The Content of My Peer Reviews Did Not Change Once I Started Signing Them

I am a strong proponent of signed reviews, the practice of reviewers disclosing their identities by including their names in their peer reviews. I have explained my reasoning in a previous blog post and editorial when discussing open science practices at Emerging Adulthood. It is my personal opinion that any potential costs associated with the practice are outweighed by the benefits afforded through openness and transparency. People seem quick to cite the potential for retaliation, especially for early career scholars and those from under-represented communities. I am honestly confused by this response because it a) assumes the worst of our colleagues and b) as Hilda Bastian nicely articulated, if indeed there are instance of retaliation then as a community we should address the perpetrators directly rather than cower in fear. Moreover, masked review does not prevent retaliation, as authors may be certain they know who the reviewers are and may treat them accordingly, even though they may be wrong. Signing reviews brings these dynamics all into the open.

All of that said, my feelings and beliefs are likely to be of little interest to most people. Rather, what we all want are some data that speak to the issue. There have been some studies on the topic, but they are all limited in some way. For example, van Sambeek and Lakens (2020) found that authors were more likely to sign their reviews when making positive recommendations (accept/minor revisions) compared with negative recommendations. The majority of the data, however, came from manuscripts that were ultimately published, and thus their analyses were based on a biased sample. Moreover, they only examined the recommendation made by the editor or the reviewers, and not the content of the reviews. In a self-report survey study, Lynam et al. (2019) found that respondents believed that signing their reviews would lead to reviews that are less critical, more civil, and take longer to complete, all with rather small effects.

These studies collectively rely on self-report, a biased sample of reviews, or incomplete information about the content of the reviews. To address these limitations, I dug into my own archives to analyze the content of my reviews. Since my first peer review in 2008 I have kept a word file of every review I have completed. I am sure that I am missing some, but any missing reviews would not be due to any kind of systematic bias, rather just simple lack of organization. Whereas of course there are many limitations to analyzing reviews from a single person, there are also many benefits. Indeed, this analysis is a direct within-person behavioral test of the patterns reported by Lynam et al.

My archive includes 203 reviews completed between 2008 and 2019. I started signing my reviews in 2015, which resulted in 147 unsigned review and 56 signed reviews. I have fewer signed reviews because around the time I started signing is also when I became an Associate Editor and then Editor, and thus conducted a smaller number of ad-hoc reviews for other journals. My editorial letters are not included in this analysis, as those are a different beast altogether.

I subjected my reviews to the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to analyze the content of my reviews, and whether the content changed as a function of whether or not I signed the reviews. My version of LIWC is on the older side, so it is based on the 2007 dictionary. The data file includes everything from the dictionary, although clearly some features are more relevant than others, so I do not describe all of the data here. I only examine four features of the reviews that I thought were most relevant: word count, positive emotion words, negative emotion words, and cognitive mechanism words. The full LIWC results, R code, and the LIWC 2007 dictionary are freely available at osf.io/uf63k/. The raw reviews are not included in that data file since some people might feel that is a violation of privacy and the peer review process, but I have an identical file that includes the text of the reviews, which I am happy to send upon request.

I was interested in two questions:

Did signing my reviews lead to a change in the content of the reviews?

The answer is a pretty clear no. There were no differences between unsigned and signed reviews in terms of the length of my reviews (t = 0.41, p = .68), positive emotion words (t = -0.96, p = .33), negative emotion words (t = 1.07, p = .29), or cognitive mechanism words (t = -0.49, p = .62). These non-differences are clear in the violin plots:

It is worth noting, I think, that the frequency of positive emotion words is higher than the frequency of negative emotion words.

Signing my reviews is confounded with time; I started signing at a specific time and have signed almost every review since, with the exception of a couple I did not sign when I co-reviewed with a student. Thus, in many ways not-signed/signed is a binary version of what is a potentially interesting continuous variable: time.

Did the content of my reviews change over time?

The answer here is also a pretty clear no. For the most part. There was a negative correlation between time and word count (r = -.22, p = .002), indicating my reviews have gotten a little shorter over time. This is consistent with oft-quoted remark that length of review is negatively correlated with time in the field. However, looking at the scatterplot below shows that the association is quite noisy. The correlations between time and positive emotion words (r = .05, p = .45), negative emotion words (r = .002, p = .98), and cognitive mechanism words (r = .05, p = .48) were all very small.

So there you have it. Signing my reviews did not seem to change the content much, at least with respect to these few indicators that I examined. Yes, I could have analyzed more data, or analyzed these data more appropriately, but I did this work while avoiding several other more pressing tasks so was not looking to put in maximal effort. The data are available, dear reader, so have at it!

No More “Free Work” for Scientific Societies That Do Not Share My Values

Time is precious, so of course I have to be judicious about when and for whom I do “free work,” i.e. uncompensated activities that fall outside my specific job duties. I have historically devoted my free work time to advance two major goals: 1) enhancing the diversity of researchers and research topics in psychological science and 2) promoting open, transparent, and reproducible science. I have done this because diversity and open science are the two most central scientific values I hold.

The majority of my free work comes about in the context of professional societies. I have been very intentional about the societies with which I associate, choosing only ones that I feel align with my personal and scientific values. For example, I have long shunned the American Psychological Association (APA) because of their involvement with the U.S. Government’s detainee torture program, their aggressive issuing of take-down notices for researchers posting APA-published articles, and the myriad ways in which they unethically treat students (e.g., not allowing them voting rights, the structure of accredited programs that requires off-site internships), among many other reasons. I also have not been a member of the largest organization in my subfield, the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD), for nearly 10 years. My move away from SRCD was initially because I did not perceive them to value diversity in the field, and was subsequently reinforced by their tepid response to the detention and treatment of migrant children in the U.S. and their explicitly antagonistic views on open science. I am frequently asked to serve on committees or work on projects for both APA and SRCD, despite not being members of either, and always decline while providing the explanation that the societies do not share my values. I will not engage in free work for these societies.

This is all a long preface to say that I will no longer do any free work for the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA), a society for which I have been an extremely active member since joining in 2003. I have been to every meeting since 2004, have served on committees, chaired review panels, given countless presentations, and met many great friends and colleagues through the society. I owe much of my professional existence to SRA, which is why I felt such betrayal at their recent actions.

SRA, along with a number of societies and publishers (including APA and SRCD) signed on to this letter to the U.S. President urging him to delay executive action on open access of journal articles. Now, whether or not the President should take this action is not the core issue—I understand that this is a complex issue. But, signing on to this particular letter is inexcusable for a society like SRA. The letter is essentially publisher propaganda, containing mischaracterizations about the nature of intellectual property and the role of journals in the scientific process. Moreover, it is deeply nationalistic, prioritizing the benefits to the U.S. at the expenses of the rest of the world. This latter point should have been a deal breaker for any society that positions itself as valuing global science. The letter is a direct attack on two of my core values: diversity and open science.

I have communicated with several people about this issue, and they almost all give versions of the same two responses:

1) The issue is complicated, decisions about this kind of action have to be made quickly, and societies always have to balance multiple interests. I agree with all of this, but also maintain that SRA should not have signed that letter. It should have been an easy call to read the text of the letter and give a clear, not today Satan response. And there were options. There is another letter that, while I still disagree with the content, is much less offensive (SRA did not sign that one; APA did).

2) This demonstrates the need for me to stay involved in the society, work with them, and help educate and promote open science and diversity. I agree with all of this as well, but have chosen a different path. Time is precious, and I have to make sound decisions on how to allocate it. SRA is a society structured by the past, and is a society that is reluctant to change at the structural level, despite any veneers of change. I have decided that is a better use of my time to support new models for scientific exchange rather than try to change old, entrenched models. I was always baffled by colleagues who would say, “I don’t really like SRCD, but I just go because everyone else does and I like to see my friends.” This is not why societies or conferences should exist. We should do more and expect more, of societies and of our time. At SRA 2020 I was scheduled to run a preconference on open science and was a chair for an invited session on open science. I am withdrawing from both and will not attend SRA, devoting my energies to initiatives and organizations that I fully believe in.

Finally, I am not claiming to be a pure, virtuous actor on this topic. There are other initiatives to which I am devoting free work that might seem counter to my previous statements. There are always reasons, but those reasons do not violate my core values. Similarly, I will not judge those of you who decide to stay with SRA, which will likely be all of you. I just ask that you work to actually change and improve the way the society functions, rather than reinforce the status quo.

On That Time a Journal Rejected my Paper because it was Related to Culture

Many people, especially ethnic minority scholars, tell stories about how they did not get a fair shake at a journal due to the fact that their papers were related to cultural and/or ethnic minority psychology. 

Just recently, Qi Wang opened her paper, “Why should we all be cultural psychologists?” with an anecdote of this happening to her:

Not long ago, I submitted an article to a journal specialized in my area of research. Within days, I heard back from the action editor, an eminent cognitive psychologist whose work I admire. In her e-mail, she informed me that she had decided not to send the manuscript out for review because cross-cultural research did not fit well enough with the goals of the journal. Really? I could not believe my eyes. I took another look at the journal’s Aims and Scope, which clearly states that the journal covers “human” conceptual processes, memory, learning, problem solving, and more. Ironically, all these aspects of cognition have been shown to be susceptible to cultural influences. If the journal indeed tries to exclude cross-cultural research, then “WEIRD human”—that is, from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010)—would be a more accurate description in its Aims and Scope. I wrote back and copied my e-mail to the editor-in-chief, hoping to engage them in a constructive discussion, but never heard back from either. (Wang, 2016, p. 583[1])

I was a reviewer of Wang’s paper, and urged her to name the journal, to make this phenomenon known and hold the journal accountable. She chose not to do so, which I understand but do not agree with. For one thing, if this perspective is de facto journal policy, then potential authors have a right to know. But even more so, I fear that some people who have not experienced this treatment may not believe us, thinking that we are paranoid and seeking alternative explanations for why a weak paper was rejected.

So here I provide concrete evidence that should convince even the most hardened skeptic that this is a real thing.  To be clear, it is true that it is not always clear-cut that the reason for the rejection is the focus on culture/ethnic minorities. Sometimes you have to read between the lines. Not in this case. This case is so remarkable because it is so dang clear.

Below is a series of emails between me and first, the manuscript coordinator, and second, the editor, regarding a paper I submitted to Personality and Individual Differences. This was some years ago now, and I did not seek approval from these people to include their names, so I omit them below. I also removed some additional text that was not directly pertinent to my point here, but none of the words or meanings have been altered.

The initial decision email (in full):

Dear Dr. Moin Syed,

The Editors have now examined your above referenced manuscript and unfortunately cannot accept it for publication in Personality and Individual Differences.

This article would be more appropriate for a journal such as the International Journal of Intercultural Relations.

We thank you for providing us with the opportunity to consider your manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

XXXX

Brief and to the point: more appropriate for a journal focused on cultural issues, but no indication why. So I followed up:

Thanks, XXXX.

I am a bit confused about why the article is not appropriate for PAID. The aims and scopes of the journal state an interest in papers that focus on the "the traditional type of work on traits, abilities, attitudes, types and other latent structures underlying consistencies in behavior." The article I submitted examines traits and identity motives predicting attitudes. That sounds right in line with the aims to me. Is it because the attitudes I examined were cultural? Is PAID not interested in culturally-related research?

I am following up so as to better understand what PAID is interested in publishing, because, as I stated, it seems that the content of my paper is congruent with the stated emphasis of the journal (it could, of course, be rejected for other reasons).

Thank you for your time.

moin

The reply I received:

Dear Dr. Moin Syed,

I have received the editors response  - although your work is in general in line with PAID, we do, however, tend not to focus on papers which look at cultural issues.

Regards,

XXXX

I could not believe that they would be so matter of fact about it. At this point I felt like I needed to communicate directly with the editor to get more information. My opening salvo:

Dear XXXX,

I am writing you in regards to a paper that I recently submitted to Personality and Individual Differences, which was rejected without review. Let me be clear up front: I am not appealing the decision and the paper has been submitted elsewhere. Rather, I had some questions pertaining to the policies of the journal.

In the decision letter I was informed that the paper was not appropriate for the journal. I was surprised to hear this, as the paper examines personality traits and identity motives as predictors of cultural beliefs, which, on the surface, appears to be well-aligned with the stated focus of the journal. I contacted the Managing Editor, XXXX, about my concerns, asking if the reason it was deemed inappropriate is because PAID is not interested in culturally-related research. After checking with the Editor, XXXX indicated that PAID was generally not interested in papers that examine cultural issues.

I am contacting you because I was hoping to get clarity on the scope of research that PAID is interested in publishing. I enjoy reading the journal and very much respect its position in the discipline, and would like be clear on whether my research would ever be suitable for its pages.

I have attached a copy of the paper as well as the complete email record of my correspondence with XXXX. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully yours,

Moin

And the reply:

Dear Moin: thank you for your e-mail.

The reason for this decision was indeed that PAID tends not to accept papers that deal with cultural or cross-cultural issues.

Your future research would certainly be of interest to PAID insofar as its focus is on personality and related constructs in their own right rather than in a cultural or cross-cultural context.

Best wishes,

XXXX

Still aghast, I really needed more answers:

Hi XXXX,

Thank you for your quick response and clarifying remarks. I am surprised to hear of a journal that explicitly rejects cultural research. I know you are very busy, but I would be interested to hear your rationale for why you feel there is little cause for considering the cultural nature of personality and IDs within the pages of PAID. 

Thanks again for your response,

moin

Alas, I never received a response.

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[1] Wang, Q. (2016). Why should we all be cultural psychologists? Lessons from the study of social cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 583-596.

How I Got My Job

Recently on the PsychMAP Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/psychmap/) Julia Rohrer asked for faculty to tell stories about how they got their jobs. Because I share my story often, I figured I would write it up and post here.

I was on the job market (North America) for faculty positions in the autumn of 2008. I only applied to a handful of “dream” schools, figuring I would apply more broadly the following year (I had funding to stay in school). Shortly after I submitted all of my applications, the financial crisis hit and about half of the schools I applied to cancelled their searches. Many of the other searches were in doubt. This was clearly a bad situation: not only would there be few jobs available that year, but the following year would be even worse, given that there would continue to be few jobs available yet a surplus of job seekers. Let’s just say it was stressful.

I was very, very close to not applying to the job that I ultimately landed (and still have). The deadline was far earlier than most of the others, they required ridiculously short application essays (500 words each), and the position was an open-area “multicultural” psychologist, but the department did not have a developmental area (my primary field). Oh, and I was most certainly dubious of living in Minnesota, being a life-long Coastal Californian.

But, at the very last second, I decided to just send it in. I ignored their restrictive word count and just submitted my very long research, teaching, and diversity statements[1]. I was quite surprised when I received an invitation to interview a few weeks later.

The visit was great. I enjoyed the people, the department, and could see myself developing a career there. The critical aspect of the U.S. academic interview is the job talk. That is when the most people, who represent broad interests in the department, can evaluate your scholarship and teaching ability. A critical aspect of the job talk is the question and answer period immediately after. Many people can give a very nice scripted talk, but the Q&A shows what kind of scholar you really are; how you think and reason on the fly, and what knowledge you are able to spontaneously conjure when making your points. I have seen candidates secure the job with an impressive Q&A, but more often I have seen candidates lose the job with a very poor Q&A. Anyway, I felt like my talk and Q&A went really well, and was confident about my chances.

A few weeks later I received the call from the Chair: I was second in line. If the person offered the job ahead of me turned it down, then I would get the offer.  I was disappointed but hopeful.

Importantly, amidst all of this, the University of Minnesota was in a “hiring pause” due to the economy. This meant they were not certain they could even hire for my position, but were going through the process anyway just in case. So, they could not formally offer the position to the person ahead of me. This dragged on for a few weeks, and the first candidate had an offer elsewhere and was being pressured to make a decision. Going with the sure thing, the first candidate turned down the Minnesota “offer” and took the other job. Shortly thereafter, the hiring pause was lifted and I was offered the job. A few days later I had an interview at another excellent school, but I did not like it as much as Minnesota, so I withdrew my candidacy from that position and accepted the Minnesota job.

A few things I learned from this process: I had two campus interviews, which were from arguably the two “best” schools I applied to. Why did I get campus interviews at these schools but not so much as a nibble from the others? These two positions had a common feature that the others did not share: they both mentioned wanting a cultural psychologist. The others schools were mostly seeking a developmental psychologist, with no mention of a particular focus. So, apparently, I was an attractive candidate for a cultural psychologist position, but not so much for a developmental psychologist position.

I did not expect that type of response at all, but it drove home a point that many others have made: you never know how people will perceive you. Because of this, it is important that as a candidate you do not self-select out of positions, thinking that you would not be a good fit. If the school looks attractive to you, then go ahead and apply and let them decide whether or not they think you are a good fit. There is always a lot more to the job than what appears in the job posting, and you may have some particular focus that the department is quite interested in, but did not include in the posting. I was so very, very close to not applying to the University of Minnesota. Crazy world.  

---

[1] Generally speaking, I do not advise doing this; it is best to provide the materials as they are requested. However, if the difference is submitting the wrong materials or not applying at all, go ahead and submit the wrong materials. Now that I have been on the other side, I know that the search committee does not care about the length of the essays, and aren’t even aware that they are supposed to be so short. 

Reflections on the Cultural Diversity, Migration, and Education Conference

July 7-9^th was the Cultural Diversity, Migration, and Education conference at the University of Potsdam. Organized by Linda Juang and Maja Schachner and supported by the DFG (German Research Foundation), the conference was intended to bring together scholars from psychology, pedagogy, sociology, public health, family studies, and many other disciplines to share theory and research on issues relevant to the increasingly diverse societies in Europe and around the world. The topic is extremely timely given the large increase in immigrants and refugees to Europe from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries in the past year.

The conference was an interesting experience as an American, as there were few of us there outside of those on the invited program (full program available here). The main focus of most of the presenters was Europe, and Germany in particular, given that we were in Potsdam. Nevertheless, research and practice from the U.S. was a frequent topic of conversation, both because the Americans in attendance tended to voice their opinions from their American frame of reference and because all attendees recognized that some lessons—good and bad—could be learned from the American model given the long history of ethnic diversity within the society. As the conference came to a close, I began to reflect more on the similarities and differences in the European and American context vis-à-vis how to address ethnic diversity. Many of these thoughts have been simmering for a while due to my ongoing work in Sweden, but the conference brought many of them into sharper relief. I elaborate below, beginning with the similarities:

Similarities between U.S. and Europe

Homogenous teachers with diverse students – As the primary and secondary student body increasingly diversifies, the diversity of the teachers who work with them does not keep pace. There is a clear pipeline problem in terms of recruiting and retaining teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds. Unfortunately, this was not a big topic of discussion at the conference.

Language, bilingual education – All recognize the need for some kind of bilingual education or language support, but there are many disagreements within and between countries (or states) on how to implement this type of support. Accordingly there is no common model firmly rooted in empirical data to guide such decisions.

Ability grouping and race/SES – As it tends to be implemented, ability grouping, also known as “tracking,” has been clearly demonstrated to perpetuate race- and class-based inequalities. There are conditions under which ability grouping is appropriate and effective, but these conditions are very rarely met in practice.

Deficit models – Educational inequalities continue to be attributed to dispositional factors associated with ethnic minorities—what is called a “deficit model.” These include explanation such as lack of family investment, prohibitive religious doctrines, or poor motivation to learn the local language. There is still a great need to further conceptualize and measure contextual factors that may have greater explanatory power than dispositional ones.

Integration: Assimilation vs. Acculturation – Is it better for newcomers to blend in with their host society, shedding all ties to their former culture (assimilation), or is it optimal for them to adapt to aspect of the new culture while also maintaining connection to their home culture (acculturation)? This is an old question, which much of the evidence suggesting that the acculturation model is associated with more positive outcomes. But it is complicated. Better for what (psychological functioning, academic achievement)? In what domains (behavioral, values)? There is still much to learn.

Differences between U.S. and Europe

Diversity as a fact in the USA vs. something to come to terms with – One of my biggest take-home messages from the conference is that in the U.S. we take diversity for granted. Several presenters made statements to the effect that “European countries are ethnically diverse,” indicating that this view is not necessarily widely accepted. Regardless of their views on diversity, most residents of the U.S. would readily acknowledge that the country is diverse. Not so in many part of Europe. The myth of European homogeneity runs deep, despite the fact that it has never really even been true. Coming to terms with the mere fact of diversity seems like a major first step for many countries. This is even the case for many researchers. Accordingly, there are some fundamental issues well-understood among researchers in the U.S. that are not nearly as discussed in Europe (e.g., the importance of immigrant/ethnic identity for 2^nd generation immigrants, institutionalized racism).  

Racialization process, ethnicity vs. race – The concepts of “race” and “ethnicity” do not have universal meaning. Some countries only use one term and not the other, some use neither. In the U.S. we use both, but most people could not accurately indicate the difference. Regardless of the terms used, in any society a meaningful distinction can be made between social groups who have some shared ancestry or culture (ethnicity) and social groups created within a system of power and oppression (race). Furthermore, races are created through the process of racialization, rather than being fixed, biological categories. This process of racialization is happening with Muslims in Europe now (as it did in the U.S. post-9/11), but there is not a strong tradition of thinking of social groups in these ways.

Diversity of Researchers – While disparities of course still exist, in the U.S. there is an emerging group of researchers of color in the social sciences who are asking important questions about ethnic minority students’ educational and psychological experiences. This is much less the case in Europe, where diversity-focused research is largely conducted by members of the White majority culture.

The Use and Access of Data – While policies and practices in all countries are often based on ideologies rather than data, European researchers seem to have greater influence on polices than do many American ones. Moreover, in part because the countries are smaller in Europe and there are often better relations between researchers and schools, there is greater access to large, integrated data sets that can better address diversity-related questions about educational and psychological adjustment.

Overall, I felt like there were more similarities than differences in the issues and how they are being addressed. This speaks to the importance of developing international networks to share information about what works and what does not. The differences, however, tend to be much broader, systematic issues in the thinking and practice of diversity-related research. Most of these differences can be attributed to the longer history and recognition of diversity within the U.S. as compared with Europe. Again, these are just my personal impressions.

Editorship of Emerging Adulthood has begun!

I am very excited to announce that as of July 1, 2016, I have taken over as Editor of Emerging Adulthood, the official journal of the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood. I will be handling all new submissions, whereas the previous Editor, Manfred van Dulmen, will continue to process manuscripts in revision.

I have written an editorial about the transition, the new editorial team, and about my vision for the journal. That document is available to read here, available open access:

http://eax.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/07/29/2167696816661096?papetoc

Please consider submitting your work to the journal, and you can direct any questions to me at eaj@umn.edu. Thanks!

Some Ramblings on Why I Don’t Use Powerpoint (much) in Teaching

I tend to be rather vocal against use of powerpoint for teaching. More accurately, I am a vocal critic of how powerpoint tends to be used in teaching. Let me provide a bit of context to understand how these view may have developed.

I went through my post-secondary schooling at an interesting transitionary period in instructional practice. The first time I viewed a powerpoint presentation—or even had heard of the software—was in 1996 as a first year college student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. I remember it clearly because I found it to be so bizarre. It was in a first-year speech course, and a student used powerpoint to display visual aids for his speech on pesticide use in Central Valley farms. Classrooms were not equipped with projectors, and even portable projection carts were hard to come by, so he held up his laptop with its tiny mid-90s screen and showed us the slides. Meanwhile, my speech on the medicinal benefits of marijuana consisted of clippings from High Times mounted on posterboard, accented by fading Crayola markers.

As I continued through my schooling powerpoint made a sporadic, but still quite rare, appearance in the classroom. It was mostly used to project images, in courses on art, art history, landscape architecture, archaeology, etc., as powerpoint was a clear advance over the photographic slideshows on which I grew up. It really was not until I took a biological psychology course at San Francisco State University in 2001 that I experienced a professor using powerpoint as the basis of the lecture itself. The slides were filled with text, almost all verbatim from the assigned textbook, and the instructor mostly read from the slides when delivering the lecture, occasionally deviating to inject a small aside—but then, back to the slides. I greatly enjoyed the content of that course, but man, did I hate being a student in it.  I spent the entire class session furiously copying down the slides into my notes, always panicked that the professor would advance the slide before I got down all of the material[1]. Class was also incredibly dull, because I was listening to what I was reading to what I was writing. Not good.

Seemingly overnight[2] nearly everyone was using powerpoint  to drive their teaching practice. No longer was it an aid, providing visuals to compliment the lecture, but it had become the lecture. I was confused, because I felt like I was witnessing teaching and higher education getting worse right before my eyes. For many years, from middle school through college, I had numerous teachers who captivated my attention, sparked my imagination, and challenged my thinking, and none of them used powerpoint. Indeed, the purpose of this “coming of age” story is not to provide a “good old days” account of what schooling was like for me in the very recent past. Not at all. Rather, the purpose is to highlight the fact that I know, from a good deal of experience, that powerpoint is not necessary for teaching well, and that powerpoint can even impede quality teaching. While some may quibble with the latter statement, the fact that the former even needs to be stated at all—let alone italicized—is a reflection of how far we have come.

My strong views on this issue became even more entrenched when I began teaching myself. My teaching mentor, Dr. Tom Spencer at San Francisco State University, was a lauded lecturer on campus. Despite his course being incredibly difficult, students loved taking it because he was a master lecturer and, accordingly, they felt like they learned so much. And he never used powerpoint. This is a notable feat, because he taught until 2010 and never used powerpoint, while by that time virtually everyone used powerpoint. Students still loved his class. They still gave him a standing ovation at the end of the semester. I served as his teaching assistant for two years, attending every class, giving many guest lectures. I observed closely and tried to pick up as much as I could.

When it came time to begin teaching my own courses, I decided to follow Dr. Spencer’s model. It just seemed like the proper approach to teaching for me[3]. Some years later, I still don’t use powerpoint much at all when I teach. It can be very useful for displaying graphs or complex figures, but my slides almost never consist only of text. I definitely use powerpoint more now than when I first started teaching[4], but again, it is a very limited use. Over time, I have come to endorse the following set of reasons why limited use of powerpoint is optimal. You may not agree with some (or any) of them, but perhaps they will help you to reflect on why you use powerpoint and what purpose you see the slides serving in the context of your educational objectives.

Flexibility. Hands down, number one reason to not use powerpoint: it is like an educational straight-jacket. You are almost entirely committed to the linear order of presentation that you determined prior to the beginning of class. This takes away all of your options. I think of good teaching as consisting of a large amount of improvisation. You should go into a class session prepared to cut material, move things around, add in some stuff if need be.  Ideally, you make all of these changes without the students even knowing. This is virtually impossible to do when using powerpoint. They will notice that you skipped some slides, and they will wonder about that. Not ideal. Being a flexible teacher can have beneficial carryover: I have been forced to begin both a job talk and conference presentation without my slides due to technical problems. In both cases I received high praise (and even some astonishment) that I was able to give the talk without the slides. Imagine that, talking about my work without powerpoint!

Pacing. One of the challenges of using powerpoint is that it can involve a lot of waiting. You put a slide up, and the students feel the need to copy down its contents. If you advance before students are finished with their copying, you might hear about it from them. When using the whiteboard, you align your pacing with your students’ pacing. As you write on the board, so to do they write in their notes. Everyone is working on the same pace, and there is much less waiting. It also gets you moving your body more. 

Movement. Relying heavily on powerpoint keeps you close to the podium, when you really need to be moving around. Using a slide-advancing doohickey can solve this problem pretty well, however. Move your body!

Deeper processing (potentially). Copying down material from slides onto notes is a form of shallow processing that does not serve the students well. It might help them locate and memorize content for an exam, but it does not facilitate actual learning. Deeper processing, in which students take notes in their own words, is much more beneficial.

Expectations. Instructors need to get away from the mindset that there is content they must cover or “get through.” To be sure, powerpoint cannot be entirely blamed for this problem, but the rigidity of the format seems to promote it. It is best to have modest goals for what your students should learn in each class meeting. “Getting through” loads of material might make you feel better, but what about the students? They do not benefit from this approach. At all.

Students are thankful. Over the years, I have received many “thank you for not using powerpoint” comments but I have never received a “I wish you used powerpoint” comment. Not one. Students expect powerpoint, and perhaps some instructors feel like students demand it, but if you are a quality teacher, they will appreciate that above all else.  

A single principle I suggest when creating powerpoints slides: always seek to replace text with an image, figure, diagram, etc. It can almost always be done, and almost always should be done. Ask yourself: how can I present this information in a non-text-based format?

Finally, above else, you should take the time to reflect on what you are actually doing. Why are you using powerpoint the way you are? How does it link with your teaching philosophy and goals for students? Is it serving you and the students in the best way possible? In fact, is it serving you, or is it controlling you?

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[1] Which, as noted, was all in the book. Undergraduates can often be irrational, even those who become professors.

[2] But of course, not really, because that is not how change happens

[3] I do acknowledge, begrudgingly, that perhaps this approach is not a good fit for everyone.

[4] Mostly because it is much easier to flip it on and off in the middle of class, to switch from board to screen and back again. A few years ago this was pretty much out of the question.