Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.

A case of hybrid research design?

When is "a case study" not a case study? Perhaps when it is (nearly) an experiment?

Keith S. Taber

I read this interesting study exploring learners shifting conceptions of the particulate nature of gases.

Mamombe, C., Mathabathe, K. C., & Gaigher, E. (2020). The influence of an inquiry-based approach on grade four learners' understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase: a case study. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(1), 1-11. doi:10.29333/ejmste/110391

Key features:

  • Science curriculum context: the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase
  • Educational context: Grade 4 students in South Africa
  • Pedagogic context: Teacher-initiated inquiry approach (compared to a 'lecture' condition/treatment)
  • Methodology: "qualitative pre-test/post-test case study design" – or possibly a quasi-experiment?
  • Population/sample: the sample comprised 116 students from four grade four classes, two from each of two schools

This study offers some interesting data, providing evidence of how students represent their conceptions of the particulate nature of gases. What most intrigued me about the study was its research design, which seemed to reflect an unusual hybrid of quite distinct methodologies.

In this post I look at whether the study is indeed a case study as the authors suggest, or perhaps a kind of experiment. I also make some comments about the teaching model of the states of matter presented to the learners, and raise the question of whether the comparison condition (lecturing 8-9 year old children about an abstract scientific model) is appropriate, and indeed ethical.

Learners' conceptions of the particulate nature of matter

This paper is well worth reading for anyone who is not familiar with existing research (such as that cited in the paper) describing how children make sense of the particulate nature of matter, something that many find counter-intuitive. As a taster for this, I reproduce here two figures from the paper (which is published open access under a creative common license* that allows sharing and adaption of copyright material with due acknowledgement).

  • Pre-test data from Mamombe et al, 2020
  • Post-test data from Mamombe et al, 2020.

Figures © 2020 by the authors of the cited paper *

Conceptions are internal, and only directly available to the epistemic subject, the person holding the conception. (Indeed, some conceptions may be considered implicit, and so not even available to direct introspection.) In research, participants are asked to represent their understandings in the external 'public space' – often in talk, here by drawing (Taber, 2013). The drawings have to be interpreted by the researchers (during data analysis). In this study the researchers also collected data from group work during learning (in the enquiry condition) and by interviewing students.

What kind of research design is this?

Mamombe and colleagues describe their study as "a qualitative pre-test/post-test case study design with qualitative content analysis to provide more insight into learners' ideas of matter in the gaseous phase" (p. 3), yet it has many features of an experimental study.

The study was

"conducted to explore the influence of inquiry-based education in eliciting learners' understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase"

p.1

The experiment compared two pedagogical treatments :

  • "inquiry-based teaching…teacher-guided inquiry method" (p.3) guided by "inquiry-based instruction as conceptualized in the 5Es instructional model" (p.5)
  • "direct instruction…the lecture method" (p.3)

These pedagogic approaches were described:

"In the inquiry lessons learners were given a lot of materials and equipment to work with in various activities to determine answers to the questions about matter in the gaseous phase. The learners in the inquiry lessons made use of their observations and made their own representations of air in different contexts."

"the teacher gave probing questions to learners who worked in groups and constructed different models of their conceptions of matter in the gaseous phase. The learners engaged in discussion and asked the teacher many questions during their group activities. Each group of learners reported their understanding of matter in the gaseous phase to the class"

p.5, p.1

"In the lecture lessons learners did not do any activities. They were taught in a lecturing style and given all the notes and all the necessary drawings.

In the lecture classes the learners were exposed to lecture method which constituted mainly of the teacher telling the learners all they needed to know about the topic PNM [particulate nature of matter]. …During the lecture classes the learners wrote a lot of notes and copied a lot of drawings. Learners were instructed to paste some of the drawings in their books."

pp.5-6

The authors report that,

"The learners were given clear and neat drawings which represent particles in the gaseous, liquid and solid states…The following drawing was copied by learners from the chalkboard."

p.6
Figure used to teach learners in the 'lecture' condition. Figure © 2020 by the authors of the cited paper *
A teaching model of the states of matter

This figure shows increasing separation between particles moving from solid to liquid to gas. It is not a canonical figure, in that the spacing in a liquid is not substantially greater than in a solid (indeed, in ice floating on water the spacing is greater in the solid), whereas the difference in spacing in the two fluid states is under-represented.

Such figures do not show the very important dynamic aspect: that in a solid particles can usually only oscillate around a fixed position (a very low rate of diffusion not withstanding), where in a liquid particles can move around, but movement is restricted by the close arrangement of (and intermolecular forces between) the particles, where in a gas there is a significant mean free path between collisions where particles move with virtually constant velocity. A static figure like this, then, does not show the critical differences in particle interactions which are core to the basic scientific model

Perhaps even more significant, figure 2 suggests there is the same level of order in the three states, whereas the difference in ordering between a solid and liquid is much more significant than any change in particle spacing.

In teaching, choices have to be made about how to represent science (through teaching models) to learners who are usually not ready to take on board the full details and complexity of scientific knowledge. Here, Figure 2 represents a teaching model where it has been decided to emphasise one aspect of the scientific model (particle spacing) by distorting the canonical model, and to neglect other key features of the basic scientific account (particle movement and arrangement).

External teachers taught the classes

The teaching was undertaken by two university lecturers

"Two experienced teachers who are university lecturers and well experienced in teacher education taught the two classes during the intervention. Each experienced teacher taught using the lecture method in one school and using the teacher-guided inquiry method in the other school."

p.3

So, in each school there was one class taught by each approach (enquiry/lecture) by a different visiting teacher, and the teachers 'swapped' the teaching approaches between schools (a sensible measure to balance possible differences between the skills/styles of the two teachers).

The research design included a class in each treatment in each of two schools

An experiment; or a case study?

Although the study compared progression in learning across two teaching treatments using an analysis of learner diagrams, the study also included interviews, as well as learners' "notes during class activities" (which one would expect would be fairly uniform within each class in the 'lecture' treatment).

The outcome

The authors do not consider their study to be an experiment, despite setting up two conditions for teaching, and comparing outcomes between the two conditions, and drawing conclusions accordingly:

"The results of the inquiry classes of the current study revealed a considerable improvement in the learners' drawings…The results of the lecture group were however, contrary to those of the inquiry group. Most learners in the lecture group showed continuous model in their post-intervention results just as they did before the intervention…only a slight improvement was observed in the drawings of the lecture group as compared to their pre-intervention results"

pp.8-9

These statements can be read in two ways – either

  • a description of events (it just happened that with these particular classes the researchers found better outcomes in the enquiry condition), or
  • as the basis for a generalised inference.

An experiment would be designed to test a hypothesis (this study does not seem to have an explicit hypothesis, nor explicit research questions). Participants would be assigned randomly to conditions (Taber, 2019), or, at least, classes would be randomly assigned (although then strictly each class should be considered as a single unit of analysis offering much less basis for statistical comparisons). No information is given in the paper on how it was decided which classes would be taught by which treatment.

Representativeness

A study could be carried out with the participation of a complete population of interest (e.g., all of the science teachers in one secondary school), but more commonly a sample is selected from a population of interest. In a true experiment, the sample has to be selected randomly from the population (Taber, 2019) which is seldom possible in educational studies.

The study investigated a sample of 'grade four learners'

In Mamombe and colleagues' study the sample is described. However, there is no explicit reference to the population from which the sample is drawn. Yet the use of the term 'sample' (rather than just, say, 'participants') implies that they did have a population in mind.

The aim of the study is given as to "to explore the influence of inquiry-based education in eliciting learners' understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase" (p.1) which could be considered to imply that the population is 'learners'. The title of the paper could be taken to suggest the population of interests is more specific: "grade four learners". However, the authors make no attempt to argue that their sample is representative of any particular population, and therefore have no basis for statistical generalisation beyond the sample (whether to learners, or to grade four learners, or to grade four learners in RSA, or to grade four learners in farm schools in RSA, or…).

Indeed only descriptive statistics are presented: there is no attempt to use tests of statistical significance to infer whether the difference in outcomes between conditions found in the sample would probably have also been found in the wider population.

(That is inferential stats. are commonly used to suggest 'we found a statistically significant better outcome in one condition in our sample, so in the hypothetical situation that we had been able to include the entire population in out study we would probably have found better mean outcomes in that same condition'.)

This may be one reason why Mamombe and colleagues do not consider their study to be an experiment. The authors acknowledge limitations in their study (as there always are in any study) including that "the sample was limited to two schools and two science education specialists as instructors; the results should therefore not be generalized" (p.9).

Yet, of course, if the results cannot be generalised beyond these four classes in two schools, this undermines the usefulness of the study (and the grounds for the recommendations the authors make for teaching based on their findings in the specific research contexts).

If considered as an experiment, the study suffers from other inherent limitations (Taber, 2019). There were likely novelty effects, and even though there was no explicit hypothesis, it is clear that the authors expected enquiry to be a productive approach, so expectancy effects may have been operating.

Analytical framework

In an experiment is it important to have an objective means to measure outcomes, and this should be determined before data are collected. (Read about 'Analysis' in research studies.). In this study methods used in previous published work were adopted, and the authors tell us that "A coding scheme was developed based on the findings of previous research…and used during the coding process in the current research" (p.6).

But they then go on to report,

"Learners' drawings during the pre-test and post-test, their notes during class activities and their responses during interviews were all analysed using the coding scheme developed. This study used a combination of deductive and inductive content analysis where new conceptions were allowed to emerge from the data in addition to the ones previously identified in the literature"

p.6

An emerging analytical frame is perfectly appropriate in 'discovery' research where a pre-determined conceptualisation of how data is to be understood is not employed. However in 'confirmatory' research, testing a specific idea, the analysis is operationalised prior to collecting data. The use of qualitative data does not exclude a hypothesis-testing, confirmatory study, as qualitative data can be analysed quantitatively (as is done in this study), but using codes that link back to a hypothesis being tested, rather than emergent codes. (Read about 'Approaches to qualitative data analysis'.)

Much of Mamombe and colleagues' description of their work aligns with an exploratory discovery approach to enquiry, yet the gist of the study is to compare student representations in relation to a model of correct/acceptable or alternative conceptions to test the relative effectiveness of two pedagogic treatments (i.e., an experiment). That is a 'nomothetic' approach that assumed standard categories of response.

Overall, the author's account of how they collected and analysed data seem to suggest a hybrid approach, with elements of both a confirmatory approach (suitable for an experiment) and elements of a discovery approach (more suitable for case study). It might seem this is a kind of mixed methods study with both confirmatory/nomothetic and discovery/idiographic aspects – responding to two different types of research question the same study.

Yet there do not actually seem (**) to be two complementary strands to the research (one exploring the richness of student's ideas, the other comparing variables – i.e., type of teaching versus degree of learning), but rather an attempt to hybridise distinct approaches based on incongruent fundamental (paradigmatic) assumptions about research. (** Having explicit research questions stated in the paper could have clarified this issue for a reader.)

So, do we have a case study?

Mamombe and colleagues may have chosen to frame their study as a kind of case study because of the issues raised above in regard to considering it an experiment. However, it is hard to see how it qualifies as case study (even if the editor and peer reviewers of the EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education presumably felt this description was appropriate).

Mamombe and colleagues do use multiple data sources, which is a common feature of case study. However, in other ways the study does not meet the usual criteria for case study. (Read more about 'Case study'.)

For one thing, case study is naturalistic. The method is used to study a complex phenomena (e.g., a teacher teaching a class) that is embedded in a wider context (e.g., a particular school, timetable, cultural context, etc.) such that it cannot be excised for clinical examination (e.g., moving the lesson to a university campus for easy observation) without changing it. Here, there was an intervention, imposed from the outside, with external agents acting as the class teachers.

Even more fundamentally – what is the 'case'?

A case has to have a recognisable ('natural') boundary, albeit one that has some permeability in relation to its context. A classroom, class, year group, teacher, school, school district, etcetera, can be the subject of a case study. Two different classes in one school, combined with two other classes from another school, does not seem to make a bounded case.

In case study, the case has to be defined (not so in this study); and it should be clear it is a naturally occurring unit (not so here); and the case report should provide 'thick description' (not provided here) of the case in its context. Mamombe and colleagues' study is simply not a case study as usually understood: not a "qualitative pre-test/post-test case study design" or any other kind of case study.

That kind of mislabelling does not in itself does not invalidate research – but may indicate some confusion in the basic paradigmatic underpinnings of a study. That seems to be the case [sic] here, as suggested above.

Suitability of the comparison condition: lecturing

A final issue of note about the methodology in this study is the nature of one of the two conditions used as a pedagogic treatment. In a true experiment, this condition (against which the enquiry condition was contrasted) would be referred to as the control condition. In a quasi-experiment (where randomisation of participants to conditions is not carried out) this would usually be referred to as the comparison condition.

At one point Mamombe and colleagues refer to this pedagogic treatment as 'direct instruction' (p.3), although this term has become ambiguous as it has been shown to mean quite different things to different authors. This is also referred to in the paper as the lecture condition.

Is the comparison condition ethical?

Parental consent was given for students contributing data for analysis in the study, but parents would likely trust the professional judgement of the researchers to ensure their children were taught appropriately. Readers are informed that "the learners whose parents had not given consent also participated in all the activities together with the rest of the class" (p.3) so it seems some children in the lecture treatment were subject to the inferior teaching approach despite this lack of consent, as they were studying "a prescribed topic in the syllabus of the learners" (p.3).

I have been very critical of a certain kind of 'rhetorical' research (Taber, 2019) report which

  • begins by extolling the virtues of some kind of active / learner-centred / progressive / constructivist pedagogy; explaining why it would be expected to provide effective teaching; and citing numerous studies that show its proven superiority across diverse teaching contexts;
  • then compares this with passive modes of learning, based on the teacher talking and giving students notes to copy, which is often characterised as 'traditional' but is said to be ineffective in supporting student learning;
  • then describes how authors set up an experiment to test the (superior) pedagogy in some specific context, using as a comparison condition the very passive learning approach they have already criticised as being ineffective as supporting learning.

My argument is that such research is unethical

  • It is not genuine science as the researchers are not testing a genuine hypothesis, but rather looking to demonstrate something they are already convinced of (which does not mean they could not be wrong, but in research we are trying to develop new knowledge).
  • It is not a proper test of the effectiveness of the progressive pedagogy as it is being compared against a teaching approach the authors have already established is sub-standard.

Most critically, young people are subjected to teaching that the researchers already believe they know will disadvantage them, just for the sake of their 'research', to generate data for reporting in a research journal. Sadly, such rhetorical studies are still often accepted for publication despite their methodological weaknesses and ethical flaws.

I am not suggesting that Mamombe, Mathabathe and Gaigher have carried out such a rhetorical study (i.e., one that poses a pseudo-question where from the outset only one outcome is considered feasible). They do not make strong criticisms of the lecturing approach, and even note that it produces some learning in their study:

"Similar to the inquiry group, the drawings of the learners were also clearer and easier to classify after teaching"

"although the inquiry method was more effective than the lecture method in eliciting improved particulate conception and reducing continuous conception, there was also improvement in the lecture group"

p.9, p.10

I have no experience of the South African education context, so I do not know what is typical pedagogy in primary schools there, nor the range of teaching approaches that grade 4 students there might normally experience (in the absence of external interventions such as reported in this study).

It is for the "two experienced teachers who are university lecturers and well experienced in teacher education" (p.3) to have judged whether a lecture approach based on teacher telling, children making notes and copying drawings, but with no student activities, can be considered an effective way of teaching 8-9 year old children a highly counter-intuitive, abstract, science topic. If they consider this good teaching practice (i.e., if it is the kind of approach they would recommend in their teacher education roles) then it is quite reasonable for them to have employed this comparison condition.

However, if these experienced teachers and teacher educators, and the researchers designing the study, considered that this was poor pedagogy, then there is a real question for them to address as to why they thought it was appropriate to implement it, rather than compare the enquiry condition with an alternative teaching approach that they would have expected to be effective.

Sources cited:

* Material reproduced from Mamombe, Mathabathe & Gaigher, 2020 is © 2020 licensee Modestum Ltd., UK. That article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) [This post, excepting that material, is © 2020, Keith S. Taber.]

An introduction to research in education:

Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

Sleep can give us energy

Sleep, like food, can give us a bit more energy

Keith S. Taber

Image by Daniela Dimitrova from Pixabay 

Jim was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. When I was talking to students on that project I would ask them what they were studying in science, rather than ask them about my own agenda of topics. However, I was interested in the extent to which they integrated and linked their science knowledge, so I would from time to time ask if topics they told me about were linked with other topics they had discussed with me. The following extract is taken from the fourth of a sequence of interviews during Jim's first year in secondary school (Y7 in the English school system).

And earlier in the year, you were doing about dissolving sugar. Do you remember that?

Erm, yeah.

Do you think that's got anything to do with the human body?

Erm, we eat sugar.

Mm. True.

Gives us energy…It powers us.

Ah. And why do we need power do you think?

So we can move.

This seemed a reasonable response, but I was intrigued to know if Jim was yet aware of metabolism and how the tissues require a supply of sugar even when there is no obvious activity.

Ah what if you were a lazy person, say you were a very lazy rich person? And you were able to lie in bed all day, watch telly, whatever you like, didn't have to move, didn't have to budge an eyelid, … you're rich, your servants do everything for you? Would you till need energy?

Yes.

Why?

I dunno, 'cause being in bed's tired, tiring.

Is it?

When I'm ill, I stay off for a day, I just feel tired, and like at the end of the day, even more tired than I do when I come to school some times.

Jim's argument failed to allow for the difference in initial conditions

Staying in bed all day and avoiding exercise could indeed make one feel tired, but there seemed something of a confound here (being ill) and I wondered if the reason he stayed in bed on these days might be a factor in feeling even more tired than usual.

So maybe when you are ill, you should come to school, and then you would feel better?

No.

No, it doesn't work like that?

No.

Okay, so why do you think we get tired, when we are just lying, doing absolutely nothing?

Because, it's using a lot of our energy, doing something.

Hm, so even when we are lying at home ill, not doing anything, somehow we are using energy doing something, are we?

Yes.

What might that be, what might we use energy for?

Thinking.

I thought this was a good response, as I was not sure all students of his age would realise that thinking involved energy – although my own conceptualisation was in terms of cellular metabolism, and how thinking depend on transmitting electrical signals along axons and across synapses. I suspected Jim might not have been thinking in such terms.

Do you think it uses energy to think?

(Pause, c.3s)

Probably.

Why do you think that?

Well cause, like, when you haven't got any energy, you can't think, like the same as TV, when it hasn't got any energy, it can't work. So it's a bit like our brains, when we have not got enough energy we feel really tired, and we just want to go to sleep, which can give us more energy, a bit like food.

So Jim here offered an argument about cause and effect- when you haven't got any energy, you can't think. This would certainly be literally true (without any source of energy, no biological functioning would continue, including thinking) although of course Jim had clearly never experienced that absolute situation (as he was still alive to be interviewed), and was presumably referring to experiences of feeling mentally tired and not being able to concentrate.

He offered an analogy, that we are like televisions, in that we do not work without energy. The TV needs to be connected to an electrical supply, and the body needs food (such as sugar, as Jim had suggested) and oxygen. But Jim also used a simile – that sleep was like food. Sleep, like food, according to Jim could give us energy.

So sleeping can give us energy?

Yeah.

How does that work?

Er, it's like putting a battery onto charge, probably, you go to sleep, and then you don't have to do anything, for a little while, and you, then you wake up and you feel – less tired.

Okay so, you think you might need energy to think, because if you have not got any energy, you are very tired, you can't think very well, but somehow if you have a sleep, that might somehow bring the energy back?

Yeah.

So where does that energy come from?

(Pause c.2s)

Erm – dunno.

So here Jim used another analogy, sleeping was like charging a battery. When putting a battery on change, we connect it to a charger, but Jim did not suggest how sleep recharged us, except in that we could rest. When sleeping "you don't have to do anything, for a little while", which might explain a pause in depletion of energy supplies, but would not explain how energy levels were built up again.

[A potentially useful comparison here might have been a television, or a lap top used to watch programmes, with an internal battery, where the there is a buffer between the external supply, and the immediate source for functioning.]

This was an interesting response. At one level it was a deficient answer, as energy is conserved, and Jim's suggestion seemed to require energy to be created or to appear from some unspecified source.

Jim's responses here offered a number of interesting comparisons:

  • sleep is a bit like food in providing energy
  • not having energy and not being able to think is like a TV which cannot work without energy
  • sleeping is like putting a battery on charge

Both science, and science teaching/communication draw a good deal on similes, metaphors and analogies, but they tend to function as interim tools (sources of creative ideas that scientists can then further explore; or means to help someone get a {metaphorical!} foothold on an idea that needs to later be more formally understood).

The idea that sleeping works like recharging a battery could act as an associative learning impediment as there is a flaw in the analogy: putting a battery on charge connects it to an external power source; sleep is incredibility important for various (energy requiring) processes that maintain physical and mental health, and helps us feel rested, but does not in itself source energy. Someone who thought that sleeping works like recharging a battery will not need to wonder how the body accesses energy during sleep as they they seem to have an explanation. (They have access to a pseudo-explanation: sleep restores our energy levels because it is like recharging a battery.)

Jim's discourse reflects what has been called 'the natural attitude' or the 'lifeworld', the way we understand common experiences and talk about them in everyday life. It is common folk knowledge that resting gives you energy (indeed, both exercise and rest are commonly said to give people energy!)

In 'the lifeworld', we run out of energy, we recharge our batteries by resting, and sleep gives us energy. Probably even many science teachers use such expressions when off duty. Each of these notions is strictly incorrect from the scientific perspective. A belief that sleep gives you energy would be an alternative conception, and one that could act as a grounded learning impediment, getting in the way of learning the scientific account.

Yet they each also offer a potential entry point to understanding the scientific accounts. In one respect, Jim has useful 'resources' that can be built on to learn about metabolism, as long as the habitual use of technically incorrect, but common everyday, ways of talking do not act as learning impediments by making it difficult to appreciate how the science teacher is using similar language to express a somewhat different set of ideas.

Sodium and chlorine don't actually overlap or anything

Keith S. Taber

Annie was a participant in the Understanding Chemical Bonding project. She was interviewed near the start of her college 'A level' course (equivalent to Y12 of the English school system). Annie was shown, and asked about, a sequence of images representing atoms, molecules and other sub-microscopic structures of the kinds commonly used in chemistry teaching. She was shown a representation of part of a lattice in sodium chloride.

Focal figure (Fig. 5) presented to Annie

Any idea what that's meant to be?

(pause, c.6s)

Just sodium and chlorine atoms

That's sodium and chlorine atoms, erm would you say that there was any kind of bonding there?

No.

Although the image included the standard '+' and '-' symbols to signify that ions were shown, Annie referred to "atoms". It transpired that Annie had an idiosyncratic understanding of what was meant by charge. (Read: Na+ has an extra electron in its outer shell and Cl- is minus an electron and K-plus represents a potassium atom that has an extra electron.)

Annie had already identified chemical bonding in representations of molecules of hydrogen , tetrachloromethane , and oxygen, so she was asked why she though there was no bonding in this example:

No bonding. Why do you say that? What is the difference between that and the ones we've seen before?

Well the other ones electrons were shown, and these no electrons are shown and they don't actually overlap or anything they just go in rows.

They go in rows. Okay. … but unlike (the images) we've seen previously they've had bonds in,

Yeah.

chemical bonds, whereas this, we don't have chemical bonds?

No.

So Annie did not interpret the representation of NaCl as portraying bonding. However, on further probing she did recognise that the structure could get held together by forces.

When Annie was asked if what was shown in the figure would would fall apart or hold together, Annie suggested that If you heated it, or reacted it in some way, it would hold together, and it would probably get held together by just forces. However, she did not consider that (i.e., even after reacting) amounted to chemical bonding. (Read: Sodium has one extra electron in its outer shell, and chlorine is minus an electron, so by force pulls they would hold together.)

The canonical interpretation of the figure is that it is a slice through a three dimensions structure of ions, where the attractive forces between cations pull the ions into a bound structure (to the point where attraction and repulsions are in equilibrium), and that this kind of binding is called ionic bonding.

Annie did not see ions, but atoms. She thought there was no bonding because no overlap was shown. In chemistry a wide range of different types of representation are used to show structures at the submicroscopic level – bonds may sometimes be shown by lines or sometimes by overlap or (in the case of ionic structures) neither. This is a potential source of confusion for learners who may not appreciate why different conventions may be used to represent different, or even the same, structures.

Some particles are softer than others

Keith S. Taber

Image by Alexander Ignatov from Pixabay

Bill was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. Bill was a Year 7 student when he told me that previously, when he had been in primary school, "we did a lot about plants, and – inside them, how they produce their own food". As he had been talking to me about learning about particles (e.g. Gas particles try to spread out and move apart), I asked if there was any link between these two topics.

Okay. What about particles, we were just talking about particles, do you think that's got anything to do with particles?

Well in the plant, there is particles.

Are there?

'cause it's a solid.

Ah. So there'll be particles in that then?

Yeah.

Is it all solid, do you think?

Inside the stem is, 'cause going up the stem there would be water, so that's a liquid. And, it also uses oxygen, which is a gas, to make its food, so. I think so.

So it would be solids, liquids and gases?

Mm, I think some.

But they've all got some particle in them, they are all made up of particles.

Yeah.

Okay.

As Bill had talked to me earlier about there being particles in a gas when ice was melted, and then boiled, I wanted to see if he though the particles in different substances were the same:

Erm. Do you think that the particles in the – oxygen's a gas isn't it?

Yeah.

Do you think the particles in the oxygen gas, are the same as the particles in the steam that you said was a gas, in your experiment you did earlier?

Erm, I don't think so, no.

You think they'd be different sort of particles?

Yeah, they're different gases.

Okay. And in the solid part of the plant, do you think the particles that make up the solid part of the plant, are the same as the particles that make up this table, that's a solid?

Well, the particles, plants are soft, some plants are soft, and you, when you squeeze them they're, they feel soft and erm, but the table is hard so I think that the particles would be slightly different, but they would have, because they hold this different shape, and they would, they would be {pause} erm {pause} then they would, ob¬, then they would be softer as well.

So the softer, the plant which is softer, > > would have softer particles?

< Yeah. < I think so yeah

And the harder wood, made of harder particles?

I think so.

Here Bill offered evidence of a very common alternative conception about the particle theory. A key feature of particle theory is that chemists use particle models to explain the properties of substances macroscopically (what can be observed directly) in terms of the very different nature and properties of conjectured 'particles' (quanticles) at a submicroscopic level.

Yet after learning about these 'particles', students commonly 'explain' macroscopic properties of substances and materials by suggesting that the particles of which they are made up themselves have the property to be explained – being hard, sharp, colourless, conducting, etc.

Single bonds are different to covalent bonds

Single bonds are different to covalent bonds or ionic bonds

Keith S. Taber

Annie was a participant in the Understanding Chemical Bonding project. She was interviewed near the start of her college 'A level' course (equivalent to Y12 of the English school system). Annie was shown, and asked about, a sequence of images representing atoms, molecules and other sub-microscopic structures of the kinds commonl y used in chemistry teaching. She was shown a representation of the resonance between three canonical forms of BF3, sometimes used as away of reflection polar bonding. She had just seen another image representing resonance in the ethanoate ion, and had suggested that it contained a double bond. She had earlier in the interview referred to covalent bonding and ionic bonding, and after introducing the ideas of double bond, suggested that a double bond is different to a covalent bond.

Focal figure (14) presented to Annie

What about diagram 14?…

Oh.

(pause, c.13s)

Seems to be different arrangements. Of the three, or two elements.

Uh hm.

(pause, c.3s)

Which are joined by single bonds.

What, where, what single, what sorry are joined by single bonds?

All the F to the B to the F. Are single bonds they are not double like before. [i.e., a figure discussed earlier in the interview]

So are they covalent bonds? Or ionic bonds, or? Or are single bonds something different again?

Single bonds are different.

This reflected her earlier comment to the effect that a double bond is different to a covalent bond, suggesting that she did not appreciate how covalent bonds are considered to be singular or multiple.

However, as I checked what she was telling me, Annie's account seemed to shift.

They're different to double bonds?

Yeah.

And are they different to covalent bonds?

No 'cause you probably get covalent bonds which are single bonds.

So single bonds, just moments before said to different to covalent bonds, were now 'probably' capable of being covalent. As she continued to answer questions, Annie decided these were 'probably' just alternative terms.

So covalent bonds and single bonds, is that another word for the same thing?

Yeah, probably. But they can probably occur in different, things like in organic you talk about single bonds more than you talk about covalent, and then like in inorganic you talk about covalent bond, more than you talk about single bonding or double bonding.

So you think that maybe inorganic things, like sort of, >> copper iodide or something like that, that would tend to be more concerned with covalent bonds?

< Yeah. < Yeah.

But if you were doing organic things like, I don't know, erm, ethane, >> that's more likely to have single bonds in.

< Yeah. < Yeah.

So single bonds are more likely to occur in carbon compounds.

Yeah.

And covalent bonds are more likely to occur in some other type of compound?

Yeah. Sort of you've got different terminology, like you could probably use single bonds to refer to something in inorganic, but when you are talking about the structures and that, it's easier to talk about single bonds and double bonds, rather than saying that's got a covalent bond or that's got an ionic bond.

Annie's explanation did not seem to be a fully thought-out position. It was not consistent with the way she had earlier reported there being five covalent bonds and one double bond in an ethanoate ion.

It seems likely that in the context of the research interview, where being asked directly about these points, Annie was forced to make explicit the reasons she tended to label particular bonds in specific ways. The interview questions may have acted like Socratic questioning, a kind of scaffolding, leading to new insights. Only in this context did she realise that the single and double bonds her organic chemistry lecturer talked about might actually be referring to the same entities as the covalent bonds her inorganic chemistry lecturer talked about.

It would probably not have occurred to Annie's lecturers (of which, I was one) that she would not realise that single and double bonds were covalent bonds. It may well have been that if she had been taught by the same lecturer in both areas, the tendency to refer to single and multiple bonds in organic compounds (where most bonds were primarily covalent) and to focus on the covalent-ionic dissension in inorganic compounds (where degree of polarity in bonds was a main theme of teaching) would still have lead to the same confusion. Later in the interview, Annie commented that:

if I use ionic or covalent I'm talking about, sort of like a general, bond, but if I use double or single bonds, that's mainly organic, because sort of it represents, sort of the sharing, 'cause like you draw all the molecules out more.

This might be considered an example of fragmentation learning impediment, where a student does not make a link that the teacher is likely to assume is obvious.

Is 6% kidney function just as good as 8% kidney function?

A case of justifying dubious medical ethics by treating epistemology as ontology

Keith S. Taber

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

I was puzzled by something I heard a hospital doctor say regarding kidney functioning. The gist of his comments were that

  • once kidney function was below about 10% of normal functioning…
  • then protecting remaining kidney function was not important…
  • because estimates of function at that level are unreliable.

I thought this was an illogical argument as it confused ontology (the state of the kidneys and their functioning) and epistemology (how well we can measure kidney function).

The kidneys are essential organs that regulate hydration levels and eliminate toxic materials from the body. They are 'essential' in the sense that without kidney function someone soon dies. Typically healthy people have plenty of scope for contingency in the capacity of their kidneys. (Living kidneys donors give up one of their two kidneys for transplantation, so, after donation, they will only have, at best, 50%,of normal functioning.) So when people's kidneys start to deteriorate due to disease the patient can continue with normal life for some time. I am not an expert, but from what I understand, a person can manage a normal life with 20% of normal functioning.

Of course there reaches a point in progressive kidney disease when the remaining capacity is not enough to keep someone alive for an extended period. So if kidney function drops to something like an eighth of normal healthy functioning, the situation gets critical.

Kidney dialysis

These days people can have dialysis if their kidneys fail. Someone with 0% kidney function – someone who never excretes any urine at all – can be kept alive indefinitely by dialysis. However this is not ideal. The patient has to attend a clinic and have treatment for 3-4 hours at a time, usually three times a week. No time off – no holidays from dialysis if the patient wants to continue living (and some decide they would rather not continue living, although most 'tolerate' the treatment). Often patients feel unwell on, or after, dialysis – they may say they feel 'washed out', for example. Dialysis also costs the health service (or in some countries, the patient) a good deal of money.

Dialysis patients also have to be very careful about diet and avoid some foods (e.g., eating bananas can lead to dangerously high levels of potassium that can interfere with heart function and could lead to a heart attack), as sessions of dialysis (with no, or very little, blood filtration occurring in-between) is never as good as having constantly functioning kidneys.

Then there's the problem of fluid intake

Dialysis patients are asked to limit their intake of fluids. A healthy person who drinks a lot (whether tap water, tea, beer, etc.) simply produces more urine. Most dialysis patients, however, produce little, if any, urine, and the difference between what they 'should' excrete (to maintain homeostasis), and what they can actually excrete, needs to be removed during the dialysis process. So, whatever water a patient takes in drinks during the 45 or so hours between sessions (and is not lost through some other mechanism such as sweating or breathing), is all taken off during three or so hours on the machine. This brings about changes in the blood volume much more quickly than is comfortable. As the body cannot remove excess fluid via the kidneys, fluid intake means the fluid levels build up between dialysis sessions which can lead to various complications such as increases in blood pressure.

Dr McCoy is unimpressed by 20th Century medicine (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Paramount Pictures)

So, having kidney function of, say, 10% or less of normal is a real pain and requires reorganising your entire life around your dialysis sessions (or perhaps getting a transplant if you are strong enough for surgery and are lucky enough that a good match can be found).

That provides some background in considering whether, once kidneys have deteriorated below, say 10%, it really makes any difference in worrying about the actual level. If you have 8% of normal functioning and are on dialysis for life, why would it matter if that fell to 6%?

An actual case

The context of this question was a patient with kidney failure or end-stage renal disease (a haemodialysis* patient, who would only live a matter of days without regular treatment) who was given a CAT scan** using a contrast medium*** to show up features that would not be observable otherwise. Such media are widely considered to have some toxicity in relation to the kidneys (Ahmed, Williams & Stott, 2009), but in a healthy person they are eliminated through the kidneys quite quickly and any risk is considered small. A person with kidney failure does not eliminate toxins in this way, and so when a scan is indicated, it can be scheduled for just before their next dialysis session.

"In every study comparing patients with and without some degree of renal insufficiency [kindeys not functioning adequately], renal insufficiency increased the likelihood of RCIN [radiocontrast-medium-induced nephropathy, i.e., kidney damage due to the use of contrast media]"

"Both peritoneal and hemodialysis remove substantial amounts of the contrast medium (50% to 90% of the dose); hemodialysis is more effective."

Solomon, 1998: 230, 236.

This patient, however, was admitted to a hospital very ill. The emergency department doctor ordered an immediate scan – late at night, at a weekend – but told the patient that the on-call dialysis staff could be called in to give dialysis after the scan. At the X-ray department, the radiographer then said that this was not needed, as long as the patient had dialysis within 24 hours of the scan.

The renal doctor's viewpoint

The next afternoon, the patient had still not gone for dialysis when the hospital renal doctor visited the patient. This doctor took the view that as the patient was due their regular dialysis the following day (i.e., about 38 hours after the scan), there was no point sending the patient for an additional dialysis session, as – after all – the kidneys had already failed sufficiently for the patient to be relying on dialysis for survival.

The patient's viewpoint

The counter-argument presented to the renal specialist (by the patient's spouse) was that even at this point further deterioration should be avoided if possible – that even if 8% of normal kidney function was not good, it was inherently better than 6% of normal kidney function.

After all, if for some reason a patient was further compromised (by an unrelated illness, or by delay in accessing normal dialysis due to some unexpected contingency) a few percentage points – making a small difference in how much the body could remove toxins and excess fluid from the blood by itself between dialysis sessions – could still be the critical factor in determining whether the person survived. (Those attending hospital dialysis notice the high frequency of fellow regular patients who, suddenly, are no longer attending for treatment.)

The renal doctor's justification

The doctor responded to this with the counter-argument that once kidney function was this low, there was no reason to be concerned about a change in measured kidney function from (say) 8% to 6% as the difference between such measurements was within the usual variations in measurements found in patients from time to time.

There are two issues here of interest.

Consent that is conditional is not consent if the conditions are broken

One issue relates to ethics (here, medical ethics). A patient consented to a diagnostic procedure with a possible risk of side effects on the understanding that a suitable counter measure would be taken immediately after the procedure to minimise any detrimental effect. The hospital undertook the procedure, but then decided (when it was too late for the patient to withdraw consent) not to follow through on the promised counter-measure. In effect, a procedure was carried out without consent as the consent was (as was made absolutely clear by the patient) conditional on the scan being followed by dialysis.

Reasons for refusing to provide treatment

The second issue relates to the justification given by the doctor as reported above.

The day after the explanation about measurement not clearly distinguishing between 8% and 6% functioning had been made, when dialysis was finally provided, another renal specialist offered a different justification entirely – that the potential risk to kidneys of the contract medium was just a myth. However, the earlier conversations

  1. in the emergency department;
  2. in the X-ray department; and
  3. with the first renal doctor within 24 hours of the scan,

were all clearly undertaken on the basis that both patient and medical staff thought the contrast medium was potentially damaging to kidneys.

"These contrast media can occasionally cause kidney damage, especially in patients who already have kidney disease"

Ahmed, Williams & Stott, 2009

In the context of that discourse, the first renal specialist had argued that because (a) the precision of estimates of kidney function was not great enough to reliably measure a difference between 6% and 8% functionality, then (b) there was no need to be concerned about treatment which could potentially cause damage bringing about deterioration of this order.

Presumably,

  • at any one time, a person's kidney function will be at a certain level.
  • If the kidney is then further damaged by toxins then that functionality will drop.
  • A more damaged kidney is inherently less desirable than a less damaged (better functioning) kidney.
  • So further damage to an already damaged kidney is inherently undesirable,
  • and should be avoided if possible, if the costs of doing so are not too high.

The state of a diseased person's kidneys could vary slightly 'naturally' in response to various factors related to their general health, diet, environment, etcetera. This is an ontological consideration – the actual state of the kidneys changes. This may well mean that changes of a few percent between measurements could just be natural fluctuation.

It may therefore be difficult to tell if a person's kidneys have become more damaged due to a particular event, such as a diagnostic scan. That is an epistemological issue – the limitation on how well we can identify a specific change that is masked by noise.

Presumably, there are also various factors that limit the precision of such estimates – all measurements are subject to errors, and small (real) differences may be difficult to identify if they are at the level of the likely measurement error. That is also an epistemological issue.

But, just because an effect cannot be clinically measured (epistemology), that does not mean it is not real and will not have consequences (ontology). A drop from 8% kidney function to 6% kidney function is only a change of 2% compared with normal functioning, BUT it is a loss of 25% of the patient's actual kidney function.

A small deterioration in already severely compromised kidneys may seem insignificant to the renal doctor because he does not think he could reliably measure the change. One day it could be the difference between life and death to the kidneys' owner.

Sources cited:
  • Ahmed, A., Williams, G., & Stott, I. (2009). Patient information-What I tell my patients about contrast medium nephrotoxicity. British Journal of Renal Medicine, 14(3), 15-18.
  • Solomon, R. (1998). Contrast-medium-induced acute renal failure. Kidney international, 53(1), 230-242.

* haemodialysis involves the patient having permanent 'plumbing' installed that allows their vascular system to be connected to a dialysis machine, so the blood can be diverted to the machine to be cleaned. This usually done using blood vessels in the arm. In the case discussed the surgeon cut into the neck and chest (with the patient fully conscious), and connected tubing to a vein in the neck. The tubing was run beneath the skin to exit in the chest below the neckline, where a fitting acted as a tap and connector for the external tubing to the machine. Very special care has to be taken to keep the area clean, and the dressing dry, as the plumbing provides a direct route into the bloodstream. (Baths, swimming, hot-tubs, etc. are not advisable.)

[Peritoneal dialysis is an alternative treatment that involves a catheter being implanted in the abdomen, and being used to allow a solution into the abdominal cavity, which is later removed after it has absorbed waste materials. The patient can manage the process at home, but needs to change the solution in the abdomen a number of times each day.]

** computerised tomography: a process that uses a series of X-ray bursts to collect data that can be compiled into a 3-D image.

*** a substance that shows up on X-ray scans, and which when injected into the blood helps detect vascular structures. (The term is generic – it also applies to substances swallowed  before scans of the alimentary canal.)

Note: this post was originally prepared in October 2015, but was not published at the time when the patient was alive and attending for treatment.

Dangerous crossings, critical apologies, and permissible accidents

Keith S. Taber

If you are going to have an accident in Cambridge and do not wish to get into trouble, you should make sure you take due care. Apparently it is permissible to drive into someone, and then drive off without checking they are okay or offering your details, as long as this is not deliberate, and simply due to you not looking where you are driving, or perhaps being in a hurry because you know you should not really have stopped the car where you are blocking a pedestrian crossing.

Science is full of stories of happy accidents – serendipity. Negotiating the traffic in Cambridge risks less happy ones. Last week I was nearly hit twice whilst undertaking the hazardous activity of crossing roads – using pedestrian crossings. That is probably not so unusual in Cambridge or many other cities, but it led me to reflect on some of the psychology involved, and also on how the Cambridgeshire Police understand the terms "accident" and "due care and attention".

The fist incident was a near miss

As I crossed the road, when indicate by the green symbol of a person walking, a cyclist braked suddenly to prevent herself running into me. My initial response – a slight shock, indignation, anger – was dissipated very quickly.

  • The cyclist did not stop at the red lights.
  • Did she not see the light indicating she must stop?
  • Did she see the light, but not care about the rule?
  • Did she see me crossing but think she would not hit me – till the last moment when she had to brake violently?
  • Should I tell her off (once a school teacher…); tell her to read the rules of the road; tell her to visit an optician…?

The cyclist quickly indicated an apology. The negative feeling dissipated immediately. No harm done. My mood brightened and I went on my way.

On the second occasion it was a car driver at fault, and this time I was hit

Now, to be fair, it was more a brush or a kiss than a thump – but I was driven into. The car had been completely stopped across the crossing. This often happens in Cambridge. Despite the reputation of the place for clever people, this does not extend to many of the road users. During the rush hour cars drive onto crossings even when there is a long queue of traffic directly in front of the crossing that is not going anywhere. Even some bus drivers do this. The indignation that people do this selfish thing, annoys me much less than the fact that they do this even though it is obvious that they can gain nothing from it. When the traffic is that busy, it perhaps allows them to make the next 20 metres 30 seconds quicker than if they had driven correctly. But it does not get them to the next set of lights any quicker – it just gets them to the back of the slow moving queue, in precisely the place in the queue that they have had all along, slightly earlier than if they had not blocked the crossing. How stupid are these drivers not to realise that? I seriously think that even if such selfishness does not debar them from driving – such a lack of basic intelligence should.

When the green light and audible bleep signalled pedestrians could cross a number of us set out across the crossing. Well the nearest half of it, because we could not get across the other side of the road without leaving the marked path, or walking over the car. (I've often been tempted in these situations to climb across the car – but that would make me as petty as the drivers who behave this way.) The other alternatives, excluding a superhuman leap, were to walk behind or in front of the car. Only a very small part of the car extended in front of the crossing path, so I went in front. I assumed this was safer as the driver could not help but see me. I was surprised then when the car started up and drove into me. I was in front of a car, about a metre from the driver, and she drove into me. Presumably she did not see me, directly in front of her car!

No harm done, again? Physically, no harm done. Not a mark.

It was what happened next that hurt

Or perhaps rather what did not happen next. I waved my arms and shouted something at the driver along the lines 'you should not stop on the crossing; you should not drive into people'. If she really was so stupid that she did not already know that, I am not sure my advice would have been understood, but I had just been hit by a car, and it was an impulsive response. I was agitated, and I raised my voice and waved my arms – but I was not rude or abusive and I did not use foul language. What the driver did not do was… look at me, say anything, acknowledge me. She stared straight ahead as if I was not there (which presumably was what she had also thought when she drove her car into me).

If she had simply mouthed 'sorry' or something similar, I might have carried on uttering platitudes for a few more seconds, but then it would have been over. I would have had closure. I would have thought she was in the wrong and careless – but not that she was so ignorant that she did not think the likes of me were worthy of her attention.

She drove off, but I followed her along the pavement. This was easy as she only got to the back of where the queue had reached, so as I overtook her on foot, at walking pace, maybe 20 seconds later, I paused to make a note of her registration number.

When I got home I looked on line and sought to made a report to the local police

There was a form for reporting 'driving without due care and attention'. I am not a lawyer, a police office, nor even a driver, but it seemed to me that if you stop your car on a pedestrian crossing and then drive into someone who is directly in front of your car you are either

  1. deliberately callous, or
  2. not taking due care and attention.

I spent about 30 minutes completing the form with all the details of the location, the incident, and a description of the car and driver.

Would I be prepared to make a formal statement

the form asked. That would be inconvenient, as the police station where I live does not seem to be manned very often (or at least, given there are nearly always plenty of cars in the car park, no one seems available to talk to the public) but if I think there is a civic duty to report an offence then I should be prepared do so. So, yes.

Would I be prepared to give evidence in court?

That would be really inconvenient, but again, if I think people in a civil society should take responsibility (the next pedestrian this person drives into may actually get hurt) then I had to agree.

What did I want to happen?

Well clearly not prison. Not a court appearance. Not even a fine. Just contact from the police saying this had been reported, and the driver should be more careful in future to follow the highway code, and to look where they are driving. A warning that says you cannot carrying on behaving this way. A warning I would not have thought was needed had the driver simply said 'sorry' or 'how stupid of me' or even or 'are you okay'? Or, even just looked at me and offered an apologetic smile. Anything to acknowledge this was wrong, and that she might try to take more care in future.

Noted for intelligence [unlike the driver]

The actual outcome was an email from Cambridgeshire Police – signed with the ironic byline 'Cambridgeshire Police – creating a safer Cambridgeshire' – informing me that the matter was noted for intelligence, but would not be followed up. Why? Because "we do not believe this would fall under driving without due care and attention, after reading the report it appears to be an accident where the driver did not see you"

I was busy composing a response to the effect that

  1. just because something is an accident, this does not mean it was not a matter of not driving without due care and attention – surely that's why most accidents happen?; and
  2. that if a driver did not hear the crossing's audible indicator, nor see the 'green person' light on either side of her head, and also did not see someone walking directly in front of her car at a distance of about one metre from her eyes, then it is hard to imagine that the driver could have been paying due care and attention (how little care and attention do the Cambridgeshire Police actually feel is necessary when driving, in order to help create a safer Cambridgeshire?)…

when I noticed that the email came from 'donotreplyvc@cambs.pnn.police.uk' – so presumably a reply was not wanted and would not be read.

(Interestingly I was also told that I should 'notify the sender if you have received this in error' using one of those legal disclaimer footers that so many organisations use unthinkingly in their emails. [For example, see: It's a secret conference invitation: pass it on…] Perhaps someone does read the replies, just to find those received in error, and ignores more substantive responses?)

So I was injured twice last week.

Not by the cyclist, as she said sorry.

But by the driver who drove into me and then would not even acknowledge me. I was physically unharmed (as I pointed out to the police in my report of the incident, "as hit and runs go – there was hardly a hit, and a very poor attempt to run") but treated as if less than human by someone who clearly felt no need to admit any sense of guilt over her poor behaviour, and was not prepared to show me the most basic respect that should be due to any other human being. Perhaps she had had a really bad day – but a simple sorry does not cost much.

And by the police, who responded to my report by offering an illogical argument for why they would not take any action – and then perhaps more importantly did not leave space for me to respond to point out the irrational nature of their justification.

It is the refusal to interact at the human level – to say sorry, to respect us as human beings, to consider our views – that does injury, as it is an assault on our spirit. Strangely, the incident with the cyclist actually improved my mood. I am not recommending we encourage more near misses to act as foci for human interaction – but that moment of humility when the cyclist offered an apology made a human connection and made me feel good about the world.

If you are reading this, cyclist, thank you (but do try to watch for traffic signals in future).

If you are reading this hit-and-run driver, and Cambridgeshire police, then perhaps remember that.

We all sometimes make mistakes, do silly things, utter illogical statements, have accidents – but often it is how we behave afterwards that matters most, and that can leave the world seeming an impoverished or enhanced place for those we interact (or decline to interact) with.

First published 27th October 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

An invitation from the publishing Mafia?

Keith S. Taber

Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay 

Another sign of the challenges to academic integrity that has been the theme of several recent blogs:

I copy below the text of an email I recently received. This is a genuine message (i.e., I reproduce the text exactly as I received it.)

What I am not sure about is

  • is it a serious request for me to be involved in academic malpractice?
  • is it a scam, that seems to be a scheme to get around proper peer review, but if I respond I will soon find I am being blackmailed with a threat to reveal my being complicit in such a scheme, or
  • is it a joke?

It seems a lot of effort to go to if it is just a joke (the website looks like it has had some time and effort spent on it), but when I got to the organisation name at the bottom, I found am being approached by an organisation calling itself 'journals-mafia'!

"Keith S Taber

Are you an editor of the journal or a member of editorial board?
If so, we propose a big profit for you and your journal.
The profit is from 1,000 up to 10,000 dollars per a month.

It is necessary to publish articles.
The same work that you do, but you can get more money doing this with us.

My company works in the markets of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, China and Iran.
We publish a lot of articles.
There is much more demand than we can publish.
We do not have enough journals in which we can publish all the articles.

That is why we are searching more and more journals for publication every day.
We will share our profits with you.

An alternative option is to buy your journal.
If your journal does not bring you joy no longer, we will buy it.

The scheme of our work is simple:

1. The author writes an article.

2. The author pays us for publishing an article in a journal.

3. We work with the text of the article; we review and edit this article making it of excellent quality.

4. We check the quality of English language.

5. We format an article according to the requirements of a journal.

6. We send an article to the editor of the journal.

7. The article is published.

8. We share our profit with the editor of the journal.

Win – Win – Win.
All the parties are satisfied.

We work with a huge amount [sic] of articles.
We work not only with people who need a publication.
We also work with the universities and scientific organizations, which give us from 10 to 100 articles.

We have several companies.
This makes it possible not to attract the attention of scientific databases as well as controlling and regulating organizations.

We know how Scopus and Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science) work.
We earn money and do not draw their attention.
More details will be provided below.

My goal is to monopolize publication market of Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. All the publications must go through my companies, through my journals or partner journals.

How will we build our joint business?
The options are possible:

1. For high ranking journals.

2. For low ranking journals.

3. For predatory journals.

A high ranking journal.
We prepare an article adhering to all journal's requirements.
The quality of the article is excellent.
We put 1 article from our region for one issue.
Thus, we provide from 1 to 5 articles for an issue (no more than one article from one country):
one is from Russia, one – from Azerbaijan, one – from China, one – from Kazakhstan, etc.
This will not cause any suspicion. Any journal is interested to publish articles from different countries.
The article is under review.
We correct and edit the article taking into the account the reviewers' comments and remarks.
The article is published.
The profit is shared.

Low ranking journals.
We prepare an article adhering to all journal's requirements.
We put several article for one issue.
If we do not want to attract attention, to work for years and to raise the journal's ranking, then we send from 1 to 15 articles for one issue (no more than three articles from one country).
All the articles should undergo the review stage.
We have our own team of reviewers (more than 100 reviewers from around the world).
We can review the articles by our reviewers.
We correct and edit the article taking into the account the reviewers' comments and remarks.
If you follow the process,
this will not cause any suspicion.
The article is published.
The profit is shared.
In this case, the editor of a journal agrees not to publish articles from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan bypassing us. All scientists of these countries pass only through us.
Profit is divided.

Predatory journals.
If you have exactly decided that you want to get a lot of money.
In this case, the journal will be removed from the Scopus base in the future.
In this case, we take the articles in hundreds or thousands.
And publish them.
In this case, the editor of a journal agrees not to publish articles from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan bypassing us. All scientists of these countries pass only through us.
Profit is divided.

Business is working like this. It is reliable and approved by time.

If you have any ideas, please, write to me.
If you are interested, please, write to me.

Additional important information.
We care not only for our reputation, but also for the reputation of our partners and clients.
We are several companies registered in different countries.
There are different kinds of activity of our companies according to official documents. It depends on the inquiries of our clients and partners.
Under individual requests, new companies can be established or existing companies registered several years ago can be used.
The purpose of invoice and the subject of the contract can be formulated individually.
We pay journals in any ways that are convenient for them: PayPal, electronic money, bank cards, bank accounts, without a contract, under a contract, SWIFT, etc.

Nataliya"

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

First published 19th May 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Dodgy proof reading

Dodgy proof reading – or jumping to conclusions (from dubious finding[s] and results)

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay 

I’ve always felt a little bad about an article of mine published in the journal School Science Review at the time they were changing over their production processes. Although I had seen and checked the proofs of the article, I was dismayed to find the published version contained no end of small errors. How could I have missed them?

In checking my copy of the marked proof, I found that most of the errors did not exist in the original proof at all, but had somehow been introduced after I had made my corrections. Instead of the published version including my corrections, it included a number of new errors not in the proof!

This came to mind today when I was reading a paper in a journal called Information Technology & Computer Science. Looking at the results section of the study I found:

“3. Finding and Results


Line drawings should be good quality scans or true electronic output. Low-quality scans are not acceptable. Figures must be embedded into the text and not supplied separately. There is no statistical significant difference between groups in terms success in the pre-test (t = 0.93, p = 0.654). …”

Naseriazar & Özmen, 2012: 287

My initial reaction was confusion.

Then, I realised that it seemed that part of the instructions for authors had found its way into the text of the paper.

Then, I wondered how the authors could have been so careless in checking the proofs.

Then, I remembered my own experience, and decided it would be wrong to jump to premature conclusions.

Source cited:
  • Naseriazar, A., & Özmen, H. (2012). Effectiveness of simulations on university students’ understanding of chemical equilibrium. Information Technology & Computer Science, 2, 285-290.

The Editorial Board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology

A response to an invitation to join an editorial board for a medical imaging journal

Keith S. Taber

Image by VSRao from Pixabay 

The invitation

On 23/04/2018 20:06, EnPress Publisher wrote:

"… We have read your recent article, "Student Conceptions of Ionic Bonding: Patterns of thinking across three European contexts" published in International Journal of Science Education. We feel that this article is of high academic value. Therefore, we would like to invite you to join the Editorial Board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology…"

The response

Thank you very much for the invitation to join the editorial board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology. This is clearly an important field, where a top quality academic journal could be of great importance.

It is an honour to be invited to join the editorial team alongside such respected colleagues as Dr. Oleg V. Gradov (Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences); Prof. Boris Arkadievich Kobrinskii (Medicine Institute of the Federal Research Center "Computer Science and Control" of the Russian Academy of Sciences and N.I. Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University); Dr. Vedat Goral (Istanbul Medipol University School of Medicine); Mr. Atef Rawhan Abdulsameea Abdulraqeb (Vladimir State University); Dr. Marzia Cottini (Niguarda Hospital); Dr. Alexander Georgiev Otsetov (Umeå University); Dr. Farzaneh Rahmani (Tehran University of Medical Sciences); Dr. Michael El Boghdady (Ninewells Hospital and Medical School); Prof. Francesco Izzo (National Cancer Institute of Naples); Prof. Vural Fidan (Yunus Emre Gov Hospital); Dr. Kaiser J. Giri (Islamic University of Science & Technology); Prof. Yung-Yao  Chen (National Taipei University of Technology); Prof. Wei-Yen Hsu (National Chung Cheng University); and Mohammad Naderan (Tehran University of Medical Sciences).

Given the importance of this field, I recognise the need to ensure that the academic literature in the field is of the highest standard, and so to recruit appropriate expertise to support the editorial work of the journal. Indeed, as an editor myself, I have become very concerned about the lack of quality in the procedures adopted by some of the many new journals that are appearing ( and I have commented on this: doi:10.1039/C7RP90012K free access at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/rp/c7rp90012k#!divAbstract ). I trust that Medical Imaging Process & Technology will be adopting the highest scholarly standards in its peer review procedures, and in the choice of editorial board members to oversee the process?

I should also thank you for your kind comments about our paper in International Journal of Science Education reporting on patterns of student conceptions of the the chemistry topic of ionic bonding. It is good to know you feel this work is of high academic value. Hopefully the work will influence teaching practice in high schools. As you have taken the time to read the paper, and been so impressed, I would be very interested in knowing what aspects of the paper you felt were of most value – if you would be prepared to share your thoughts. I would imagine that you are very busy with your work on Medical Imaging Process & Technology, so I am impressed that you took the time to read our paper in the International Journal of Science Education.

I must also ask, as I am slightly at a loss to understand, what specific aspects of my scholarly work in science education led you to conclude that I would be suitable to join the editorial board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology and work alongside noted experts in that field.

Whilst it is an honour to be asked, you will appreciate that I can only give this serious consideration if persuaded that someone working in my field, with my academic background, could make a genuine and relevant contribution to the journal. It would not be a good use of my time otherwise, and, more importantly, it would not reflect well on Medical Imaging Process & Technology if it was considered by potential authors and reviewers that some members of the Editorial Board did not have sufficient expertise in the field of the journal. I am sure you are very careful in selecting potential Editorial Board members, so appreciate you must have a strong rationale for inviting me, but at the moment I do not fully understand why a scholar known for exploring aspects of teaching and learning in science would be a strong candidate to guide a journal in this somewhat different field.

I look forward to your response.

Best wishes

Keith


I await a reply…

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

First published 30th April 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Protect the integrity of scholarly writing

Protect the integrity of scholarly writing: an open letter to academic publishers

Keith S. Taber

How do you know the scholar's own words not been changed by a publisher like OUP? [Image by adege from Pixabay]
I am writing this open letter to ask responsible academic publishers to respect the right of scholars to protect the integrity of their work.

I have recently been invited to sign a contract offered by a major academic publisher – very well established and of high reputation, OUP, a department of the University of Oxford – which asked me to waive one of the moral rights authors get in law: the right to protect the integrity of their work.

Scholars' reputations are in a large part determined by their writing, and therefore it is important to scholars, and those who read and cite them, that the works purporting to be authored by particular academics do actually represent their scholarship. The right to protect the integrity of one's authored works prevents an author's work being substantially changed and yet still presented as their work. Authors who agree to waive this right are allowing publishers to change their work, potentially without their knowledge or approval, yet still present it as the work of that author.

A respectable academic publisher is unlikely to ever deliberately make changes that substantially alter an author's work in ways that misrepresent that author's thinking (and this would not be in their interest), however, in asking authors to waive their right to protect the integrity of their work it becomes almost inevitable that such misrepresentation will inadvertently happen once publishers habitually take it upon themselves to modify and update scholarly writing without the input of the named author (as this waiver allows).

When an academic publisher commissions an academic to write a specialised article, they do so because (a) they recognise that the author is an expert who can offer a work that brings the authority of their expertise; and (b) they believe that the wider community will also recognise that the work has been authored by an expert, and so it is the publisher's interest to be able to publish work under the name of that author. If publishers wish to claim those goods then they need to respect the integrity of the expert's own words. If they do not feel that there is sufficient value in employing named experts, the publisher can instead contract on the basis of a work-made-for-hire, retain the authorship rights (and so the right to modify the work) but not recognise the writers as authors. I suspect most academics would have less interest in contributing on that basis.

Of course, if the intention is to produce authoritative reference works (as was the case where I was recently asked to accept the waiver) there is a good reason to want the readership to think that the article they are reading was written (in the form they are reading it) by an expert. If that is so, then the cost of having named expert authors should be that their work should not be modified without their consent or knowledge.

I appreciate that on-line works offer a potential for updating that is in the interest of all concerned: however it would be possible to develop an approach

  • (i) which never changes work appearing under a scholar's name without first seeking their input, or at least approval of the changes, and
  • (ii) that where this proves impossible, to at least indicate to readers where a work has been updated by a party other than the named author.

Such an approach would be more honest with readers of your publications, as well as respecting the rights of your authors and their status as experts.

I am hoping that other academics will appreciate the logic of this argument, and so appreciate the risks to their reputation of selling their name to publishers to use, to give authority to works that could be changed in whatever ways the publisher later feels appropriate. If so, experts will preferentially agree to write for those publishers who find an alternative approach that does not ask authors to waive the protections they are given in law.

Yours faithfully …

Sign a petition

Update – a petition on this issue has been started at https://chn.ge/2wy8Nmd: if you agree that publishers should respect authors' moral rights, then you may wish to sign this petition.

Read more about this topic at Defend the moral right to the integrity of your scholarly work.

First published 11th April 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Just come to talk at our conference – don't worry what it's about

Keith S. Taber

Image by 정훈 김 from Pixabay 

Dubious conference invitations

I have raised the issue of dodgy conference invitations – such as being asked to talk at a conference in a field far from one's own, and to pay for the privilege of doing so – before in this blog, BUT a recent invitation from Kostas Chiotopoulos takes the top prize for the most desperate and pointless attempt by a commercial conference organiser to tempt academics who have given up the will to engage in meaningful scholarship.

The subject line of the email was:

"Rome, Italy, May 26-28, 2018. Malta Island, June 22-24, 2018. Mallorca Island, Spain, July 14-17, 2018 kst24@cam.ac.uk Hard Copy of Proceedings available again* kst24@cam.ac.uk A Certificate from the University will be given to all the Invited Speakers.."

Not exactly succinct, but then I'm sitting writing this while listening to (Rick Wakeman's excellent) 'The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table' so I cannot claim to be inherently adverse to a long title!

Perhaps Kostas Chiotopoulos knows about some very clever marketing principles, but I could not help wondering:

  • why does my email address need to appear twice in the subject of the email?
  • what does the asterisk indicate – was the subject even longer originally and Kostas Chiotopoulos took pity on me?
  • Does a second full stop at the end of a sentence add emphasis?

Of course, one thing that was missing from the subject line was the topic of the conferences. Were these conferences on science education, or some closely related field? Perhaps that was the clever marketing ploy – Kostas Chiotopoulos got me intrigued enough to read the whole email in the expectation that the conferences would not actually be relevant to me, but wanting to check just in case he might prove me wrong!

However, it seems Kostas Chiotopoulos is even more wily than that! So I carefully read the email and find that I am invited to be an 'invited lecturer' at conferences in:

  • Paris, or in Rome, Italy
  • or in Malta Island, or in Mallorca Island, Spain
  • or even [sic] in Corfu Island, Greece, or in Dubrovnik, Croatia
  • or in any London, UK [n.b., there is only one London, UK I'm aware of] or in Rome, Italy
  • or in Bern, Switzerland, or in Madrid, Spain
  • or in Cambridge, UK, or in Venice, March 2019 …

I'm told that "A certificate from the Universities that sponsor each particular event will be given to" (I'm guessing my University, Cambridge, is not issuing the certificate for the Cambridge conference!)

I'm told my contributions can be published in journals published by the likes of "…SAGE, Springer Verlag, Elsevier…" – publishers one might expect would have their own editorial and peer review procedures.

So what information is missing?

Well I cannot complain that Kostas Chiotopoulos is inviting me to talk at a conference outside my field, as the invitation contains absolutely no information about the fields, subjects, disciplines, themes, or topics, of any of these conferences.

So it seems that things have got so bad (cf. Taber, 2018) that commercial companies are now prepared to sell 'invited lecturer' status to anyone who is prepared to pay, to talk about anything they like, without any pretence that these are serious academic conferences that are actually about something.

Retirement, take me soon.

Source cited:
  • Taber, K. S. (2018). The end of academic standards? A lament on the erosion of scholarly values in the post-truth world. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 19(1), 9-14. doi:10.1039/C7RP90012K [Free access]

Read about 'Conferences and poor academic practice'

First published 5th April 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/