Education Faculty Productivity for Sale: Vanity Conferences and Implications for Research Quality

• In Event: 26.042 - Academic Careers, Faculty Productivity, and Expansion in Higher Education

Abstract

Vanity academic conferences have low rigor review standards for assurance of quality, often emphasize non-academic tourist activities over conference events, and their proliferation raises questions about accurate evaluation of faculty research productivity, institutional financial accountability, and scholarly research quality. Two fictitious research paper presentation proposals describing studies with fatally-flawed research methods, nonsensical research terminology, and omission of critical research details were submitted to 16 Education research conferences that met criteria for low selectivity conferences. The data for this study is 21 decision letters issued in response to these proposal submissions. All 21 were accepted for presentation, but no reviewer comments were provided. New faculty, educational administrators, and sponsoring academic organizations may be unaware of the inappropriateness of vanity conference presentations.

Author

• Jim Vander Putten, University of Arkansas at Little Rock