Preventing information distortion in the conservation literature

Abstract

At the end of each teaching semester at my university (and no doubt many others) comes the ritual of student evaluations of teaching and units. These evaluations provide not only summary numbers of student opinions expressed on Likert scales but also qualitative written comments from students on the learning and teaching experience. While there are plenty of critics of the value of these evaluations in assessing the quality of teaching, many institutions do take them seriously and ask academics to include them in tenure and promotion applications. Academics vary greatly in how they use the evaluations. Some cherry pick them for good results, quoting favourable comments and statistics to showcase the best in their teaching as perceived by students. Others are more reflective, using negative comments to develop plans for improvement. Still others blend the results from the student evaluations with other commentary such as peer feedback, employer comments or reflections from graduates on how their experience did (or didn’t) prepare them for the workforce. A similar diversity of approaches can be used when assembling evidence for academic writing. Authors can assemble data or literature selectively to make a case while discarding alternative opinions or evidence, or acknowledge alternative views or multiple strands of evidence before reaching conclusions. In any controversy, authors tend to argue that their opponents take the first approach, but may conveniently forget that they are following it themselves. I am no more immune to this than anyone else, but I will take the risk of being called a hypocrite by opening the issue of distortion in data representation and in the use of the scientific literature.