Making peer review evidence-based: It’s time to open the "black box"

Both qualitative and quantitative-oriented journals play a key role in the cultivation and dissemination of social work knowledge. Editors and peer reviewers support this role –ostensibly – by serving as a form of quality control. Though the published literature is in some ways validated by prepublication peer review, errors, omissions, and even cases of outright fraud are inevitably published, contaminating the professional literature. Publishers and journal editors have a series of tools at their disposal to respond, such as errata, corrigenda, and expressions of concern. In extreme cases (e.g., fraud, research misconduct, plagiarism), a paper may be retracted and removed from the published record altogether. When appraising journals or publishers, the presence of retractions is not necessarily problematic – in moderation, this may indicate a robust ability to self-correct. However, when retractions are scarce or altogether absent, it may signify suboptimal mechanisms for self-correction within both journals and the broader scientific community. The preliminary analysis presented here suggests this latter scenario is likely the case for the discipline of social work – where retractions are effectively absent at ten leading journals. This is curious, given the notable increases in retractions across the biomedical and social sciences over the past few decades. Reasons for this absence are explored and recommendations to enhance the integrity of social work research and journals are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on tools editors and peer reviewers can employ now.

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