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How to find the right journal for your research (using actual data)

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Joanna Wilkinson

Want to help your research flourish? We share tips for using publisher-neutral data and statistics to find the right journal for your research paper.

The right journal helps your research flourish. It puts you in the best position to reach a relevant and engaged audience, and can extend the impact of your paper through a high-quality publishing process.

Unfortunately, finding the right journal is a particular pain point for inexperienced authors and those who publish on interdisciplinary topics. The sheer number of journals published today is one reason for this. More than 42,000 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals were published in 2018 alone, and there’s been accelerated growth of more than 5% in recent years.

The overwhelming growth in journals has left many researchers struggling to find the best home for their manuscripts which can be a daunting prospect after several long months producing research. Submitting to the wrong journal can hinder the impact of your manuscript. It could even result in a series of rejections, stalling both your research and career. Conversely, the right journal can help you showcase your research to the world in an environment consistent with your values.

Keep reading to learn how solutions like Journal Citation Reports ™ (JCR) and Master Journal List   can help you find the right journal for your research in the fastest possible time.

What to look for in a journal and why

To find the right journal for your research paper, it’s important to consider what you need and want out of the publishing process.

The goal for many researchers is to find a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal to publish in. This might be one that can support an application for tenure, promotion or future funding. It’s not always that simple, however. If your research is in a specialized field, you may want to avoid a journal with a multidisciplinary focus. And if you have ground-breaking results, you may want to pay attention to journals with a speedy review process and frequent publication schedule. Moreover, you may want to publish your paper as open access so that it’s accessible to everyone—and your institution or funder may also require this.

With so many points to consider, it’s good practice to have a journal in mind before you start writing. We published an earlier post to help you with this: Find top journals in a research field, step-by-step guide . Check it out to discover where the top researchers in your field are publishing.

Already written your manuscript? No problem: this blog will help you use publisher-neutral data and statistics to choose the right journal for your paper.

First stop: Manuscript Matcher in the Master Journal List

Master Journal List Manuscript Matcher is the ultimate place to begin your search for journals. It is a free tool that helps you narrow down your journal options based on your research topic and goals.

Find the right journal with Master Journal List

Pairing your research with a journal

Manuscript Matcher, also available via EndNote™ , provides a list of relevant journals indexed in the Web of Science™ . First, you’ll want to input your title and abstract (or keywords, if you prefer). You can then filter your results using the options shown on the left-hand sidebar, or simply click on the profile page of any journal listed.

Each journal page details the journal’s coverage in the Web of Science. Where available, it may also display a wealth of information, including:

  • open access information (including whether a journal is Gold OA)
  • the journal’s aims and scope
  • download statistics
  • average number of weeks from submission to publication, and
  • peer review information (including type and policy)

Ready to try Manuscript Matcher? Follow this link .

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Identify the journals that are a good topical fit for your research using Manuscript Matcher. You can then move to Journal Citation Reports to understand their citation impact, audience and open access statistics.

Find the right journal with Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports   is the most powerful solution for journal intelligence. It uses transparent, publisher-neutral data and statistics to provide unique insight into a journal’s role and influence. This will help you produce a definitive list of journals best-placed to publish your findings, and more.

research report on academic journals

Three data points exist on every journal page to help you assess a journal as a home for your research. These are: citation metrics, article relevance and audience.

Citation Metrics

The Journal Impact Factor™ (JIF) is included as part of the rich array of citation metrics offered on each journal page. It shows how often a journal’s recently published material is cited on average.

Learn how the JIF is calculated in this guide .

It’s important to note that the JIF has its limitations and no researcher should depend on the impact factor alone when assessing the usefulness or prestige of a journal. Journal Citation Reports helps you understand the context of a journal’s JIF and how to use the metric responsibly.

The JCR Trend Graph, for example, places the JIF in the context of time and subject category performance. Citation behavior varies across disciplines, and journals in JCR may be placed across multiple subject categories depending on the scope of their content. The Trend Graph shows you how the journal performs against others in the same subject category. It also gives you an understanding of how stable that performance is year-on-year.

You can learn more about this here .

The 2021 JCR release introduced a new, field-normalized metric for measuring the citation impact of a journal’s recent publications. By normalizing for different fields of research and their widely varying rates of publication and citation, the Journal Citation Indicator provides a single journal-level metric that can be easily interpreted and compared across disciplines. Learn more about the Journal Citation Indicator here .

Article relevance

The Contributing Items section in JCR demonstrates whether the journal is a good match for your paper. It can also validate the information you found in the Manuscript Matcher. You can view the full list in the Web of Science by selecting “Show all.”

JCR helps you understand the scholarly community engaging with a journal on both a country and an institutional level. This information provides insight on where in the world your own paper might have an impact if published in that particular journal. It also gives you a sense of general readership, and who you might be talking to if you choose that journal.

Start using Journal Citation Reports today .

Ready to find the right journal for your paper?

The expansion of scholarly journals in previous years has made it difficult for researchers to choose the right journal for their research. This isn’t a good position to be in when you’ve spent many long months preparing your research for the world. Journal Citation Reports , Manuscript Matcher by Master Journal List  and the Web of Science  are all products dedicated to helping you find the right home for your paper. Try them out today and help your research flourish.

Stay connected

Want to learn more?  You can also read related articles in our Research Smarter series,  with guidance on finding the relevant papers for your research  and how you can save hundreds of hours in the writing process . You can also read about the 2022 JCR release here . Finally, subscribe to receive our latest news, resources and events to help make your research journey a smart one.

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A Practical Guide to Writing Quantitative and Qualitative Research Questions and Hypotheses in Scholarly Articles

Edward barroga.

1 Department of General Education, Graduate School of Nursing Science, St. Luke’s International University, Tokyo, Japan.

Glafera Janet Matanguihan

2 Department of Biological Sciences, Messiah University, Mechanicsburg, PA, USA.

The development of research questions and the subsequent hypotheses are prerequisites to defining the main research purpose and specific objectives of a study. Consequently, these objectives determine the study design and research outcome. The development of research questions is a process based on knowledge of current trends, cutting-edge studies, and technological advances in the research field. Excellent research questions are focused and require a comprehensive literature search and in-depth understanding of the problem being investigated. Initially, research questions may be written as descriptive questions which could be developed into inferential questions. These questions must be specific and concise to provide a clear foundation for developing hypotheses. Hypotheses are more formal predictions about the research outcomes. These specify the possible results that may or may not be expected regarding the relationship between groups. Thus, research questions and hypotheses clarify the main purpose and specific objectives of the study, which in turn dictate the design of the study, its direction, and outcome. Studies developed from good research questions and hypotheses will have trustworthy outcomes with wide-ranging social and health implications.

INTRODUCTION

Scientific research is usually initiated by posing evidenced-based research questions which are then explicitly restated as hypotheses. 1 , 2 The hypotheses provide directions to guide the study, solutions, explanations, and expected results. 3 , 4 Both research questions and hypotheses are essentially formulated based on conventional theories and real-world processes, which allow the inception of novel studies and the ethical testing of ideas. 5 , 6

It is crucial to have knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative research 2 as both types of research involve writing research questions and hypotheses. 7 However, these crucial elements of research are sometimes overlooked; if not overlooked, then framed without the forethought and meticulous attention it needs. Planning and careful consideration are needed when developing quantitative or qualitative research, particularly when conceptualizing research questions and hypotheses. 4

There is a continuing need to support researchers in the creation of innovative research questions and hypotheses, as well as for journal articles that carefully review these elements. 1 When research questions and hypotheses are not carefully thought of, unethical studies and poor outcomes usually ensue. Carefully formulated research questions and hypotheses define well-founded objectives, which in turn determine the appropriate design, course, and outcome of the study. This article then aims to discuss in detail the various aspects of crafting research questions and hypotheses, with the goal of guiding researchers as they develop their own. Examples from the authors and peer-reviewed scientific articles in the healthcare field are provided to illustrate key points.

DEFINITIONS AND RELATIONSHIP OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

A research question is what a study aims to answer after data analysis and interpretation. The answer is written in length in the discussion section of the paper. Thus, the research question gives a preview of the different parts and variables of the study meant to address the problem posed in the research question. 1 An excellent research question clarifies the research writing while facilitating understanding of the research topic, objective, scope, and limitations of the study. 5

On the other hand, a research hypothesis is an educated statement of an expected outcome. This statement is based on background research and current knowledge. 8 , 9 The research hypothesis makes a specific prediction about a new phenomenon 10 or a formal statement on the expected relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable. 3 , 11 It provides a tentative answer to the research question to be tested or explored. 4

Hypotheses employ reasoning to predict a theory-based outcome. 10 These can also be developed from theories by focusing on components of theories that have not yet been observed. 10 The validity of hypotheses is often based on the testability of the prediction made in a reproducible experiment. 8

Conversely, hypotheses can also be rephrased as research questions. Several hypotheses based on existing theories and knowledge may be needed to answer a research question. Developing ethical research questions and hypotheses creates a research design that has logical relationships among variables. These relationships serve as a solid foundation for the conduct of the study. 4 , 11 Haphazardly constructed research questions can result in poorly formulated hypotheses and improper study designs, leading to unreliable results. Thus, the formulations of relevant research questions and verifiable hypotheses are crucial when beginning research. 12

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

Excellent research questions are specific and focused. These integrate collective data and observations to confirm or refute the subsequent hypotheses. Well-constructed hypotheses are based on previous reports and verify the research context. These are realistic, in-depth, sufficiently complex, and reproducible. More importantly, these hypotheses can be addressed and tested. 13

There are several characteristics of well-developed hypotheses. Good hypotheses are 1) empirically testable 7 , 10 , 11 , 13 ; 2) backed by preliminary evidence 9 ; 3) testable by ethical research 7 , 9 ; 4) based on original ideas 9 ; 5) have evidenced-based logical reasoning 10 ; and 6) can be predicted. 11 Good hypotheses can infer ethical and positive implications, indicating the presence of a relationship or effect relevant to the research theme. 7 , 11 These are initially developed from a general theory and branch into specific hypotheses by deductive reasoning. In the absence of a theory to base the hypotheses, inductive reasoning based on specific observations or findings form more general hypotheses. 10

TYPES OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

Research questions and hypotheses are developed according to the type of research, which can be broadly classified into quantitative and qualitative research. We provide a summary of the types of research questions and hypotheses under quantitative and qualitative research categories in Table 1 .

Research questions in quantitative research

In quantitative research, research questions inquire about the relationships among variables being investigated and are usually framed at the start of the study. These are precise and typically linked to the subject population, dependent and independent variables, and research design. 1 Research questions may also attempt to describe the behavior of a population in relation to one or more variables, or describe the characteristics of variables to be measured ( descriptive research questions ). 1 , 5 , 14 These questions may also aim to discover differences between groups within the context of an outcome variable ( comparative research questions ), 1 , 5 , 14 or elucidate trends and interactions among variables ( relationship research questions ). 1 , 5 We provide examples of descriptive, comparative, and relationship research questions in quantitative research in Table 2 .

Hypotheses in quantitative research

In quantitative research, hypotheses predict the expected relationships among variables. 15 Relationships among variables that can be predicted include 1) between a single dependent variable and a single independent variable ( simple hypothesis ) or 2) between two or more independent and dependent variables ( complex hypothesis ). 4 , 11 Hypotheses may also specify the expected direction to be followed and imply an intellectual commitment to a particular outcome ( directional hypothesis ) 4 . On the other hand, hypotheses may not predict the exact direction and are used in the absence of a theory, or when findings contradict previous studies ( non-directional hypothesis ). 4 In addition, hypotheses can 1) define interdependency between variables ( associative hypothesis ), 4 2) propose an effect on the dependent variable from manipulation of the independent variable ( causal hypothesis ), 4 3) state a negative relationship between two variables ( null hypothesis ), 4 , 11 , 15 4) replace the working hypothesis if rejected ( alternative hypothesis ), 15 explain the relationship of phenomena to possibly generate a theory ( working hypothesis ), 11 5) involve quantifiable variables that can be tested statistically ( statistical hypothesis ), 11 6) or express a relationship whose interlinks can be verified logically ( logical hypothesis ). 11 We provide examples of simple, complex, directional, non-directional, associative, causal, null, alternative, working, statistical, and logical hypotheses in quantitative research, as well as the definition of quantitative hypothesis-testing research in Table 3 .

Research questions in qualitative research

Unlike research questions in quantitative research, research questions in qualitative research are usually continuously reviewed and reformulated. The central question and associated subquestions are stated more than the hypotheses. 15 The central question broadly explores a complex set of factors surrounding the central phenomenon, aiming to present the varied perspectives of participants. 15

There are varied goals for which qualitative research questions are developed. These questions can function in several ways, such as to 1) identify and describe existing conditions ( contextual research question s); 2) describe a phenomenon ( descriptive research questions ); 3) assess the effectiveness of existing methods, protocols, theories, or procedures ( evaluation research questions ); 4) examine a phenomenon or analyze the reasons or relationships between subjects or phenomena ( explanatory research questions ); or 5) focus on unknown aspects of a particular topic ( exploratory research questions ). 5 In addition, some qualitative research questions provide new ideas for the development of theories and actions ( generative research questions ) or advance specific ideologies of a position ( ideological research questions ). 1 Other qualitative research questions may build on a body of existing literature and become working guidelines ( ethnographic research questions ). Research questions may also be broadly stated without specific reference to the existing literature or a typology of questions ( phenomenological research questions ), may be directed towards generating a theory of some process ( grounded theory questions ), or may address a description of the case and the emerging themes ( qualitative case study questions ). 15 We provide examples of contextual, descriptive, evaluation, explanatory, exploratory, generative, ideological, ethnographic, phenomenological, grounded theory, and qualitative case study research questions in qualitative research in Table 4 , and the definition of qualitative hypothesis-generating research in Table 5 .

Qualitative studies usually pose at least one central research question and several subquestions starting with How or What . These research questions use exploratory verbs such as explore or describe . These also focus on one central phenomenon of interest, and may mention the participants and research site. 15

Hypotheses in qualitative research

Hypotheses in qualitative research are stated in the form of a clear statement concerning the problem to be investigated. Unlike in quantitative research where hypotheses are usually developed to be tested, qualitative research can lead to both hypothesis-testing and hypothesis-generating outcomes. 2 When studies require both quantitative and qualitative research questions, this suggests an integrative process between both research methods wherein a single mixed-methods research question can be developed. 1

FRAMEWORKS FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

Research questions followed by hypotheses should be developed before the start of the study. 1 , 12 , 14 It is crucial to develop feasible research questions on a topic that is interesting to both the researcher and the scientific community. This can be achieved by a meticulous review of previous and current studies to establish a novel topic. Specific areas are subsequently focused on to generate ethical research questions. The relevance of the research questions is evaluated in terms of clarity of the resulting data, specificity of the methodology, objectivity of the outcome, depth of the research, and impact of the study. 1 , 5 These aspects constitute the FINER criteria (i.e., Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical, and Relevant). 1 Clarity and effectiveness are achieved if research questions meet the FINER criteria. In addition to the FINER criteria, Ratan et al. described focus, complexity, novelty, feasibility, and measurability for evaluating the effectiveness of research questions. 14

The PICOT and PEO frameworks are also used when developing research questions. 1 The following elements are addressed in these frameworks, PICOT: P-population/patients/problem, I-intervention or indicator being studied, C-comparison group, O-outcome of interest, and T-timeframe of the study; PEO: P-population being studied, E-exposure to preexisting conditions, and O-outcome of interest. 1 Research questions are also considered good if these meet the “FINERMAPS” framework: Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical, Relevant, Manageable, Appropriate, Potential value/publishable, and Systematic. 14

As we indicated earlier, research questions and hypotheses that are not carefully formulated result in unethical studies or poor outcomes. To illustrate this, we provide some examples of ambiguous research question and hypotheses that result in unclear and weak research objectives in quantitative research ( Table 6 ) 16 and qualitative research ( Table 7 ) 17 , and how to transform these ambiguous research question(s) and hypothesis(es) into clear and good statements.

a These statements were composed for comparison and illustrative purposes only.

b These statements are direct quotes from Higashihara and Horiuchi. 16

a This statement is a direct quote from Shimoda et al. 17

The other statements were composed for comparison and illustrative purposes only.

CONSTRUCTING RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

To construct effective research questions and hypotheses, it is very important to 1) clarify the background and 2) identify the research problem at the outset of the research, within a specific timeframe. 9 Then, 3) review or conduct preliminary research to collect all available knowledge about the possible research questions by studying theories and previous studies. 18 Afterwards, 4) construct research questions to investigate the research problem. Identify variables to be accessed from the research questions 4 and make operational definitions of constructs from the research problem and questions. Thereafter, 5) construct specific deductive or inductive predictions in the form of hypotheses. 4 Finally, 6) state the study aims . This general flow for constructing effective research questions and hypotheses prior to conducting research is shown in Fig. 1 .

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Research questions are used more frequently in qualitative research than objectives or hypotheses. 3 These questions seek to discover, understand, explore or describe experiences by asking “What” or “How.” The questions are open-ended to elicit a description rather than to relate variables or compare groups. The questions are continually reviewed, reformulated, and changed during the qualitative study. 3 Research questions are also used more frequently in survey projects than hypotheses in experiments in quantitative research to compare variables and their relationships.

Hypotheses are constructed based on the variables identified and as an if-then statement, following the template, ‘If a specific action is taken, then a certain outcome is expected.’ At this stage, some ideas regarding expectations from the research to be conducted must be drawn. 18 Then, the variables to be manipulated (independent) and influenced (dependent) are defined. 4 Thereafter, the hypothesis is stated and refined, and reproducible data tailored to the hypothesis are identified, collected, and analyzed. 4 The hypotheses must be testable and specific, 18 and should describe the variables and their relationships, the specific group being studied, and the predicted research outcome. 18 Hypotheses construction involves a testable proposition to be deduced from theory, and independent and dependent variables to be separated and measured separately. 3 Therefore, good hypotheses must be based on good research questions constructed at the start of a study or trial. 12

In summary, research questions are constructed after establishing the background of the study. Hypotheses are then developed based on the research questions. Thus, it is crucial to have excellent research questions to generate superior hypotheses. In turn, these would determine the research objectives and the design of the study, and ultimately, the outcome of the research. 12 Algorithms for building research questions and hypotheses are shown in Fig. 2 for quantitative research and in Fig. 3 for qualitative research.

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EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS FROM PUBLISHED ARTICLES

  • EXAMPLE 1. Descriptive research question (quantitative research)
  • - Presents research variables to be assessed (distinct phenotypes and subphenotypes)
  • “BACKGROUND: Since COVID-19 was identified, its clinical and biological heterogeneity has been recognized. Identifying COVID-19 phenotypes might help guide basic, clinical, and translational research efforts.
  • RESEARCH QUESTION: Does the clinical spectrum of patients with COVID-19 contain distinct phenotypes and subphenotypes? ” 19
  • EXAMPLE 2. Relationship research question (quantitative research)
  • - Shows interactions between dependent variable (static postural control) and independent variable (peripheral visual field loss)
  • “Background: Integration of visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive sensations contributes to postural control. People with peripheral visual field loss have serious postural instability. However, the directional specificity of postural stability and sensory reweighting caused by gradual peripheral visual field loss remain unclear.
  • Research question: What are the effects of peripheral visual field loss on static postural control ?” 20
  • EXAMPLE 3. Comparative research question (quantitative research)
  • - Clarifies the difference among groups with an outcome variable (patients enrolled in COMPERA with moderate PH or severe PH in COPD) and another group without the outcome variable (patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH))
  • “BACKGROUND: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) in COPD is a poorly investigated clinical condition.
  • RESEARCH QUESTION: Which factors determine the outcome of PH in COPD?
  • STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: We analyzed the characteristics and outcome of patients enrolled in the Comparative, Prospective Registry of Newly Initiated Therapies for Pulmonary Hypertension (COMPERA) with moderate or severe PH in COPD as defined during the 6th PH World Symposium who received medical therapy for PH and compared them with patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) .” 21
  • EXAMPLE 4. Exploratory research question (qualitative research)
  • - Explores areas that have not been fully investigated (perspectives of families and children who receive care in clinic-based child obesity treatment) to have a deeper understanding of the research problem
  • “Problem: Interventions for children with obesity lead to only modest improvements in BMI and long-term outcomes, and data are limited on the perspectives of families of children with obesity in clinic-based treatment. This scoping review seeks to answer the question: What is known about the perspectives of families and children who receive care in clinic-based child obesity treatment? This review aims to explore the scope of perspectives reported by families of children with obesity who have received individualized outpatient clinic-based obesity treatment.” 22
  • EXAMPLE 5. Relationship research question (quantitative research)
  • - Defines interactions between dependent variable (use of ankle strategies) and independent variable (changes in muscle tone)
  • “Background: To maintain an upright standing posture against external disturbances, the human body mainly employs two types of postural control strategies: “ankle strategy” and “hip strategy.” While it has been reported that the magnitude of the disturbance alters the use of postural control strategies, it has not been elucidated how the level of muscle tone, one of the crucial parameters of bodily function, determines the use of each strategy. We have previously confirmed using forward dynamics simulations of human musculoskeletal models that an increased muscle tone promotes the use of ankle strategies. The objective of the present study was to experimentally evaluate a hypothesis: an increased muscle tone promotes the use of ankle strategies. Research question: Do changes in the muscle tone affect the use of ankle strategies ?” 23

EXAMPLES OF HYPOTHESES IN PUBLISHED ARTICLES

  • EXAMPLE 1. Working hypothesis (quantitative research)
  • - A hypothesis that is initially accepted for further research to produce a feasible theory
  • “As fever may have benefit in shortening the duration of viral illness, it is plausible to hypothesize that the antipyretic efficacy of ibuprofen may be hindering the benefits of a fever response when taken during the early stages of COVID-19 illness .” 24
  • “In conclusion, it is plausible to hypothesize that the antipyretic efficacy of ibuprofen may be hindering the benefits of a fever response . The difference in perceived safety of these agents in COVID-19 illness could be related to the more potent efficacy to reduce fever with ibuprofen compared to acetaminophen. Compelling data on the benefit of fever warrant further research and review to determine when to treat or withhold ibuprofen for early stage fever for COVID-19 and other related viral illnesses .” 24
  • EXAMPLE 2. Exploratory hypothesis (qualitative research)
  • - Explores particular areas deeper to clarify subjective experience and develop a formal hypothesis potentially testable in a future quantitative approach
  • “We hypothesized that when thinking about a past experience of help-seeking, a self distancing prompt would cause increased help-seeking intentions and more favorable help-seeking outcome expectations .” 25
  • “Conclusion
  • Although a priori hypotheses were not supported, further research is warranted as results indicate the potential for using self-distancing approaches to increasing help-seeking among some people with depressive symptomatology.” 25
  • EXAMPLE 3. Hypothesis-generating research to establish a framework for hypothesis testing (qualitative research)
  • “We hypothesize that compassionate care is beneficial for patients (better outcomes), healthcare systems and payers (lower costs), and healthcare providers (lower burnout). ” 26
  • Compassionomics is the branch of knowledge and scientific study of the effects of compassionate healthcare. Our main hypotheses are that compassionate healthcare is beneficial for (1) patients, by improving clinical outcomes, (2) healthcare systems and payers, by supporting financial sustainability, and (3) HCPs, by lowering burnout and promoting resilience and well-being. The purpose of this paper is to establish a scientific framework for testing the hypotheses above . If these hypotheses are confirmed through rigorous research, compassionomics will belong in the science of evidence-based medicine, with major implications for all healthcare domains.” 26
  • EXAMPLE 4. Statistical hypothesis (quantitative research)
  • - An assumption is made about the relationship among several population characteristics ( gender differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of adults with ADHD ). Validity is tested by statistical experiment or analysis ( chi-square test, Students t-test, and logistic regression analysis)
  • “Our research investigated gender differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of adults with ADHD in a Japanese clinical sample. Due to unique Japanese cultural ideals and expectations of women's behavior that are in opposition to ADHD symptoms, we hypothesized that women with ADHD experience more difficulties and present more dysfunctions than men . We tested the following hypotheses: first, women with ADHD have more comorbidities than men with ADHD; second, women with ADHD experience more social hardships than men, such as having less full-time employment and being more likely to be divorced.” 27
  • “Statistical Analysis
  • ( text omitted ) Between-gender comparisons were made using the chi-squared test for categorical variables and Students t-test for continuous variables…( text omitted ). A logistic regression analysis was performed for employment status, marital status, and comorbidity to evaluate the independent effects of gender on these dependent variables.” 27

EXAMPLES OF HYPOTHESIS AS WRITTEN IN PUBLISHED ARTICLES IN RELATION TO OTHER PARTS

  • EXAMPLE 1. Background, hypotheses, and aims are provided
  • “Pregnant women need skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth, but that skilled care is often delayed in some countries …( text omitted ). The focused antenatal care (FANC) model of WHO recommends that nurses provide information or counseling to all pregnant women …( text omitted ). Job aids are visual support materials that provide the right kind of information using graphics and words in a simple and yet effective manner. When nurses are not highly trained or have many work details to attend to, these job aids can serve as a content reminder for the nurses and can be used for educating their patients (Jennings, Yebadokpo, Affo, & Agbogbe, 2010) ( text omitted ). Importantly, additional evidence is needed to confirm how job aids can further improve the quality of ANC counseling by health workers in maternal care …( text omitted )” 28
  • “ This has led us to hypothesize that the quality of ANC counseling would be better if supported by job aids. Consequently, a better quality of ANC counseling is expected to produce higher levels of awareness concerning the danger signs of pregnancy and a more favorable impression of the caring behavior of nurses .” 28
  • “This study aimed to examine the differences in the responses of pregnant women to a job aid-supported intervention during ANC visit in terms of 1) their understanding of the danger signs of pregnancy and 2) their impression of the caring behaviors of nurses to pregnant women in rural Tanzania.” 28
  • EXAMPLE 2. Background, hypotheses, and aims are provided
  • “We conducted a two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate and compare changes in salivary cortisol and oxytocin levels of first-time pregnant women between experimental and control groups. The women in the experimental group touched and held an infant for 30 min (experimental intervention protocol), whereas those in the control group watched a DVD movie of an infant (control intervention protocol). The primary outcome was salivary cortisol level and the secondary outcome was salivary oxytocin level.” 29
  • “ We hypothesize that at 30 min after touching and holding an infant, the salivary cortisol level will significantly decrease and the salivary oxytocin level will increase in the experimental group compared with the control group .” 29
  • EXAMPLE 3. Background, aim, and hypothesis are provided
  • “In countries where the maternal mortality ratio remains high, antenatal education to increase Birth Preparedness and Complication Readiness (BPCR) is considered one of the top priorities [1]. BPCR includes birth plans during the antenatal period, such as the birthplace, birth attendant, transportation, health facility for complications, expenses, and birth materials, as well as family coordination to achieve such birth plans. In Tanzania, although increasing, only about half of all pregnant women attend an antenatal clinic more than four times [4]. Moreover, the information provided during antenatal care (ANC) is insufficient. In the resource-poor settings, antenatal group education is a potential approach because of the limited time for individual counseling at antenatal clinics.” 30
  • “This study aimed to evaluate an antenatal group education program among pregnant women and their families with respect to birth-preparedness and maternal and infant outcomes in rural villages of Tanzania.” 30
  • “ The study hypothesis was if Tanzanian pregnant women and their families received a family-oriented antenatal group education, they would (1) have a higher level of BPCR, (2) attend antenatal clinic four or more times, (3) give birth in a health facility, (4) have less complications of women at birth, and (5) have less complications and deaths of infants than those who did not receive the education .” 30

Research questions and hypotheses are crucial components to any type of research, whether quantitative or qualitative. These questions should be developed at the very beginning of the study. Excellent research questions lead to superior hypotheses, which, like a compass, set the direction of research, and can often determine the successful conduct of the study. Many research studies have floundered because the development of research questions and subsequent hypotheses was not given the thought and meticulous attention needed. The development of research questions and hypotheses is an iterative process based on extensive knowledge of the literature and insightful grasp of the knowledge gap. Focused, concise, and specific research questions provide a strong foundation for constructing hypotheses which serve as formal predictions about the research outcomes. Research questions and hypotheses are crucial elements of research that should not be overlooked. They should be carefully thought of and constructed when planning research. This avoids unethical studies and poor outcomes by defining well-founded objectives that determine the design, course, and outcome of the study.

Disclosure: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

Author Contributions:

  • Conceptualization: Barroga E, Matanguihan GJ.
  • Methodology: Barroga E, Matanguihan GJ.
  • Writing - original draft: Barroga E, Matanguihan GJ.
  • Writing - review & editing: Barroga E, Matanguihan GJ.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Self-esteem and academic engagement among adolescents: a moderated mediation model.

Ying Zhao

  • 1 Mental Health Education Center, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
  • 2 School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China
  • 3 School of Education, Hengshui University, Hengshui, China
  • 4 School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China

As an important predictor of academic achievement and an effective indicator of learning quality, academic engagement has attracted the attention of researchers. The present study explores the relationship among adolescent self-esteem and academic engagement, the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy, and the moderating effect of perceived social support. Four-hundred and eighty adolescents ( M age = 14.92) from the Hebei Province of China were recruited to complete anonymous questionnaires. The results show that self-esteem positively predicted adolescent academic engagement through the indirect mediating role of academic self-efficacy, and the percentage of this mediation effect of the total effect was 73.91%. As a second-stage moderator, perceived social support moderated the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy. Specifically, when students felt more perceived social support, the impact of academic self-efficacy on their academic engagement was greater. Our findings suggest that adolescent self-esteem, academic self-efficacy, and perceived social support are key factors that should be considered together to improve adolescent academic engagement. Therefore, parents and school educators should actively guide adolescents to improve their self-esteem and academic self-efficacy. Parents and educators should also construct an effective social support system to improve students’ perceived social support and enhance their academic engagement.

Introduction

With the development of positive psychology, human strengths and positive psychological qualities have received widespread attention. Researchers have focused on the positive opposite of burnout – “engagement” – which is defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind, characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption ( Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004 ). Academic engagement extends the concept of engagement, and it refers to the degree to which students engage in educational learning tasks (such as school-related coursework and learning activities) in the process of formal education ( George, 2009 ). Existing literature suggests that high academic engagement promotes academic achievement ( Johnson and Sinatra, 2013 ), improves physical and mental health ( Wefald and Downey, 2009 ), enhances students’ school adjustment ability ( Wang and Fredricks, 2014 ), and reduces students’ dropout decisions ( Fan and Williams, 2010 ). On the contrary, low academic engagement among adolescents can lead to academic failure, dropping out of school, drug abuse, juvenile crime, and the increase of negative emotions such as anxiety and depression ( Leslie et al., 2010 ; Li and Lerner, 2011 ).

Adolescence is a sensitive and critical period of development ( Blackwell et al., 2007 ), during which adolescents bear heavy schoolwork pressure while also adapting to significant physical and psychological changes. Some adolescents often experience recurring negative emotions such as anxiety and depression ( Sahin, 2014 ). In the Chinese education system, the phenomenon of examination-oriented education is serious. The standard of educational evaluation is single which takes score as only standard and much utilitarian awareness on violating nature of education exists in current education ( Wang, 2004 ). Adolescents’ academic performance is regarded as a critical indicator of their ability to learn ( Christenson et al., 2012 ). Researchers have explored the psychological factors (other than classroom teaching and learning methods) that affect academic performance, and this scholarship has concluded that academic engagement can effectively predict students’ current academic performance ( Hershberger and Jones, 2018 ) and also influence their future functional growth ( Fredricks et al., 2016 ).

However, we reviewed the relevant literature and found that the research on academic engagement has focused generally on college students. Specifically, it has focused on the characteristics of the class environment, such as the teacher-student relationship ( Yang and Lamb, 2014 ) and peer relationships ( Fredricks et al., 2004 ), and the characteristics of the family environment, such as family socioeconomic status ( Randolph et al., 2006 ) and family support ( Blondal and Adalbjarnardottir, 2014 ). There has been little research focus on the relationship between individual characteristics and academic engagement ( Li and Li, 2021 ). Self-esteem and self-efficacy have been confirmed to have an impact on academic engagement, but there is no research to confirm the respective contributions of these two factors, or on their combined impact on academic engagement. Moreover, research on the regulating mechanism of academic engagement is sparse. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the influence of the psychological factors that regulate or intervene in the academic engagement of adolescents; to fully consider the supportive resources of family, school, and society; and to put forward a plan to improve adolescent academic engagement that helps adolescents navigate the sensitive and critical period of adolescence more smoothly.

Self-Esteem and Academic Engagement

Self-esteem is the evaluation of an individual’s beliefs and attitudes toward his or her abilities and values ( Rosenberg, 1965 ). Self-esteem during adolescence tends to be unstable, because of the many changes that occur in the adolescents’ roles and responsibilities. Self-esteem tends to decline in early adolescence and recover in the middle and later stages of adolescence ( Trzesniewski et al., 2003 ). Adolescents with high levels of self-esteem tend to experience positive self-experiences ( Peng et al., 2019 ), high-quality interpersonal relationships ( Cameron and Granger, 2019 ), and better physical and mental health ( Li et al., 2010 ).

As a basic psychological structure, self-esteem can serve as a motivator for academic engagement ( Lim and Lee, 2017 ). Expectancy-value theory suggests that individuals’ positive self-evaluation can predict academic outcomes, such as academic engagement ( Fang, 2016 ). A study by Sirin and Rogers-Sirin (2015) showed that self-esteem affected the fields related to academic engagement, and that there was a significant positive correlation between self-esteem and academic engagement. The research data of Filippello et al. (2019) found that self-esteem can predict a person’s level of academic engagement. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H1: Self-esteem positively predicts adolescent academic engagement.

Academic Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, and Academic Engagement

Another term related to academic engagement that has also attracted widespread research attention is academic self-efficacy. Schunk (2003) defined this term as a student’s judgment of his or her ability to complete an academic task. Alivernini and Lucidi (2011) posited that academic self-efficacy reflected students’ cognitive ability in their academic fields and predicted academic achievement. Many studies have shown that academic self-efficacy has an impact on students’ academic engagement ( Uçar and Sungur, 2017 ; Liu et al., 2020 ). On the one hand, academic self-efficacy affects students’ academic efforts and persistence. Compared with students with low levels of academic self-efficacy, students with high levels of academic self-efficacy commit to higher goals and academic expectations, have stronger resistance to frustration, and demonstrate greater persistence when facing difficulties ( Wright et al., 2012 ). On the other hand, students’ confidence in their academic ability can influence their participation in school activities and learning tasks ( Eccles and Wigfield, 2002 ). Students who are confident in their academic abilities will put more effort into academic tasks, while those who lack self-confidence will be less engaged in their studies and are more likely to give up.

As mentioned in section “Self-Esteem and Academic Engagement,” self-esteem has a significant impact on academic engagement. However, it remains to be further explored how self-esteem influences academic engagement and what internal mechanism drives this relationship. Self-efficacy theory posits that academic self-efficacy is a motivational factor that can induce and maintain adaptive learning behaviors ( Ruzek et al., 2016 ). Whether self-esteem can affect adolescents’ academic engagement through academic self-efficacy is worthy of in-depth discussion.

Self-esteem and self-efficacy are connected but different concepts ( Judge and Bono, 2001 ). Self-esteem is a positive evaluation of one’s value and importance; that is, an individual’s evaluation of “being a person.” Self-efficacy is the speculation and judgment about whether a person can complete a certain task, and it is the evaluation of the individual’s ability to “do things,” based on experiences in specific activities. Previous literature has shown a significant positive correlation between self-esteem and academic self-efficacy ( Batool et al., 2017 ). Students with positive self-esteem have higher levels of academic self-efficacy ( Pahlavani et al., 2015 ). Both self-esteem and academic self-efficacy affect individual academic engagement, and self-esteem is closely related to academic self-efficacy; therefore, we can reasonably assume that academic self-efficacy is likely to play a mediating role between self-esteem and academic engagement. Thus, we hypothesize the following:

H2: Academic self-efficacy mediates the association between self-esteem and adolescent academic engagement.

Perceived Social Support, Academic Self-Efficacy, and Academic Engagement

Although self-esteem may affect adolescents’ academic engagement through academic self-efficacy, this effect varies from person to person. Perceived social support refers to the individual’s feelings and evaluation of the degree of support he or she receives from family, friends, and important others ( Zimet et al., 1988 ). Social learning theory ( Bandura, 1977 ) suggests that others’ guidance, expectations, and support will affect an individual’s self-efficacy. Academic engagement plays an important role in individual development, but it is malleable and does not always occur autonomously. When individuals perceive high levels of external support and expectations, their positive learning motivation can be stimulated ( Gettens et al., 2018 ), and the strength of this learning motivation has an important impact on students’ academic engagement ( Liu et al., 2009 ).

However, the existing literature lacks the exploration of the mechanism of the impact of perceived social support on academic self-efficacy. Existing studies have shown that perceived social support can regulate the relationship between self-efficacy and learning goals ( Bagci, 2016 ): in the case of high levels of perceived social support, students’ self-efficacy can effectively predict learning goals, and the establishment of learning goals is conducive to students’ academic engagement ( King et al., 2013 ). Similar to the studies described above, we expect the following:

H3: Perceived social support moderates the relationship between academic self-efficacy and academic engagement.

To sum up, we proposed a moderated mediation model (see Figure 1 ).

Materials and Methods

Participants.

The testers were trained in advance to ensure that they fully understood the requirements and precautions of the test. In the present study, the method of cluster sampling was used to invite all of the students of the junior high school grades 7, 8, and 9; all of the students of the senior high school grades 10 and 11; and of two schools in Hebei, China to participate in this study. They were asked to complete the questionnaires anonymously after the informed consent was obtained from the schools, teachers, and parents. Oral informed consent was obtained from each participant, and the participants were permitted to refuse to participate in the study. A total of 520 students voluntarily finished the questionnaires, of which 480 provided valid data (92.31%). Among them, 220 (45.8%) were male students, and 260 (54.2%) were female students. In age, participants ranged from 13 to 17 years, with an average age of 14.92 years ( SD = 1.47). One-hundred and nineteen students were from grade 7, accounting for 24.8% of the total; 86 students were from grade 8, accounting for 17.9% of the total; 88 students were from grade 9, accounting for 18.3% of the total; 89 students were from grade 10, accounting for 18.5% of the total; and 98 students were from grade 11, accounting for 20.4% of the total. All materials and procedures were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the corresponding author’s institution.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem was assessed using the Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965 ). This scale consists of a total of 10 items rated on 4-point scales from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4). The total score can range from 10 to 40, with higher scores representing higher self-esteem. In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.796, indicating an internally reliable scale.

Academic Engagement

The Chinese version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-S; Gan et al., 2007 ) was used in this study, and the initial version was developed by Schaufeli et al. (2002) . The UWES-S is a 17-item scale consisting of three factors: Vigor (six items), Dedication (five items), and Absorption (six items). Participants responded to the items on a 7-point scale from never (0) to every day (6), with higher scores representing higher levels of engagement. In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the total scale was high (0.943), and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the three subscales of Vigor, Dedication, and Absorption were 0.846, 0.843, and 0.862, respectively.

Perceived Social Support

The Chinese version of the Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS; Yan and Zheng, 2006 ) was used in this study, and the initial version was developed by Zimet et al. (1990) . The PSSS is a 12-item scale that measures an individual’s subjective perception of social support from family, friends, and others. Participants responded on a 7-point scale ranging from complete disagreement (1) to complete agreement (7). The total score of the PSSS ranged from 12 to 84, with the higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived social support. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the PSSS in our study was 0.897.

Academic Self-Efficacy

The Chinese version of the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES; Liang, 2000 ) was used in this study, and the initial version was developed by Pintrich and De Groot (1990) . This scale consists of a total of 22 items rated on a 5-point scale from complete disagreement (1) to complete agreement (5), with higher scores representing greater academic self-efficacy. In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.848.

Statistical Analysis

Data were analyzed using version 22 of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and PROCESS macro 3.3 ( Hayes, 2017 ) in this study. Before the analyses, all continuous variables were mean-centered. First, for all variables, the descriptive statistics and a bivariate correlation analysis were conducted in the SPSS. Then, PROCESS Model 4 ( Hayes, 2017 ) was used to examine the mediating role of academic self-efficacy. Next, regarding the analysis of moderated mediation, a moderated mediation analysis was examined using PROCESS Model 14 ( Hayes, 2017 ). Finally, we conducted a simple slope analysis to test whether the mediation effect of academic self-efficacy was different at different levels of the moderator variable. The dummy coded gender (1 = male and 2 = female) was the control variable in this analysis. Percentile bootstrap confidence intervals were calculated based on 5,000 samples.

Check for Common Method Bias

This study adopts Harman’s one-factor test ( Zhou and Long, 2004 ) to examine common method biases. Unrotated factor analysis showed that 11 factors were generated and could explain 61.46% of the total variance. The first principal factor explained 23.4% of the variance, which is less than 40%, indicating that there was no serious common method bias in this study.

Descriptive Analyses

Table 1 shows the means, SD, and Pearson correlations for all of the variables. Pearson correlation analyses revealed that self-esteem was positively correlated with academic engagement ( r = 0.23, p < 0.01) and academic self-efficacy ( r = 0.36, p < 0.01), and academic engagement was positively correlated with academic self-efficacy ( r = 0.52, p < 0.01).

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Table 1 . Descriptive statistics and correlations among variables.

Testing for Mediation

Table 2A shows the mediation analysis results. After controlling for covariates (gender and age), the results showed that in the first step, self-esteem positively predicted academic engagement, β = 0.23, p < 0.001 (Model 1 in Table 2A ). In the second step, self-esteem positively predicted academic self-efficacy, β = 0.36, p < 0.001 (Model 2 in Table 2A ). In the third step, academic self-efficacy positively predicted academic engagement, β = 0.47, p < 0.001 (Model 3 in Table 2A ). Finally, the biased-corrected percentile bootstrap method was used to show that the indirect effect of self-esteem on academic engagement through academic self-efficacy was significant, ab = 0.17, SE = 0.03, and 95% CI = [0.12, 0.23], the direct effect of self-esteem on academic engagement was not significant, c ’ = 0.06, SE = 0.04, and 95% CI = [−0.03, 0.15], as shown in Table 2B . Therefore, academic self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between self-esteem and academic engagement. The percentage of this mediation effect of the total effect was 73.91%. These results support Hypotheses 1 and 2 (see Tables 2A and 2B ; Figure 1 ).

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Table 2A . Mediation effects of academic self-efficacy on the relationship between self-esteem and academic engagement.

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Table 2B . The bootstrapping analysis of the mediating effects.

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Figure 1 . The proposed moderated mediation model.

Testing for the Moderated Mediation Model

Model 14 of the PROCESS macro ( Hayes, 2017 ) was used to examine the moderating role of perceived social support. Overall testing models are presented in Figure 2 , and the specific indirect effects are presented in Table 3A . The results showed that self-esteem positively predicted academic self-efficacy ( β = 0.36, p < 0.001); academic self-efficacy positively predicted academic engagement ( β = 0.47, p < 0.001); self-esteem and perceived social support did not predict academic engagement ( β = 0.05, p > 0.05; β = −0.01, p > 0.05, respectively); and the interaction effect of academic self-efficacy and perceived social support on academic engagement was significant ( β = 0.09, p < 0.05), and the index of the moderated mediation was 0.03, SE = 0.02, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.07], indicating that the association between academic self-efficacy and academic engagement was moderated by perceived social support.

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Figure 2 . Path coefficients of the moderated mediation model. Covariates were included in the model but are not presented for simplicity. * p < 0.05; and *** p < 0.001.

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Table 3A . Results of perceived social support moderate the mediation process.

We further conducted a simple slope analysis in SPSS 22.0 to explore the pattern of the moderating effect. Figure 3 presents the perceived social support (M ± SD) as a function of academic self-efficacy and academic engagement. The results indicate that academic self-efficacy was positively correlated with academic engagement for both adolescents with higher perceived social support ( B simple = 0.57, p < 0.001) and also for those with lower perceived social support ( B simple = 0.47, p < 0.001). Moreover, bias-corrected percentile bootstrap analysis revealed that the indirect effect was more significant for adolescents with higher perceived social support – β = 0.21, SE = 0.03, 95% CI = [0.14, 0.27] – than for those with lower perceived social support – β = 0.14, SE = 0.03, 95% CI = [0.07, 0.21], as shown in Table 3B . In sum, these results suggested that perceived social support moderated the relationship between self-esteem and academic engagement via academic self-efficacy, supporting Hypothesis 3.

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Figure 3 . Perceived social support as a moderator on the relationship between academic self-efficacy and academic engagement.

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Table 3B . Conditional indirect effect of perceived social support when academic self-efficacy mediated between self-esteem and academic engagement.

The present study investigates the relationship between adolescent self-esteem and academic engagement in order to clarify how the potential mechanism of self-esteem might predict academic engagement. As expected, the results demonstrate (1) a positive association between self-esteem and academic engagement, (2) the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy, and (3) the moderating effect of perceived social support. Moreover, the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy was distinguished as being affected by different levels of perceived social support.

Self-Esteem and Academic Engagement of Adolescents

The results show that adolescent self-esteem positively predicts academic engagement. High levels of self-esteem can increase the academic engagement of adolescents; these results support our hypothesis and validate the expectancy-value theory. Individuals with high levels of self-esteem set stricter standards and only consider themselves “good enough” when they met those standards, resulting in positive self-evaluation and increasing academic engagement ( Filippello et al., 2019 ). From another perspective, individuals with high levels of self-esteem can effectively alleviate the negative academic emotions caused by high expectations ( Kort-Butler and Hagewen, 2011 ).

The path coefficient between self-esteem and academic engagement was no longer significant after adding the mediating variable (academic self-efficacy), indicating that the influence of self-esteem on academic engagement was entirely through academic self-efficacy. Achievement motivation theory believes that self-esteem can significantly predict individual achievement motivation ( Accordino et al., 2000 ), but there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between motivation level and behavior performance. Only moderate motivation can make individual behavior performance the best. Therefore, self-esteem may not directly predict adolescents’ academic engagement.

The Mediating Role of Academic Self-Efficacy

This study found that academic self-efficacy played a complete intermediary role between adolescent self-esteem and academic engagement, which verifies our research hypothesis and echoes the research conclusions of other scholars ( Pahlavani et al., 2015 ; Uçar and Sungur, 2017 ).

The self-esteem level and stability of adolescents are relatively low ( Zhang et al., 2010 ), but most previous studies focused on the self-esteem of other ages, and few studies showed how the self-esteem of adolescents affects their academic engagement. This study shows that adolescent self-esteem does not have a direct effect on academic engagement; rather, it indirectly affects academic engagement through the influence of academic self-efficacy. Students with high self-esteem have higher self-cognition and academic self-efficacy. They can better regulate all aspects of available resources ( Ouweneel et al., 2011 ) and thus achieve their academic expectations and ultimately increase their engagement in learning.

The Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support

Consistent with our hypotheses, perceived social support moderated the association between academic self-efficacy and academic engagement. Compared with adolescents with a low level of perceived social support, the academic self-efficacy of those with a high level of perceived social support had a more significant predictive effect on academic engagement. Self-efficacy was a stable predictor of individual behavior, and academic engagement was influenced by perceived social support. The predictive effect of self-efficacy on adolescent academic engagement was changed by perceived social support.

Our findings fit with the hypothesis of the “protection factor-protection factor model” ( Fergus and Zimmerman, 2005 ). Academic self-efficacy and perceived social support are both found to be protective factors, and the two promote and strengthen each other. The higher the level of perceived social support, the greater the predictive effect of academic self-efficacy on academic engagement. The results also validated the academic engagement impact model ( Skinner and Belmont, 1993 ), which proposes that the satisfaction of students’ basic psychological needs (autonomy, relatedness, and competence needs) directly influences their academic engagement, and that an external support system affects students’ behavior by satisfying their basic psychological needs. When students establish harmonious and caring interpersonal relationships with surrounding individuals, their relatedness needs can be satisfied, which further stimulates positive behaviors such as hard work, persistence, and active participation ( Legault et al., 2006 ). Similarly, students in classroom situations are more likely to internalize learning motivation and participate in learning activities autonomously when they feel that their basic psychological needs are supported ( Niemiec and Ryan, 2009 ).

This study considered the effect of perceived social support on the relationship between academic self-efficacy and academic engagement from the perspective of interpersonal relationship; however, according to different psychological theories, there may be other factors affecting academic engagement. Family investment theory believes that family socioeconomic status reflects the situation of economic capital, human capital, and social capital in the family environment comprehensively, and affects the learning attitude of students ( Randolph et al., 2006 ). Family socioeconomic status has an impact on academic self-efficacy ( Artelt et al., 2003 ); therefore, family socioeconomic status may also play a moderating role between academic self-efficacy and academic engagement. To sum up, the factors affecting academic engagement should be systematically investigated from different perspectives.

Limitations and Implications

There are several limitations to this study. First, the cross-sectional survey design used in the present study could not infer or verify the causal relationships among variables; a longitudinal design could be used in future studies. Second, only the self-reporting method was adopted in this study. While our results showed that there was no serious common method deviation, future research should adopt multiple research methods to collect data, such as the interview method and other evaluation methods that involve other actors (teachers, classmates, and parents). Third, due to the limitations of human and financial resources, only students in Hebei Province were selected for the test. Future research will try to sample from all of China and discuss important demographic information about the participants.

Despite the limitations of this study, it has research value and significance. This research explored the relationship among self-esteem, academic self-efficacy, perceived social support, and academic engagement. Previous studies have involved only two or three of these variables; this study used four variables to study and build a reasonable model. This work explored academic self-efficacy plays a mediating role between self-esteem and academic engagement, and it also examines the moderating role of perceived social support, further deepening our understanding of how self-esteem affects academic engagement. The model proposed in this study is helpful for educators to pay more attention to adolescents’ self-esteem, academic self-efficacy, and academic engagement, so as to conduct better psychological intervention for adolescents with insufficient academic engagement.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This study takes an important step toward investigating the mechanism of the influence of self-esteem on academic engagement by testing a moderated mediation model. Self-esteem may positively predict adolescent academic engagement indirectly through academic self-efficacy. Perceived social support was found to be a second-stage moderator, and the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy between self-esteem and adolescents’ academic engagement was found to be stronger for adolescents with higher levels of perceived social support.

Given these conclusions, we make the following recommendations. First, attention should be paid to the promotion of adolescent self-esteem and academic self-efficacy. Parents and teachers should encourage adolescents to make a positive self-cognition evaluation; they should assist them in setting reasonable learning goals and guide them to reasonable attributions of success and failure when they encounter setbacks. Second, parents and teachers should create a positive and supportive learning environment in which students feel adequately supported, encouraged, and recognized. Peer support groups that use the encouragement given by peers to make students feel part of a community of trust and support should be established. Third, parents and teachers should pay attention to the state of students’ academic engagement and guide adolescents who have low academic engagement, or who seem to be exhibiting weariness and truancy. The teaching design should be novel and interesting, and the teaching method should be suitable for the needs of the students. Discussion and debate can be used to help full engage the students in the class material.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Author Contributions

LZ contributed to conception and design of the study. YZ performed the statistical analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. LZ, CP, and ZZ revised it critically for important intellectual content. ZZ collected the raw data and organized the database. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was supported by Hebei Province Education Science Research “13th Five-Year Plan” Project (2003056).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: academic engagement, academic self-efficacy, adolescents, perceived social support, self-esteem

Citation: Zhao Y, Zheng Z, Pan C and Zhou L (2021) Self-Esteem and Academic Engagement Among Adolescents: A Moderated Mediation Model. Front. Psychol . 12:690828. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.690828

Received: 04 April 2021; Accepted: 04 May 2021; Published: 03 June 2021.

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*Correspondence: Lulu Zhou, [email protected]

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Registered report adoption in academic journals: assessing rates in different research domains

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  • Ting-Yu Lin 1 ,
  • Hao-Chien Cheng 1 ,
  • Li-Fu Cheng 1 &
  • Tsung-Min Hung 1  

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Although the number of journals that have adopted the registered report format has increased rapidly in recent years, they still account for only a tiny portion of academic journals. This article provides a summary and overview of the number and proportion of journals that accept the registered report format in the various scientific domains. The Center for Open Science was searched for journals that have adopted the registered report as a regular submission option. The numbers of such journals in each scientific domain were then counted based on their group and category classification in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). In July 2023, 278 journals had adopted the registered report format, with 186 of these journals included in the JCR. The percentage of journals that had adopted the registered report format ranged from 0 to 7% across the different major research fields (groups in JCR) and from 0 to 34% across the research subfields (categories in JCR). The group “Psychiatry/Psychology” and category “Psychology, Experimental” had the highest percentage of journals that had adopted registered reports. Four large-scale replication projects have been published, focusing on psychology, social science, medicine, and economics, respectively. Although all four studies showed unsatisfactory replication success rates,  ≤ 1% of the journals in the corresponding scientific domains had adopted registered reports, with the exception of psychology (7%). To improve research reliability and transparency, it is critical to increase the use of the registered report publishing format.

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Ting-Yu Lin is supported by the Scholarship Program for Elite Doctoral Students [Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan)].

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Supplementary file1 (DOCX 26 KB) Search for journals that have adopted the registered report format

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Supplementary file 2 (XLSX 4696 KB) Number and Percentage of Journals in EachScientific Domain (JCR Category) That Adopted the Registered Report Format

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Supplement file 3 (PDF 56 KB) Data on the Journals That Have Adopted theRegistered Report Format and Their Corresponding Subject Areas in the JCR

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Lin, TY., Cheng, HC., Cheng, LF. et al. Registered report adoption in academic journals: assessing rates in different research domains. Scientometrics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04896-y

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The diagnosis and management of solid pseudopapillary epithelial neoplasm of the pancreas in a resource-limited setting: two cases from Cameroon

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Chinonso P Shu, George F F Ngock, Masango M G Lisongwe, Nkwayeb R Ndayong, Arnaud R Djomaleu, Macky F E Yecke, James A Brown, The diagnosis and management of solid pseudopapillary epithelial neoplasm of the pancreas in a resource-limited setting: two cases from Cameroon, Journal of Surgical Case Reports , Volume 2024, Issue 2, February 2024, rjae032, https://doi.org/10.1093/jscr/rjae032

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Solid pseudopapillary epithelial neoplasm (SPEN) of the pancreas is a rare tumor of low malignant potential that occurs most often in young females. Imaging and histopathology are necessary to confirm the diagnosis as most have no symptoms. Lack of access to these technologies in sub-Saharan Africa contributes to the difficulty in making an early and accurate diagnosis, and hence, impedes treatment. We present two cases of SPEN of the pancreas in young female patients at a rural, teaching hospital in Cameroon. The diagnosis was made only with histopathology. Computed tomography scan with intravenous contrast was essential to planning a safe surgical resection. Both patients had complete surgical resection with good results.

Solid pseudopapillary epithelial neoplasm (SPEN) of the pancreas usually occurs in the tail of the pancreas of young women in the second and third decades of life [ 1–4 ]. This tumor was first described in 1959 by Frantz [ 5 ] and makes up 1%–2% of pancreatic exocrine tumors [ 2 , 6 ]. These tumors are slow-growing and usually remain asymptomatic until they are very large. The diagnosis is rarely made until they cause pain and abdominal fullness or mass. They are associated with cystic degenerative changes at the time of diagnosis [ 3 , 7 ]. Computed tomography (CT) scan may be nonspecific in up to 40% of cases [ 6 ]. Immunohistochemistry is necessary for a definitive diagnosis [ 8 ]. This is important as liver enzymes and tumor markers are usually normal [ 4 , 6 ]. The liver is the most common site of metastases which occurs in an infiltrative pattern in about 15% of cases [ 1 , 6 ]. Surgery is the mainstay of management even in the presence of metastases [ 1 , 3 , 6 ].

A 14-year-old female with no relevant past medical history presented with a 2-week history of right upper quadrant abdominal swelling. She gave no history of trauma, pain, fever, jaundice, alteration in bowel habits, early satiety, bloating, or anorexia. On physical examination, she appeared healthy. Her vital signs were normal, and she was anicteric. The rest of her exam was normal except for a right upper quadrant fullness and a palpable liver edge 6 cm below the right costal margin. An abdominal ultrasound was interpreted as a right lobe liver mass. A fine needle aspirate revealed necrotic tissue with no hepatocytes seen. A thoraco-abdominal CT scan revealed an enhancing, centrally necrotic retroperitoneal mass of 9 × 12 cm compressing the duodenum, portal vein, and inferior vena cava. Mild adjacent free fluid was noted. There was no evidence of metastatic disease ( Fig. 1 ). All routine blood tests including complete blood count, chemistries (amylase and lipase inclusive) and coagulation studies were normal. A gastrointestinal stromal tumor was suspected.

A contrast-enhanced CT scans of the abdomen showing a large, well-defined, and heterogeneous tumor.

A contrast-enhanced CT scans of the abdomen showing a large, well-defined, and heterogeneous tumor.

At surgery, she was found to have a large sub-hepatic mass extending into the lesser sac and arising from the head of the pancreas. The contents were necrotic and hemorrhagic. An incisional biopsy was taken along with several peri-hepatic lymph nodes. Histopathology returned with a diagnosis of SPEN of the pancreas. All four lymph nodes were negative for metastatic tumor. At a second laparotomy, a pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple procedure) was performed ( Fig. 2 ). Her postoperative course was complicated by a pancreatic leak that resolved on postoperative Day 5, and a superficial postoperative wound infection. She was discharged on postoperative Day 15. Histopathology revealed negative margins and lymph nodes, and she was euglycemic.

Anatomical piece showing a well-defined resected tumor.

Anatomical piece showing a well-defined resected tumor.

A 21-year-old female collapsed in a market and was taken to a local hospital where she was told that she had a ruptured spleen. She was transfused with two units of whole blood and discharged without surgery. Four weeks later, she noted persistent fullness in her left upper quadrant and presented to our hospital for further evaluation. A contrast CT scan revealed two well-encapsulated, cystic masses in the left upper quadrant, the largest one with small solid components abutting the tail of the pancreas and the smaller one adjacent to the posterior wall of the stomach. She had splenic vein thrombosis, but her portal vein was patent. Numerous portosystemic venous pathways were present, mostly in the gastrosplenic area. The spleen was homogeneous but enlarged with a smooth capsule and normal contour. The liver was normal ( Figs. 3 and 4 ). Her preoperative laboratory studies, including complete blood count, liver function tests, and coagulation studies were normal. A fine-needle aspiration of the anterior mass revealed fresh blood. She was given vaccines against pneumococcus, meningococcus, and haemophilus, anticipating splenectomy would be necessary to resect this mass. At surgery, the splenic artery was ligated at its origin from the celiac axis, which led to an immediate decompression of the peri-splenic and gastric venous collaterals before attempting resection of the mass. The anterior/superior mass was a large, partially organized hematoma, but the inferior mass arose from the tail of the pancreas. A distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy were done en-bloc. The final histopathology revealed a solid pseudopapillary epithelial tumor of the pancreas with negative margins of resection. The patient had an uncomplicated postoperative course and remains asymptomatic.

CT scan showing mass with well-defined borders.

CT scan showing mass with well-defined borders.

CT scan showing normal liver and enlarged spleen in close proximity with the mass.

CT scan showing normal liver and enlarged spleen in close proximity with the mass.

Solid pseudopapillary epithelial tumors of the pancreas are rare and occur most often in young women, as our two cases demonstrate [ 4 ]. Most of these tumors arise in the tail of the pancreas but can arise in the head of the pancreas, as our first case demonstrates. Hepatobiliary obstruction is rare but can occur by extrinsic compression from large tumors. The most common presentation is abdominal pain and fullness [ 7 , 9 ]. Preoperative diagnosis is difficult, and CT and magnetic resonance imaging scans can be mis-interpreted in up to 40%–50% of cases [ 6 , 9 ]. These tumors are often mistaken for gastrointestinal stromal tumors preoperatively, which highlights the need for histopathology and immunohistochemical markers which are not readily available in sub-Saharan Africa [ 10 ]. Telepathology has helped to breach the gap in such settings [ 11 ], which is true for our hospital with one pathologist who is sometimes away. Tissue for histopathology can be obtained either preoperatively or after excision, as in our case; as some authors argue preoperative tissue diagnosis could lead to extra-pancreatic spread of the disease despite the fact that another school of thought favors this as it helps plan the surgery and prevents going in twice as in our case [ 12 , 13 ]. Histopathology also helps to differentiate benign and malignant forms of the disease aided by immunohistochemical markers of which vimentin, alpha-1-antitrypsin, neuron specific enolase(NSE), CD10 and CD56 are particularly helpful [ 8 , 12 ]. Malignant features include vascular and nerve sheath infiltration, lymph node metastases, and liver metastases [ 14 ]. There is still controversy over the clinical predictability and prognosis of malignant pathologic findings in these patients. [ 15 ]. Complete surgical excision is the mainstay for cure with the operation tailored to the size and location of the primary tumor [ 6 ]. Our first patient required pancreaticoduodenectomy which is rare in teenagers [ 16 ]. Neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy have been beneficial in some cases while chemoradiation has been used in unresectable cases [ 6 ]. The prognosis is favorable even in the presence of distant metastases. Recurrence rates are low, and 5 year survival as high as 97% [ 6 , 17 ].

SPEN of the pancreas are rare, slow-growing tumors that usually occur in young women. Contrast imaging and histopathology, especially immunohistochemical staining, are essential to the diagnosis. Lack of access to these modalities in sub-Saharan Africa complicates the diagnosis and management of these tumors. Surgical resection with an R0 excision is the mainstay of treatment and results in an excellent long-term prognosis.

We sincerely acknowledge Dr. Richard Bardin, pathologist of Mbingo Baptist Hospital, who expedited results for histopathology for these patients, which led to prompt, efficient management.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

None declared.

This is a case study so all data used are within the article.

Ethical clearance was obtained from the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board Institutional Review Board with ref: IRB2023–83.

Patients involved gave their consent.

To ensure confidentiality, all patient information was coded. All methods were performed by ethical guidelines as stipulated in the Declaration of Helsinki.

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  • 12 February 2024

China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research misconduct

  • Smriti Mallapaty

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The reputation of Chinese science has been "adversely affected" by the number of retractions in recent years, according to a government notice. Credit: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty

Chinese universities are days away from the deadline to complete a nationwide audit of retracted research papers and probe of research misconduct. By 15 February, universities must submit to the government a comprehensive list of all academic articles retracted from English- and Chinese-language journals in the past three years. They need to clarify why the papers were retracted and investigate cases involving misconduct, according to a 20 November notice from the Ministry of Education’s Department of Science, Technology and Informatization.

The government launched the nationwide self-review in response to Hindawi, a London-based subsidiary of the publisher Wiley, retracting a large number of papers by Chinese authors. These retractions, along with those from other publishers, “have adversely affected our country’s academic reputation and academic environment”, the notice states.

A Nature analysis shows that last year, Hindawi issued more than 9,600 retractions, of which the vast majority — about 8,200 — had a co-author in China. Nearly 14,000 retraction notices, of which some three-quarters involved a Chinese co-author, were issued by all publishers in 2023.

This is “the first time we’ve seen such a national operation on retraction investigations”, says Xiaotian Chen, a library and information scientist at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, who has studied retractions and research misconduct in China. Previous investigations have largely been carried out on a case-by-case basis — but this time, all institutions have to conduct their investigations simultaneously, says Chen.

Tight deadline

The ministry’s notice set off a chain of alerts, cascading to individual university departments. Bulletins posted on university websites required researchers to submit their retractions by a range of dates, mostly in January — leaving time for universities to collate and present the data.

Although the alerts included lists of retractions that the ministry or the universities were aware of, they also called for unlisted retractions to be added.

research report on academic journals

More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record

According to Nature ’s analysis, which includes only English-language journals, more than 17,000 retraction notices for papers published by Chinese co-authors have been issued since 1 January 2021, which is the start of the period of review specified in the notice. The analysis, an update of one conducted in December , used the Retraction Watch database, augmented with retraction notices collated from the Dimensions database, and involved assistance from Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse in France. It is unclear whether the official lists contain the same number of retracted papers.

Regardless, the timing to submit the information will be tight, says Shu Fei, a bibliometrics scientist at Hangzhou Dianzi University in China. The ministry gave universities less than three months to complete their self-review — and this was cut shorter by the academic winter break, which typically starts in mid-January and concludes after the Chinese New Year, which fell this year on 10 February.

“The timing is not good,” he says. Shu expects that universities are most likely to submit only a preliminary report of their researchers’ retracted papers included on the official lists.

But Wang Fei, who studies research-integrity policy at Dalian University of Technology in China, says that because the ministry has set a deadline, universities will work hard to submit their findings on time.

Researchers with retracted papers will have to explain whether the retraction was owing to misconduct, such as image manipulation, or an honest mistake, such as authors identifying errors in their own work, says Chen: “In other words, they may have to defend themselves.” Universities then must investigate and penalize misconduct. If a researcher fails to declare their retracted paper and it is later uncovered, they will be punished, according to the ministry notice. The cost of not reporting is high, says Chen. “This is a very serious measure.”

It is not known what form punishment might take, but in 2021, China’s National Health Commission posted the results of its investigations into a batch of retracted papers. Punishments included salary cuts, withdrawal of bonuses, demotions and timed suspensions from applying for research grants and rewards.

The notice states explicitly that the first corresponding author of a paper is responsible for submitting the response. This requirement will largely address the problem of researchers shirking responsibility for collaborative work, says Li Tang, a science- and innovation-policy researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. The notice also emphasizes due process, says Tang. Researchers alleged to have committed misconduct have a right to appeal during the investigation.

The notice is a good approach for addressing misconduct, says Wang. Previous efforts by the Chinese government have stopped at issuing new research-integrity guidelines that were poorly implemented, she says. And when government bodies did launch self-investigations of published literature, they were narrower in scope and lacked clear objectives. This time, the target is clear — retractions — and the scope is broad, involving the entire university research community, she says.

“Cultivating research integrity takes time, but China is on the right track,” says Tang.

It is not clear what the ministry will do with the flurry of submissions. Wang says that, because the retraction notices are already freely available, publicizing the collated lists and underlying reasons for retraction could be useful. She hopes that a similar review will be conducted every year “to put more pressure” on authors and universities to monitor research integrity.

What happens next will reveal how seriously the ministry regards research misconduct, says Shu. He suggests that, if the ministry does not take further action after the Chinese New Year, the notice could be an attempt to respond to the reputational damage caused by the mass retractions last year.

The ministry did not respond to Nature ’s questions about the misconduct investigation.

Chen says that, regardless of what the ministry does with the information, the reporting process itself will help to curb misconduct because it is “embarrassing to the people in the report”.

But it might primarily affect researchers publishing in English-language journals. Retraction notices in Chinese-language journals are rare.

Nature 626 , 700-701 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00397-x

Data analysis by Richard Van Noorden.

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Stanford Medicine study identifies distinct brain organization patterns in women and men

Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a powerful new artificial intelligence model that can distinguish between male and female brains.

February 20, 2024

sex differences in brain

'A key motivation for this study is that sex plays a crucial role in human brain development, in aging, and in the manifestation of psychiatric and neurological disorders,' said Vinod Menon. clelia-clelia

A new study by Stanford Medicine investigators unveils a new artificial intelligence model that was more than 90% successful at determining whether scans of brain activity came from a woman or a man.

The findings, published Feb. 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, help resolve a long-term controversy about whether reliable sex differences exist in the human brain and suggest that understanding these differences may be critical to addressing neuropsychiatric conditions that affect women and men differently.

“A key motivation for this study is that sex plays a crucial role in human brain development, in aging, and in the manifestation of psychiatric and neurological disorders,” said Vinod Menon , PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory . “Identifying consistent and replicable sex differences in the healthy adult brain is a critical step toward a deeper understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities in psychiatric and neurological disorders.”

Menon is the study’s senior author. The lead authors are senior research scientist Srikanth Ryali , PhD, and academic staff researcher Yuan Zhang , PhD.

“Hotspots” that most helped the model distinguish male brains from female ones include the default mode network, a brain system that helps us process self-referential information, and the striatum and limbic network, which are involved in learning and how we respond to rewards.

The investigators noted that this work does not weigh in on whether sex-related differences arise early in life or may be driven by hormonal differences or the different societal circumstances that men and women may be more likely to encounter.

Uncovering brain differences

The extent to which a person’s sex affects how their brain is organized and operates has long been a point of dispute among scientists. While we know the sex chromosomes we are born with help determine the cocktail of hormones our brains are exposed to — particularly during early development, puberty and aging — researchers have long struggled to connect sex to concrete differences in the human brain. Brain structures tend to look much the same in men and women, and previous research examining how brain regions work together has also largely failed to turn up consistent brain indicators of sex.

test

Vinod Menon

In their current study, Menon and his team took advantage of recent advances in artificial intelligence, as well as access to multiple large datasets, to pursue a more powerful analysis than has previously been employed. First, they created a deep neural network model, which learns to classify brain imaging data: As the researchers showed brain scans to the model and told it that it was looking at a male or female brain, the model started to “notice” what subtle patterns could help it tell the difference.

This model demonstrated superior performance compared with those in previous studies, in part because it used a deep neural network that analyzes dynamic MRI scans. This approach captures the intricate interplay among different brain regions. When the researchers tested the model on around 1,500 brain scans, it could almost always tell if the scan came from a woman or a man.

The model’s success suggests that detectable sex differences do exist in the brain but just haven’t been picked up reliably before. The fact that it worked so well in different datasets, including brain scans from multiple sites in the U.S. and Europe, make the findings especially convincing as it controls for many confounds that can plague studies of this kind.

“This is a very strong piece of evidence that sex is a robust determinant of human brain organization,” Menon said.

Making predictions

Until recently, a model like the one Menon’s team employed would help researchers sort brains into different groups but wouldn’t provide information about how the sorting happened. Today, however, researchers have access to a tool called “explainable AI,” which can sift through vast amounts of data to explain how a model’s decisions are made.

Using explainable AI, Menon and his team identified the brain networks that were most important to the model’s judgment of whether a brain scan came from a man or a woman. They found the model was most often looking to the default mode network, striatum, and the limbic network to make the call.

The team then wondered if they could create another model that could predict how well participants would do on certain cognitive tasks based on functional brain features that differ between women and men. They developed sex-specific models of cognitive abilities: One model effectively predicted cognitive performance in men but not women, and another in women but not men. The findings indicate that functional brain characteristics varying between sexes have significant behavioral implications.

“These models worked really well because we successfully separated brain patterns between sexes,” Menon said. “That tells me that overlooking sex differences in brain organization could lead us to miss key factors underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.”

While the team applied their deep neural network model to questions about sex differences, Menon says the model can be applied to answer questions regarding how just about any aspect of brain connectivity might relate to any kind of cognitive ability or behavior. He and his team plan to make their model publicly available for any researcher to use.

“Our AI models have very broad applicability,” Menon said. “A researcher could use our models to look for brain differences linked to learning impairments or social functioning differences, for instance — aspects we are keen to understand better to aid individuals in adapting to and surmounting these challenges.”

The research was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (grants MH084164, EB022907, MH121069, K25HD074652 and AG072114), the Transdisciplinary Initiative, the Uytengsu-Hamilton 22q11 Programs, the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute, and the NARSAD Young Investigator Award.

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu .

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  6. Sage Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

    Sage Journals profile Access personal tools including new content email alerts, search alerts and saved searches. Access personal subscriptions, purchases, free access offers, and paired institution or society access.

  7. The top 10 journal articles of 2020

    The top 10 journal articles of 2020 In 2020, APA's 89 journals published more than 5,000 articles—the most ever and 25% more than in 2019. Here's a quick look at the 10 most downloaded to date. By Chris Palmer Date created: January 1, 2021 8 min read Vol. 52 No. 1 Print version: page 24 11 Cite This Article Palmer, C. (2021, January 1).

  8. Journal Top 100

    Journal Top 100 - 2022. This collection highlights our most downloaded* research papers published in 2022. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an ...

  9. ACS Publications

    ACS Publications provides high quality peer-reviewed journals, research articles, and information products and services supporting advancement across all fields of chemical sciences. Pair your accounts. ... This comprehensive guide provides the academic and publishing communities with the instruction and advice they need to master the art of ...

  10. Home

    PubMed Central ® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of ... phase launched in January 2023 and expands the scope of the Pilot to include preprints resulting from all NIH-funded research. Read More. Follow NCBI. Connect with NLM National Library of Medicine ...

  11. Science

    Science is a leading outlet for scientific news, commentary, and cutting-edge research. Through its print and online incarnations, Science reaches an estimated worldwide readership of more than one million. Science 's authorship is global too, and its articles consistently rank among the world's most cited research.

  12. (PDF) Evaluating Research in Academic Journals: A Practical Guide to

    Evaluating Research in Academic Journals is a guide for students who are learning how to evaluate reports of empirical research published in academic journals.

  13. Home

    As part of Springer Nature, SpringerLink delivers fast access to the depth and breadth of our online collection of journals, eBooks, reference works and protocols across a vast range of subject disciplines. SpringerLink is the reading platform of choice for hundreds of thousands of researchers worldwide. Find out how to publish your research ...

  14. ScienceDirect.com

    Journal of Advanced Research, Volume 24 Nanoparticles: Properties, applications and toxicities Arabian Journal of Chemistry, Volume 12, Issue 7 Recent Publications Physics Reports Volume 1055 Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering Volume 29 Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling Volume 128

  15. Find a journal

    Search the world's leading source of academic journals using your abstract or your keywords and other details. More on how it works Match my abstract Search by keywords, aims & scope, journal title, etc... Find journals Maximum 5,000 characters Check if you're eligible for open access (OA) savings.

  16. American Educational Research Journal: Sage Journals

    The American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) is the flagship journal of AERA, with articles that advance the empirical, theoretical, and methodological understanding of education and learning. It publishes original peer-reviewed analyses spanning the field of education research across all subfields and disciplines and all levels of analysis, all levels of education throughout the life span ...

  17. Full article: Reporting matters: the real effects of financial

    The purpose of this paper is to give a reader, either academic or practitioner, an overview of the literature and identify potential areas where research could expand our understanding. The US Financial Accounting Standards Board ... Journal of Accounting Research, 46 (5), 1017-1055.

  18. SJR : Scientific Journal Rankings

    International Scientific Journal & Country Ranking. SCImago Journal Country & Rank SCImago Institutions Rankings SCImago Media Rankings SCImago Iber SCImago Research Centers Ranking SCImago Graphica Ediciones Profesionales de la ... MMWR Recommendations and Reports: journal: 23.962 Q1: 151: 103: 138: 940: 3469: 133: 25.28: 9.13: 8: Nature ...

  19. How to find the right journal for your research (using ...

    Identify the journals that are a good topical fit for your research using Manuscript Matcher. You can then move to Journal Citation Reports to understand their citation impact, audience and open access statistics. Find the right journal with Journal Citation Reports. Journal Citation Reports is the most powerful solution for journal ...

  20. A Practical Guide to Writing Quantitative and Qualitative Research

    The answer is written in length in the discussion section of the paper. Thus, the research question gives a preview of the different parts and variables of the study meant to address the problem posed in the research question.1 An excellent research question clarifies the research writing while facilitating understanding of the research topic, ...

  21. Frontiers

    We further conducted a simple slope analysis in SPSS 22.0 to explore the pattern of the moderating effect. Figure 3 presents the perceived social support (M ± SD) as a function of academic self-efficacy and academic engagement. The results indicate that academic self-efficacy was positively correlated with academic engagement for both adolescents with higher perceived social support (B simple ...

  22. Registered report adoption in academic journals: assessing rates in

    In July 2023, 278 journals had adopted the registered report format, with 186 of these journals included in the JCR. The percentage of journals that had adopted the registered report format ranged from 0 to 7% across the different major research fields (groups in JCR) and from 0 to 34% across the research subfields (categories in JCR). The ...

  23. Solar energy technology and its roles in sustainable development

    The significance of this paper is to highlight solar energy applications to ensure sustainable development; thus, it is vital to researchers, engineers and customers alike. The article's primary aim is to raise public awareness and disseminate the culture of solar energy usage in daily life, since moving forward, it is the best.

  24. Using academic journal articles for research and study

    Journals are often specific to an academic field or research area and are published in a similar style to magazines - articles are compiled into issues, which are then grouped into volumes. This helps to keep track of the articles, as the rate of publication is high.

  25. Full article: A critical review of GenAI policies in higher education

    Two research assistants were involved in the search. One examined universities ranked 1-10, while the other focused on universities ranked 11-20. After the individual search, the two research assistants reviewed each other's results to validate the data. The author cross-checked a sample (around 30%) of their work.

  26. diagnosis and management of solid pseudopapillary ...

    Journals on Oxford Academic; Books on Oxford Academic; Issues Volume 2024, Issue 2, February 2024 (In Progress) ... Journal of Surgical Case Reports, Volume 2024, Issue 2, February 2024, rjae032, ... It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

  27. Coronavirus (COVID-19) research

    Academic Forensic Pathology Restricted access Research article First published March 20, 2023 Concordance in COVID-19 serology, bone mineralization, and inflammatory analytes between venous and self-collected capillary blood samples exposed to various pre-analytical conditions Banafshe Hosseini Harika Dasari Anna Smyrnova Claude Bourassa Jing Leng

  28. China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research

    Universities must declare all their retractions and launch investigations into misconduct cases; a Nature analysis reveals that since 2021 there have been more than 17,000 retractions with Chinese ...

  29. Stanford Medicine study identifies distinct brain organization patterns

    Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu.