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Fields or subfields of knowledge: Rejection rates and agreement in peer review

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Abstract

The trend toward specialization in sociology continues as in other disciplines. This has led to a corresponding move of scholars from research problems on the field level to those contextualized in subfields. Data collected from 279 manuscripts were studied to examine the Zuckerman-Merton hypothesis suggesting that higher rejection rates may indicate higher agreement among referees. In this study, three measures of agreement are compared to demonstrate the association of agreement and rejection rates within specialties. In addition to agreement measures, mean ratings of contribution to the literature and writing style represented different aspects of the referees’ judgments. Referee agreement on recommendation to the editor is a good predictor of a manuscript’s final outcome. Thus, it correlates very highly to the rejection rate based on the editorial decision outcome. This confirms the findings of Hargens (1988) that rejection rates remain good indicators of referee agreement. According to our findings, they are even better indicators on the subfield level. The findings demonstrate peer review responds differently to subfields than fields. This level of analysis improved our ability to predict editorial decision outcomes for peer-reviewed manuscripts over a previous model.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Weber State College, Ogden, Utah

    Susan Eberley (assistant professor of sociology)

  2. Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, 84602, Provo, Utah

    W. Keith Warner (professor of sociology)

Authors
  1. Susan Eberley
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  2. W. Keith Warner
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Additional information

Her research interests include the sociology of science, knowledge and technology and she is active as chair of an annual conference for Women in Science.

past editor ofRural Sociology. His current research explores nontraditional modes of developing organization theory.

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Eberley, S., Warner, W.K. Fields or subfields of knowledge: Rejection rates and agreement in peer review. Am Soc 21, 217–231 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692423

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