You Can Go Your Own Way (with Katie Corker)

If you are a psychologist following how the field is changing its methods and practices, you have probably heard of Katie Corker. Katie is an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University, President of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, and a rising star in metascience research. In the first part of our conversation, we talk about her professional path and what advice she has for people starting out. What should doctoral students know about applying to and working at primarily teaching institutions? How do you balance service commitments as an early-career researcher (and when do you throw balance out the window)? Then in the second part of our conversation, we discuss meta-analysis. What should we think of the quality of evidence produced by meta-analysis, in light of replicability problems and bias in the primary literature? What concerns should we have about the reproducibility of meta-analyses themselves? What is a systematic review, and what could psychology gain from adopting it as a publication format? Plus: We answer a letter from a first-year grad student about whether to submit their first big project to a high-impact traditional journal or a newer open-access one.

Links:

• The SHERPA/RoMEO database of journal copyright and open access policies
• Katie Corker's webpage
• Making literature reviews more reliable through application of lessons from systematic reviews
• What is the difference between a systematic review and a meta-analysis?

The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, or on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.

Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.

This is episode 35. It was recorded May 21, 2018.