facing a fast-changing world with “no change”

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Page 1: Facing a Fast-Changing World With “No Change”

This article was downloaded by: [UNAM Ciudad Universitaria]On: 21 December 2014, At: 18:26Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

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Research Quarterly for Exercise and SportPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urqe20

Facing a Fast-Changing World With “No Change”Weimo Zhua

a Editor-in-ChiefPublished online: 20 Nov 2014.

To cite this article: Weimo Zhu (2014) Facing a Fast-Changing World With “No Change”, Research Quarterly for Exercise andSport, 85:4, 427-428, DOI: 10.1080/02701367.2014.965550

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2014.965550

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Page 2: Facing a Fast-Changing World With “No Change”

EDITORIAL

Facing a Fast-Changing World With “No Change”

My, how time flies! It is hard to believe that this issue

represents the long, honorable 85-year journey of Research

Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (RQES)! So many things

have changed during the past 85 years, and we are now

facing a new world with an even faster-changing pace. The

editorial team of RQES has been working hard to meet the

needs of this new world. From the December 2013 issue to

the September 2014 issue, we have organized a series of

discussions/debates on what is effective teaching in physical

education and how it should be measured and evaluated.

The discussions/debates have been well received.

In addition, the new “Top 10 Research Questions” section,

in which a total of seven articles were published since

the last December issue, was also a great success. After

providing a thorough review, a group of top scholars clearly

described many important and needed research questions in

specific research areas and called for more studies. There

should now be no excuse of “I couldn’t find an interesting

research question” for young scholars and graduate

students!

To meet the changing world, we also created another new

section called “New Research Highlights, Trends, and

Technology” in RQES starting in this issue. The article by

Little and Francois was selected as the first in this section.

In it, the authors summarize the latest effort to integrate a

new training method (high-intensity interval training) and

technology (continuous glucose monitoring) to understand

and battle type 2 diabetes, one of the most rapidly spreading

modern, “civilized” diseases.

What is the best way to deal with a fast-changing world?

This is a question we all have to think about these days.

Interestingly, philosophers in ancient China had faced a

changing world and provided their wisdom and advice on

how to deal with the changes. One of the best-known Tao

strategies in dealing with change is, in fact, to make no

change. The true meaning of “no change” in dealing with

constantly changing situations is to hold to a set of fixed

principles. What is the “no change” principle to which an

academic journal should adhere? High quality of scholar-

ship, I think, because that is the foundation of any academic

journal. How then can the quality of a journal be controlled,

improved, measured, and judged?

Three pieces published in this issue address these

questions to some degree. The first one, by Welk et al., is the

RQES editorial board’s position statement regarding journal

impact factors (IFs). IF was developed initially in the 1960s

to help libraries determine which journals to purchase, but it

was, somehow, inappropriately developed as a measure of

the quality of academic journals, and in turn, it became a

tool to evaluate the scholarship of individuals or institutions.

As a result, it is now often inappropriately used or even

abused. Due to its known limitations (e.g., accounting only

for the information in 2 preceding years), the impact factor

itself is not scientifically approved. How can a measure be

used to evaluate the quality of others if the measure itself

has a significant deficiency? To address the concern, a group

of scholars and academic journals developed a declaration

in December 2012 and called for downplaying the role of IF

in assessing the quality of research. Many individual

scholars and academic journals have signed the declaration

to express their support. I am pleased to report that RQES

also supports the declaration and has become perhaps the

first kinesiology journal to take a strong, supportive position

for the declaration.

The second piece is Jerry R. Thomas’s article on

improved data reporting in RQES. It is great to see scholars

in kinesiology, such as Thomas, who recognize the

limitations of p value-based statistical reasoning and call

for computing the effect size and interpreting the statistical

findings based on the effect size from a long time ago.

Although it pleases me to see that we have made progress in

statistical reporting in RQES, I have to say that statistical

reporting within the kinesiology research community in

general is still in very poor shape, and “sadly, the earth is

still round p , .05” (Zhu, 2012b)! Open any kinesiology

academic journal, and one can easily find inappropriate

p value-based reporting and interpretation of statistical

findings. Worse yet, some journals/authors these days report

only the p value without any other necessary information

(neither descriptive statistics [e.g., mean and standard

deviation] nor statistics themselves [e.g., t value or F value])

at all. With that kind of practice, I am afraid that much of the

information generated is simple “statistical noise,” which

will make little or no contribution to our knowledge and

Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 85, 427–428, 2014

Copyright q SHAPE America

ISSN 0270-1367 print/ISSN 2168-3824 online

DOI: 10.1080/02701367.2014.965550

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Page 3: Facing a Fast-Changing World With “No Change”

understanding in kinesiology. Along with p value abuse,

many similar problems exist in examining and reporting

statistical assumptions (Chen & Zhu, 2001) and measure-

ment practice (Zhu, 2012a, 2013), which all could

potentially threaten the quality of our research studies.

I am working with the editorial board to develop more

detailed quantitative and qualitative report guidelines for

RQES, and I hope to further improve the quality of research

reporting in RQES in a consistent way.

Finally, the third piece is Mark G. Fischman’s thoughts

and reflections on the article about peer review by Knudson,

Morrow, and Thomas (2014). Fischman further reminds us

of the importance of collected efforts in improving

scholarship and knowledge generated through publications

by scholars. The few people involved in the review process,

especially reviewers and associate editors, are the keys to

quality control and valuable information generated for an

academic journal. Their time and contributions should be

valued, appreciated, and well recognized. Therefore,

I would like again to take this year-end issue opportunity

to thank all reviewers, associate editors, and editorial

members who were involved in the review and quality-

control process of RQES during this past year, especially

Drs. Noreen Goggin at Texas Tech University, Li Li at

Georgia Southern University, Mark Loftin at University of

Mississippi, Bryan McCullick at University of Georgia,

Tom Raedeke at East Carolina University, and Joonkoo Yun

at Oregon State University, who just finished their

appointments as associate editors, and Drs. Hans van der

Mars at Arizona State University and Gregory Welk at Iowa

State University, who just finished their appointments as

editorial board members. You are the backbone of RQES.

Thank you!

REFERENCES

Chen, A., & Zhu, W. (2001). Re-visiting the assumptions for inferential

statistical analyses: A tutorial for data analysis in physical education

research. Quest, 53, 418–439.

Knudson, D. V., Morrow, J. R. Jr., & Thomas, J. R. (2014). Advancing

kinesiology through improved peer review. Research Quarterly for

Exercise and Sport, 85, 127–135.

Zhu, W. (2012a). ‘17% at or above the 95th percentile’—What is wrong

with this statement? Journal of Sport and Health Science, 1, 67–69.

Zhu, W. (2012b). Sadly, the earth is still round ( p,0.05). Journal of Sport

and Health Science, 1, 9–11.

Zhu, W. (2013). Reliability: What type, please! Journal of Sport and Health

Science, 2, 62–64.

Weimo Zhu

Editor-in-Chief

428 W. ZHU

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