The seven sins of L2 research: A review of 30 journals' statistical quality and their CiteScore, SJR, SNIP, JCR Impact Factors. (November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Al-Hoorie, Ali H.; Vitta, Joseph P.
• Is Part Of: Language teaching research. Volume 23:Number 6(2019)
• Page Start: 727
• Page End: 744
• Publication Date: 2019-11
• Subjects: citation analysis metrics -- CiteScore -- JCR Impact Factor -- journal quality -- quantitative research -- second language -- SJR -- SNIP; Languages, Modern -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers -- Periodicals; 407.1
• DOI: 10.1177/1362168818767191
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1362-1688

Abstract

This report presents a review of the statistical practices of 30 journals representative of the second language field. A review of 150 articles showed a number of prevalent statistical violations including incomplete reporting of reliability, validity, non-significant results, effect sizes, and assumption checks as well as making inferences from descriptive statistics and failing to correct for multiple comparisons. Scopus citation analysis metrics and whether a journal is SSCI-indexed were predictors of journal statistical quality. No clear evidence was obtained to favor the newly introduced CiteScore over SNIP or SJR. Implications of the results are discussed.