you won't believe this

[Brian MacWhinney]

Marnie, Keith, et al.

     I think that the likelihood of tenure review committees deciding  
to give credit for publications in magazines like Parenting is close  
to zero.  Of course, there is no such thing as bad publicity and no  
reason not to engage in such outreach, when possible.  And there is  
nothing wrong with setting up blogs and such.  But, in the end, we are  
researchers and so we really ought to treat these issues as  
researchable topics.  Of course, that means we need funding.  It seems  
that the Canadians have figured out how to do this.   If you remember,  
the discussion of Baby Signs last Fall eventually came upon a truly  
definitive review of the topic from Johnston, Durieux-Smith, & Bloom.   
If you would like to review that article, the link is http://www.cllrnet.ca/news/inthenews/104 
   That article itself didn't get through to Parenting, but it is  
certainly composed in a way that should allow the message to get  
through.
   Apparently, this research was sponsored through a Canadian Center  
of Excellence grant that funded the Canadian Language and Literacy  
Research Network.  Wisely, this center decided to initiate a  
competition for reviews of this type.
    Clearly such a review and evaluation is now needed on LENA.  It  
could easily come up with results that surprise all of us.  In any  
case, I love this model of the way in which researchers can make a  
substantive contribution to the understanding of products targeted to  
parents and still end up with a grant award and a good journal  
publication.  I wonder who could support this type of work in the  
States.

--Brian MacWhinney


http://www.cllrnet.ca/news/inthenews/104
On Mar 1, 2008, at 1:27 PM, Marnie Arkenberg wrote:
>
> On LENA: Basically we all feel there needs to be some kind of  
> dissemination of our research, not just to the scientific community  
> but to the general public as well. As mundane as it may sound, as a  
> paranoid new parent I read information from online parenting sources  
> and parenting magazines--places that are quick and easy to access.  
> It's rare for me to see a name of a researcher from our community,  
> much less something written by us. If we want to make statements to  
> the public about the issues and research we think important for  
> parents to know, we need to be proactive about writing articles  
> suited for that venue. We've set the stage for this not to happen-- 
> at last glance, at least at my institution, magazine publications  
> didn't count much towards tenure. We can blame journalists if we  
> want, but we certainly play a role.
>

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