Study/Methodological quality
[short thread]

Does anyone care about this anymore?

I’m seeing some very poor quality papers being published in my area in last 6 months

It appears that the appetite and rush for data/information on female athletes has resulted in...

numerous poor quality studies being published. Don’t get me wrong I’ve seen some high quality papers too, but have been genuinely disappointed by the volume of moderate/low quality ones.

How should we assess quality?

Whilst some types of quality assessments can be subjective...

we have tools/scales/accepted standards for this exact purpose. They might not be perfect, but they serve a purpose.

IMO we need more high quality research in females athletes not just more research. This will take time and I’m happy to wait for it.

To gain parity (between sexes) in sport and exercise research, the quality, not just the volume, of work/data needs to be comparable.

How can we encourage & support research in this area whilst maintaining/raising standards?

To be honest, I am afraid to critique a paper on Twitter or even behind the scenes (it’s not taken kindly), so should we (academics) say nothing & ‘like’ & retweet everything? I’m genuinely asking?

How confident are we in published findings?

.Thanks to everyone who posted. Sometimes I go down rabbit hole so its great to get a wider view. The publishing process is fraught with difficulties but in the absence of a better one Id welcome some critical debate in a safe space that build us up rather than knocking us down!