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The Criterial Crisis of the Academic World *
Author(s) -
Singer Benjamin D.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1989.tb00097.x
Subject(s) - confusion , control (management) , quality (philosophy) , sociology , redundancy (engineering) , engineering ethics , law and economics , social science , epistemology , psychology , computer science , economics , management , engineering , philosophy , psychoanalysis , operating system
The author analyzes the crisis in standards in the academic world where symptoms of academic fraud and diminished quality are linked to increasing competitive pressure, demographic forces, and defects in the social system of professional control, examples of a criterial system with mechanical assessment technology that generates paradoxical outcomes. The paper addresses such issues as redundancy of publications and defects in the peer review system, drawing examples from the fields of medicine, science and sociology, It is argued that a decline in academic standards is facilitated by the confusion involved in differentiating criteria from standards. Further analysis of criterial systems is suggested, along with the need for an explicit examination of academic values and quality.