2019/02/01 by Pär Mårtensson, Uno Fors, Emelie Fröberg +2 · 1 voice
Decision Sciences · Health Professions · #Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions #Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0211636
openalex publication_date 2019/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
There are few acknowledged multidisciplinary quality standards for research practice and evaluation. This study evaluates the face validity of a recently developed comprehensive quality model that includes 32 defined concepts based on four main areas (credible, contributory, communicable, and conforming) describing indicators of research practice quality. Responses from 42 senior researchers working within 18 different departments at three major universities showed that the research quality model was-overall-valid. The vast majority believed all concepts in the model to be important, and did not indicate the need for further development. However, some of the sub-concepts were indicated as being slightly less important. Further, there were significant differences concerning 'communicable' between disciplines and academic levels, and for 'conforming' between genders. Our study indicates that the research quality model proposes the opportunity to move to a more systematic and multidisciplinary approach to research quality improvement, which has implications for how scientific knowledge is obtained.