other readers look at when browsing through our paper. Hence, it is prominent to be efficient in conveying complex information so the included data would be more concise and clear than the descriptive text itself. If you do it right, not only your chances for publication will increase, but it will as well help your audience to understand your ideas, objectives and results in a better way. So, in short, keep them interested. Want to know how to do it? I bet that the answer is yes. So, follow me! Continue reading →

Magdalena Kossowska

Magdalena Eliza Kossowska is a Psychologist, Project Manager, and Recruiter. She has volunteered for various NGOs (including EFPSA, AEGEE, Polish Psychologists Association), and participated in scholarships in Prague, Czech Republic; Tromso, Norway; and London, United Kingdom. She is interested in organisational, cross cultural, as well as cognitive psychology.

A Change of View: Using Visual Methods to Explore Experience in Qualitative Research

The topic of this bulletin arose from a talk given by Dr. Anna Bagnoli, who had used a variety of visual methods in addition to verbal interviews in order to holistically study young people’s identities. Intrigued by the question of how such data could be collected and analysed to contribute to understandings of psychological topics, the author of this post recently carried out an interview with Dr. Bagnoli on behalf of the Open University Psychological Society (Rouse, 2013). In this bulletin post the author will share what she has learnt from this interview and by researching the use of visual methods to explore experience and meaning.

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Lorna Rouse

Lorna graduated from the Open University in 2009 with a BSc (honours) in psychology and is currently studying for an MSc in Psychological Research Methods at Anglia Ruskin University. Lorna has worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Cambridge, providing support for studies investigating recovery from traumatic brain injury. In her spare time she organises events for the Cambridge branch of the Open University Psychological Society. She is particularly interested in qualitative research methods and intellectual disabilities.

Why We Publish: The Past, Present, and Future of Science Communication

Why We Publish-Recovered
Have you ever wondered which scientific journal was the first of its kind? Or why there are scientific publications at all? In this post you will learn how far we have come since the first journals, what it means to communicate science today and what the future might hold for traditional journals and publishers.

Probably these issues crossed your mind, but you never found the time to dig deeper. I don’t blame you. It’s tough to be a young and upcoming researcher these days. Today’s advances in scientific literature are so fast-paced that it can be hard to keep up, let alone ask such remote questions.

At the same time I think you will agree that it may be useful (or, just plain interesting) to have a broader perspective on how scientific journals came to be and how this might help us understand today’s publishing landscape. This article will guide you through the different stages of science communication, going back to ancient civilizations, the invention of the printing press, all the way to a present where to “publish or perish” is the name of the game and restrictions in the access to science are an harsh reality. Continue reading →

Pedro Almeida

Pedro Almeida is a graduate student and research assistant at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. His main research interests are evolutionary psychology and the intersection between marketing and psychology. Previously, he worked as an Editor for the Journal of European Psychology Students (JEPS).

Unpaid Psychology Positions – A Graduate’s Perspective

For a present-day psychology graduate it can sometimes seem like one has entered the profession at the wrong time. Last year shone a glaring spotlight on fraud and misconduct in scientific research, the Reproducibility Project and Psych File Drawer began to prise open a lack of replication in psychological literature, and there was criticism and concern over an increasing number of unpaid research assistant/assistant psychologist jobs in the U.K. However this self-reflection and criticism should be seen as an opportunity for correction, and ultimately, a gradual change within the profession.

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Laura Rai

Why Are Most Research Findings Incorrect?

Some of you might have asked themselves this question a couple of times when checking out the literature of a specific field. Imagine the following situation: You have completed your research and now you want to compare your results to research done previously. You finally found the suitable article, have the necessary effect sizes/power and can start comparing. But wait: Who actually tells you that the reported results are correct? Would you happen to notice if the results had been influenced by factors which are sometimes not even visible to the authors themselves? The probability of you detecting them, are tiny, especially as you only have certain information of how the study has been done and what elements have been removed. It is hard to digest, but most research findings, even those reported in high quality journals, are incorrect. Try to imagine the impact this situation has on your education and your research such as research in general.

In the following post I want to discuss multiple factors of why and how research results can be false and want to outline some aspects of how the situation might be improved. The main aspects are thereby retrieved from Ioannidis essay (2005). Continue reading →

Sarah Honolka

How to Read and Get the Most Out of a Journal Article

Journal articles are read by researchers or students for various reasons, but mainly, for reviewing for conferences, classes, research projects, or simply to keep up with the latest developments in one’s field of interest. However, effective reading skills are rarely taught or brought up for discussion as a prominent issue that needs more attention. Thus, many of us spend hundreds of useless hours trying to master this skill. Why not to save ourselves time and effort by following just few simple steps?

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