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Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?

Retractions are among the effective measures to strengthen the self-correction of science and the quality of the literature. When it comes to self-retractions for honest errors, exposing one's own failures is not a trivial matter for researchers. However, self-correcting data, results and/or co...

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Autores principales: Ribeiro, Mariana D., Mena-Chalco, Jesus, Rocha, Karina de Albuquerque, Pedrotti, Marlise, Menezes, Patrick, Vasconcelos, Sonia M. R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9895951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36741346
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frma.2023.1064230
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author Ribeiro, Mariana D.
Mena-Chalco, Jesus
Rocha, Karina de Albuquerque
Pedrotti, Marlise
Menezes, Patrick
Vasconcelos, Sonia M. R.
author_facet Ribeiro, Mariana D.
Mena-Chalco, Jesus
Rocha, Karina de Albuquerque
Pedrotti, Marlise
Menezes, Patrick
Vasconcelos, Sonia M. R.
author_sort Ribeiro, Mariana D.
collection PubMed
description Retractions are among the effective measures to strengthen the self-correction of science and the quality of the literature. When it comes to self-retractions for honest errors, exposing one's own failures is not a trivial matter for researchers. However, self-correcting data, results and/or conclusions has increasingly been perceived as a good research practice, although rewarding such practice challenges traditional models of research assessment. In this context, it is timely to investigate who have self-retracted for honest error in terms of country, field, and gender. We show results on these three factors, focusing on gender, as data are scarce on the representation of female scientists in efforts to set the research record straight. We collected 3,822 retraction records, including research articles, review papers, meta-analyses, and letters under the category “error” from the Retraction Watch Database for the 2010–2021 period. We screened the dataset collected for research articles (2,906) and then excluded retractions by publishers, editors, or third parties, and those mentioning any investigation issues. We analyzed the content of each retraction manually to include only those indicating that they were requested by authors and attributed solely to unintended mistakes. We categorized the records according to country, field, and gender, after selecting research articles with a sole corresponding author. Gender was predicted using Genderize, at a 90% probability threshold for the final sample (n = 281). Our results show that female scientists account for 25% of self-retractions for honest error, with the highest share for women affiliated with US institutions.
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spelling pubmed-98959512023-02-04 Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error? Ribeiro, Mariana D. Mena-Chalco, Jesus Rocha, Karina de Albuquerque Pedrotti, Marlise Menezes, Patrick Vasconcelos, Sonia M. R. Front Res Metr Anal Research Metrics and Analytics Retractions are among the effective measures to strengthen the self-correction of science and the quality of the literature. When it comes to self-retractions for honest errors, exposing one's own failures is not a trivial matter for researchers. However, self-correcting data, results and/or conclusions has increasingly been perceived as a good research practice, although rewarding such practice challenges traditional models of research assessment. In this context, it is timely to investigate who have self-retracted for honest error in terms of country, field, and gender. We show results on these three factors, focusing on gender, as data are scarce on the representation of female scientists in efforts to set the research record straight. We collected 3,822 retraction records, including research articles, review papers, meta-analyses, and letters under the category “error” from the Retraction Watch Database for the 2010–2021 period. We screened the dataset collected for research articles (2,906) and then excluded retractions by publishers, editors, or third parties, and those mentioning any investigation issues. We analyzed the content of each retraction manually to include only those indicating that they were requested by authors and attributed solely to unintended mistakes. We categorized the records according to country, field, and gender, after selecting research articles with a sole corresponding author. Gender was predicted using Genderize, at a 90% probability threshold for the final sample (n = 281). Our results show that female scientists account for 25% of self-retractions for honest error, with the highest share for women affiliated with US institutions. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9895951/ /pubmed/36741346 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frma.2023.1064230 Text en Copyright © 2023 Ribeiro, Mena-Chalco, Rocha, Pedrotti, Menezes and Vasconcelos. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Research Metrics and Analytics
Ribeiro, Mariana D.
Mena-Chalco, Jesus
Rocha, Karina de Albuquerque
Pedrotti, Marlise
Menezes, Patrick
Vasconcelos, Sonia M. R.
Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
title Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
title_full Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
title_fullStr Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
title_full_unstemmed Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
title_short Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
title_sort are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?
topic Research Metrics and Analytics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9895951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36741346
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frma.2023.1064230
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