Author : Nick Rushby

In addition to editing Education & Self Development I am on the reviewer panel for
other journals in the field. I never begrudge the work involved in reviewing: it gives me
insights into what other researchers are thinking, long before their work reaches the stage
of being published. It also gives me a way of moderating the reviewing activities of E&SD
so that we are matching the standards of other journals.
This piece was prompted by a discussion between the authors and reviewers of an
article submitted to one of these journals. It concerned the recency of the references and
I recalled that on several occasions over the past few months, submissions to E&SD had
been criticised because many of the references were ‘old’ – that is, published more than
ten years ago. It is a simple matter to read through the list of references and count the
number that are more than, say, ten years old, but that does not necessarily mean that
they do not have value. In contrast to high energy particle physics, our field of education
and psychology moves relatively slowly.

A long time ago and in a galaxy far away, my first degree was in electrical engineering.
This was over fifty years ago, at a time when many people believe that technology-based
learning had not been invented. This of course, is not true and is a consequence of amnesia
in the education technology community (Rushby, 1983; Romiszowski & Rushby, 2015).
However, it was not until the 1970s that viable systems to manage the learning process
became available. By the late 1970s, Plato (developed by the University of Illinois) was
supporting several thousand graphics terminals distributed worldwide, running on nearly
a dozen different networked mainframe computers (Smith & Sherwood, 1976). So, my
undergraduate course was wholly class-room (and laboratory) based. To be honest, the
quality of the teaching was not good: I recall one lecturer who spent each lecture copying
the course textbook onto the chalkboard with chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other
to make space for the next paragraph , while another talked in an impenetrable accent
that none of us could decipher. Of the 100 students who started the course, only 60 made
it to the second year and fewer than 30 sat the final examinations . On average , each
year two students on this undergraduate course attempted suicide.
This was one of the factors that started my interest in ways of improving the quality
of university teaching.

In my last editorial, I addressed the different forms that a scholarly paper might take
(Rushby, 2021); in this issue I want to take a more over-arching view of the research
process and the integral role of the papers that come out of that process. In doing so I will
revisit (without apology because it is important) a tool that I described in an editorial four
years ago (Rushby, 2017). A research paper needs to address three questions:
• What is already known about this subject?
• What does my research add to what is known?
• What do I want people to do differently as a result of my research?

There has been some discussion and proposals, from members of the reviewer panel and within the editorial team, of the format of articles submitted to Education & Self Development.
It is generally accepted that research articles have a standard structure with six key sections: an introduction, a literature search, the method; results, discussion and a conclusion. These are prefaced by the title, abstract and keywords, and concluded by a list of the references cited in the text. This structure helps the author ensure that all of the key components have been covered, and also helps the reader who knows what to expect as he or she reads through the article. It works well for a traditional research article – and after all, Education & Self Development is mainly a research journal.

Once the research is completed and the manuscript is written, authors understandably
want to see their work published and available for others to read and admire as quickly
as possible. This desire for quick publication is one of the incentives offered by predatory
journals to persuade unwary authors to submit their work and pay the article publishing
charges. I recently received an email offering to publish my work within 48 hours
of submission! (Admittedly, the publisher did not say anything about the peer reviewing
process they used, or whether they carried out any copy-editing or other quality checks.)

In 1665 Henry Oldenberg launched the world’s first scholarly journal. The purpose
of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society was “to allow scientists to impart their
knowledge to one another and contribute what they can to the grand design of improving
natural knowledge and perfecting all philosophical arts and science.” Three hundred and
fifty years later we would still recognise the key elements of his creation: the promotion of
sound science through peer review, the recognition of scientists and the creation of a permanent
record of important ideas and research. Education & Self Development is a ‘traditional’
journal – as are most of the well-established scholarly journals around the world.

I received a shock last month. Forty years ago I wrote a book called An Introduction
to Educational Computing, and now the publishers have written saying that they want to
republish it in its original form as part of a programme to revive some of their key titles.
Their reason is that they believe these titles “very much reflect the context of the times in
which they were published. For newer libraries, it represents a chance to build up where,
for various political or economic reasons, library holdings have been neglected in the past
50 years but budgets are still strong.”
Well, this was all very flattering but it was a surprise none the less! I have a copy on
my bookshelf but I had not opened it for many years. It was time to re-read it and see
whether it was as dated as I suspected it was.

Six years ago I moved house. I moved from a large house with four bedrooms and a
large study, to a much smaller but charming cottage where my study measures just two
metres by two metres. I sit at my desk and can touch all four walls! A consequence of the
move was that I had to reduce the number of books in my library. Instead of over 6000
books I now have a few hundred. That was painful because I love books, but it also made
me think very carefully about which books I would keep. The books on my bookcase are
those that I value the most and I wanted to share those titles with you – together with
the reasons why I have chosen them.

“Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants,
so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any
sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high
and raised up by their giant size.” (John of Salisbury, 1159). This is particularly true of
the research that we carry out and then write about. It is most important that our readers
know how we got to where we are now, what others have written about the topic and the
gaps they have left that we are trying to fill.

There are a number of similarities between writing a research article and preparing
teaching materials.
The teaching materials must gain – and hold – the interest of the students. When
you start to speak you have about 15 seconds to get the attention of your audience and
convince them that what you have to say is worth listening to. Many teachers (perhaps
most teachers) will have had the demoralising experience of losing their audience at the
beginning of a lesson and then being unable to win them back. There are strong parallels
for a research article.