Serious Academics Are Full Of

ever get that feeling?

Serious Academics Are Full of Shit

 

Yes, I get that feeling increasingly often.

'Studies' annoy me. What's a 'study'? It isn't a scientific experiment. It's usually a poorly conceived and inherently biased survey, along with some fanciful interpretation. So what we get is an endless succession of news stories saying 'A new study shows that [everything that people previously believed is wrong]'. My guess is that some of it is politically motivated. But much of it is probably driven by academia's 'publish or perish' culture. Agreeing with your predecessors and with accepted opinion isn't the way to get noticed, while disagreeing makes headlines and gets everyone talking about your paper.

And there's the Replication Crisis. Science is supposedly objective and authoritative because its results can be (and are) replicated by subsequent researchers. Except that nobody even tries to replicate many results. Again, it's likely a product of the academic culture and its reward system. Researchers don't make names for themselves by repeating old experiments. They need to be doing new and original research. When attempts to replicate results are made, the failure rate is appalling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165

 

Yep. All the time.

 

This gets discussed within academia as well. Recently, a friend and I were venting our frustrations and broke the offenders down into three categories:

1. Opportunists who only write about whatever is hot at the moment
2. Controversialists who only write about things they're outraged about, and that are usually somehow autobiographical
3. Nutters who were only able to find original research topics because they've settled on something no one cares about (i.e., Achilles and My Little Pony)

These people, particularly from the first two groups, currently do achieve a short-term career boost from such silliness, but those who plug away at Untrendy Things still manage to survive as well, provided they don't get discouraged and quit. It's interesting that said friend and I both have worked in the real world outside academia, while most of the local offenders according to the above rubric have always paddled in the safe waters of the academic wading pool.

 

Someone got angry with me on this forum because I said that a lot of studies are junk and fluff. A lot of journals are looking for a hot topic. In the social sciences, they often care more about using the hottest new statistical analysis technique than something that can have real world implications. The same theories are retested for decades in a thousand different ways. In the natural sciences, there has been an increase in fudging data due to new PhD graduates struggling to find tenure-track positions. I think the biggest problem is the publish or perish culture.

I think academia should give more weight to applied studies. For example, I did a study with a law enforcement agency to find out what were the main causes of high turnover among communications workers. This is a problem across the whole industry, and there is very little research on public safety dispatchers and call-takers. This study led to the department significantly increasing their salaries to be more competitive with other departments in the area, but this doesn't count for much when trying to find a tenure-track position. If I published something with real world implications in a police magazine, that won't count for much. They'd rather see an article published in an academic journal even if it's something testing Deterrence Theory for the millionth time.

 

I think this is one of the pitfalls of lifetime tenure; many tenured professors (NOT all) get so secure and isolated in the Ivory Tower that they literally begin to lose touch with reality. They get paid very well for usually a light course load, have fawning student assistants who think they can do no wrong, and their fellow academics just reinforce that culture.

That, I believe, is why one of the major selling points of DL programs is "practitioner" faculty is so attractive; those who are out in the real world, actually doing what they teach, have more credibility with non-traditional students than someone with a stack of journal articles.

 

I've generally found that there is not much of a difference between what is taught by academics and practitioners. Practitioners might tell some war stories, but what is taught is usually based on the textbooks and research articles. A person's department's practices may not be a best practice. Personal experience is very limited, and there is a lot of diversity of personal experiences within the same occupation. I do value scientific research, but research that actually matters. What I do not want is a reinforcement of bad habits or practices that have no proof of working or have no proof of being the best options. For example, some states still waste a lot of money on boot camps for juveniles even though they have been found to not work and, sometimes, make low-level offenders worse. Another example is how the original format of the D.A.R.E. program led to suburban kids using more of the types of drugs they thought to be less dangerous due to their exposure to them in the D.A.R.E. teachings. Generally, they weren't very familiar with those drugs before going through the program. NYPD changed its policing strategy to be in line with Broken Windows Theory. They thought it led to a decrease in crime, but there was a national trend toward less crime across the country despite most agencies not using Broken Windows Theory policing. Correlation does not equal causation.

Criminal justice agencies solicit the help of researchers all the time when they can't find out the cause or solution to a problem on their own. Law enforcement agencies all over Texas come to the ALERRT Center at Texas State University to train for active shooter situations. Law enforcement agencies across the country send their officers and agents to train at the body farm at Texas State University. You can't get this type of training by working on the job. Knowing how bodies decompose in various conditions requires scientific studies. One last example of practitioners using bad practices that aren't based on science is arson investigation. In the Cameron Todd Willingham case, where an innocent man was highly likely to have been put to death, a chemist found major flaws in the conclusions the arson investigators came to. Their conclusions were not based on science; they were based on experienced investigators passing down myths to newer investigators for decades. That is the type of research I find valuable.

 

I'll agree with you about decomposing bodies and arson investigation, because those are hard sciences in and of themselves. Other than that (hard sciences), if you want to make a bad situation worse in regards to crime, invite a bunch of academics in to study it and implement their "solutions". CompStat and NIBRS are but two examples of programs with the best of intentions, but haven't worked out the way they should, to be kind. I have many friends on NYPD, and the morale of the department is in the toilet, a big reason being that precinct commanders are obsessed with and driven by CompStat, which is an imperfect system, to say the least.

NIBRS is another disaster; we routinely have to adjust the reporting codes to get reports to validate, in other words, we're "lying" to NIBRS, but we have no other choice. One example is if someone is charged with Domestic A&B and A&B Dangerous Weapon; this happens all the time, a guy will punch his wife/girlfriend (Domestic A&B), then when she's on the floor, kick her with boots or throw an object that hits her (A&B Dangerous Weapon). NIBRS insists that the A&B is a lesser included offense of the D/W, when in reality they're 2 distinct crimes that happened during the same incident. So, we have to change one of the reporting codes to 90Z, which will get the report to validate, but most likely screws up the reporting data. Of course, no one above the rank of sergeant has to deal with that, so the command staff think that it's wonderful, which they report back to the academics, and the cycle continues.

 

When a program is implemented, it is important to research whether or not it is working in practice. A lot of agencies are quick to adopt something new, but there is often a failure to do follow-up research. But, CompStat was developed by a working transit police officer, not an academic. When it comes to something like active shooter situations, this is not something officers should learn how to deal with by trial and error on the job. ALERRT allows officers to train by going through various scenarios. They also research which methods are most effective and ask for feedback from the trainees.

 

He came up with the initial concept, which was nothing more than creating pin maps. Since then, it's grown into a statistics-driven monster that has very questionable real value.

I've been to many, many, active shooter training courses. Not a single one was on a college campus, they were all conducted at or through a police academy. Dealing with an active shooter is probably the scenario where academic research is the most useless; they can debate about the motives of the shooter later, but the here and now requires decisive action. The body count at Columbine could have been less if there wasn't a stupid policy of waiting for a SWAT team before engaging an active shooter, but that policy was practically gospel to the high mucky-mucks. That policy is no more, a bit too late.

 

His method was updated after the chief of police adopted it. In the 21st century, and even in the last part of the 20th century, pins on a map are not going to do the job. CompStat has always been statistics-based.

After research, waiting for the SWAT team has been discouraged. You just made the case for research because there wasn't much on active shooting before Columbine.

ALERRT does not study the motives of the shooter. ALERRT studies which methods of response work best and uses its resources to train officers. it's known as the best active shooter training in the nation; that's why departments outside of Texas also send their officers or ask for ALERRT to travel to them. They have many volunteers to act in the scenarios. They also have access to technology such as eye-tracking glasses so that they can tell what the officer is looking at during each moment. How do you know that the training courses you took weren't based on research? If they weren't, how do you know that the methods they teach are better than others? You may not have been through active shooter training at a university, but thousands of officers have. Most departments do not have the resources to offer this training to its officers, so Texas State University offers it to them for free with the help of a grant. Even a department as large as Dallas had its officers go through ALERRT training. I don't see how research can be useless in this area. What is the alternative? Try out a new method while an actual shooting is happening and pray that a bunch of people don't die?

Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training: ALERRT Active Shooter Research
San Marcos ALERRT trained Dallas police officers | KXAN.com

 

I forgot that I went through active shooter training at the New Braunfels Police Department. However, the course was taught by a professional organization. They based their curriculum on research. Boston had a big active shooter training event that was supported by a military research organization that employs people with PhDs. That organization recorded data from the event for further analysis. I would find it hard to believe that any credible active shooter training course is not based on research.
https://www.army.mil/article/170523/in_supporting_active_shooter_exercises_army_gains_insight_on_tactics_in_dense_urban_areas

 

I've been in the ivory towers for 13 years, and I get more full of $#!% every day. The day that the tipping point is reached when there is more $#!% than me is the day I'll be ready to achieve emeritus status.

 

One of our manufacturing facilities was once struggling quite a bit. Our plant manager was an academic. He was an associate professor of operations management at a B&M school. Someone got the fun idea to hire a guy who never actually managed anything to run the place thinking it would be more efficient than a facility run by someone tainted by the real world.

His Quality Manager was 25 years old and this was her first job. He hired her because she had an undergrad in industrial engineering and a masters in something I cannot recall but wrote a thesis on lean process. Materials Manager was a former assistant professor who was denied tenure, again, first job in the "real" world.

His initial stumbling a were attributed to adjustment problems. So, we gave him and his staff plenty of time to adjust. But it just never came together. He did set a few records, however. He always threw the nicest parties, did the nicest presentations and managed to log more hours on the corporate jet than any other non-corporate level executive.

His biggest stumbling block was the sheer arrogance that oozed out of his building. We sent multiple teams of experts to try to help him out. They were always received with grace (and a fancy reception). Then they'd snicker about how the expert didn't have a degree at all.

I'm not suggesting that every academic, placed into a practical situation, would be an absolute train wreck. And we've had a few experienced professionals who ended up being terrible at their jobs as well. But when you consider that a good many academics teach about subjects that they have very little actual experience with, to students who are likely going to go and work in the industry those professors only know from books and "studies" it's a somewhat scary notion.

My personal favorite, of that ill-fated management team, was the study they assembled that attempted to prove that, despite the rising costs, falling production, abysmal quality and operating loss, that they were, in fact, the best facility we had and that they were actually the only ones doing all of those things correctly. Their study actually stated that we were the problem because we used "profit" and "production" as metrics. If measured by number of policies implemented, lack of meaningful improvement year over year and sheer pomposity, they led the pack.

 

Almost all of my professors worked in related jobs while in school. For most of them, you wouldn't be able to tell by their CVs. Once you get to know them, you find out what they have really done instead of making assumptions. I guess it's because I look like the stereotypical professor with glasses and speak a certain way, but the students within the first criminal justice program I taught in all assumed that I had no experience in the field. They actually thought all of the instructors had no experience in the field, except for the chair at that time. It turned out the chair was the one who had no experience in the criminal justice field. They just thought he had experience because he looked the part. He was in the National Guard, but never had a criminal justice-related job. The instructor who became chair after him was actually a law enforcement investigator in the military. Another instructor was a paralegal for a criminal defense attorney. This was a non-traditional school.

Texas State University is a traditional university. My program has professors who attended top schools. Most of them went straight from a bachelor's to a master's to a PhD, so a lot of people would make the assumption that they never worked in the real word. That is not the case. Examples of jobs some of my professors have had: security officer, mental health technician or similar (two professors), state trooper, military, attorney, police officer, and caseworker for a program that helped parolees. In my program, even a lot of students have worked in the field: police officer (a few of them including a sergeant), corrections officer, attorney, juvenile probation officer, adult probation officer, psychiatric technician, substance abuse counselor for inmates, death investigation for a medical examiner's office, etc.

At Angelo State University, which is also traditional, all of my professors had real world experience in my security studies program. All of them, except for one, served in the military. The one who did not serve in the military used to work for an international relations organization. Security studies is a sub-field of international relations.

 

People make assumptions. While not exactly the same thing I have had a lot of people make assumptions about me. I'm not tall (5'6). I have, what I'm told, is called "dad bod." I sport a beard, as much hair as I can grow between monthly haircuts, and a fairly prominent bald spot on the top of my head. I'm not what people picture when they hear "veteran." I was once out somewhere and saw a veteran parking space (not a disabled space) and parked there, veteran plates proudly displayed. I was swiftly confronted by an angry old man (not a veteran) who insisted I must be driving my father's car as those plates surely couldn't be mine.

Meanwhile, I had a colleague who looked every bit the part. Hair was high and tight. Muscles ripple under a freaking sweat shirt. He looks like he should be handing out pens to lure teenagers into enlisting. he made First Lieutenant, though that was in the Civil Air Patrol. He never served in the military. But people used to thank him for his service in Starbucks daily.

The fact is that a person can be absolutely right about something working well even if they have zero field experience. And a person with extensive experience can be totally wrong. It's unlikely, however, that a person with zero field experience, given the opportunity, would function seemlessly in the field no matter how much research they've done.

 

When starting a job in a field for the first time, everyone is going to need time for training and adjustment. It took me about two months to get comfortable in my counseling role, but my coworkers kept asking me if I had ever done this kind of work before because I adjusted so quickly. My class facilitation was above average because I had taught before, and I did have experience working in a correctional facility; but, I had never taught substance abuse topics. Someone hired at the same time as me had already completed a couple of thousand hours of training as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist intern on top of the practicum she had to do for her master's in MFT. She also had her own clientele on the side. She struggled with documentation and getting her paperwork in on time. Her clients weren't confident that she would get things done because she always seemed disorganized and would regularly forget important things. The clients complained that her classes were hard to follow because she was all over the place. Concerning some of the other counselors with many years of experience, I had a client tell me that it's hard to believe that any of them have been to college, and that I seemed to be the most educated counselor on the unit. :laugh2: Well, I am the most educated counselor on the unit, but most of my education is not directly related to counseling or psychology.

Keep in mind that being a researcher and teacher are also occupations. A lot of people can't just jump into those roles and do well either. Having a lot of real world experience does not mean that you will be a good instructor. I worked with corrections officers with over a decade of experience who decided to not become FTOs because they knew they didn't have the personality for the job.

 

I always view those degree programmes as a form of experience (full time you usually work in team to complete a project, DL is time management and you learn today and apply tomorrow) and training for you to achieve a certain level of intellectual and cognition. While some people are gifted and born with the level of intelligence, others may not be that fortunate. So, most people need training. If you completed an undergraduate degree, that means you can handle and comprehend undergraduate level of stuffs. If you completed a master degree, you can handle and comprehend master level of stuffs. If you have 2 masters or more like many have here, you have quite a lot of graduate credits which somehow near Phd level, just maybe lacking on more tuned research and publishing skills. In my country, PhD take the same graduate course as master candidate. Of course if you specialise in a subject, you have that level of knowledge of the field even those born gifted may not have.

Well, people spend time and effort to attain these kind of level for intellectual, learning abilities and cognition, thats why qualification do have its utility to some extent, besides adding on to credibility.

 

Researcher and teacher are occupations. And, like other occupations, there are people who excel in them and people who barely scrape by. The vast majority likely fall somewhere in the not-very-extraordinary middle. I don't think many people go into academia thinking "I want to marginally meet standards!" or "I want to get tenure by the skin of my teeth!" But that is where people end up.

I think that a lot of academics are feeling the pressure to not just publish but to publish something of worth so that they are recognized by their peers. I also think that a lot of researchers sometimes zero in on a very specific and particular subject and try to use it to carve a niche. Sometimes that works well. You might be a biologist who is just an expert in a particular enzyme. For more qualitative fields (say, sociology) that narrowing can be interesting at first. But then I think people start to reach just to try to milk what was probably a very good article, series of articles or even a book, into a career. And sometimes they overreach because there just isn't enough there to do that.