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Does author team size explain retraction?

Dieter, Peter (2017) Does author team size explain retraction?

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Abstract:Retractions are a great concern in science, because researchers infringe the validity of their, but also the validity of other studies. Investigations showed that retraction rates rose significantly in the last years from about 0.01% in 2006 to 0.02% in 2012. However, only a few studies investigated this phenomenon so far. The purpose of this study therefore is to investigate retractions further. This will be done by looking at the number of researchers who contributed to a research article. Distinguishing between two reasons of retraction, namely errors of omission and errors of commission, applicable literature is reviewed. Non-retracted articles are then compared to retracted ones, in order to investigate a relationship between team size and errors of omission or errors of commission. The study shows that out of 450 retracted articles, 210 (47%) were retracted because of errors of commission, 97 (21%) because of errors of omission and for 143 (32%) articles, the reason of retraction could not been found, has been different, or the entries were corrections of articles already in the dataset. Research articles in the field of social sciences are more often retracted because of errors of commission (79%), than retracted research articles in Physics (66%) or Medicine (62%). Differently than hypothesized, the study shows that team size has little influence on the odds of an article on being retracted.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:70 social sciences in general, 85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:International Business Administration BSc (50952)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/72635
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