Loose ends

I got back in from Rotterdam late on the 10th of July. It was a great trip and I will talk about it and the aftermath another time.

I've also been clearing my file drawer a bit. Earlier this year saw a narrative review article on the weapons effect published in a small-circulation peer-review journal (National Social Science Journal). I and a former student just learned that a write up of a weapons priming data set got accepted for publication. We are just now going over the proofs. It will be a fun paper to discuss down the road as I am now in this awkward space where I had that one remaining study using a word completion task as a measure prior to realizing that the measure itself had some genuine validity problems (Randy McCarthy and I blogged about some of that earlier this year). My student and I used this as an opportunity to build in a paragraph urging readers to exercise caution in light of some genuine concerns about the lack of validation of not only the AWCT but also other word completion tasks. I am finally writing up an encyclopedic chapter on the weapons effect that is due at the end of August. After that, I think I will finally be done with the weapons effect as a focus of my attention for a good long while. At least that is my hope. I do have the sinking feeling that I could get roped into something to do with that area of inquiry sooner rather than later, but am keeping my fingers crossed that my time has come and gone at last.

Mostly I just want to focus my upcoming academic year on validation research and re-structuring my methods courses so that they incorporate more hands-on activities regarding replicability and open science practices. I got some ideas from SIPS and the repliCATS-sponsored pre-SIPS workshop in Rotterdam. I think it will turn out to be fun.

Onward.