© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
From the Editor |
The Importance of Participant Demographics
In 1993, the National Institutes of Health issued guidelines that required the inclusion of members of "minority groups" in funded research projects (National Institutes of Health, 2001). As a result, attention has been placed on increasing the diversity of research participants and describing the demographic characteristics of participants when presenting findings in journal articles. For example, in 2001, the fifth edition of the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual highlighted the need to provide specific information about participants' characteristics, including their racial/ethnic group membership and socioeconomic status (SES). Despite this emphasis, two recent reviews of ASHA journals revealed that less than half of the articles published over a 10-year period provided information about the race/ethnicity and SES of participants (Ellis, 2009; Ingelbret, Skinder-Meredith, Kellison, & Contreras-France, 2010).
The purpose of this editorial is to reiterate the importance of collecting and describing the characteristics of research participants when submitting manuscripts to AJSLP. At a minimum, information needs to be provided about participants' age, gender, race/ethnicity, SES/educational level, and languages spoken. However, additional information may be pertinent to specific investigations, depending on the populations studied and research questions asked. Such information includes, but is not limited to, participants' generational or immigrant status, cultural group, country of origin, years in the United States, English fluency, dialect spoken, language experiences (i.e., exposure to and usage of English), and other characteristics that may aid in the interpretation of results (American Psychological Association, 2010; Beins, 2009).
Without the inclusion of such information, researchers risk assuming the stance of "absolutism," which assumes that the phenomena of interest are the same regardless of culture, race, ethnicity, and SES. Provision of detailed information about participant characteristics allows researchers to move toward a position of "universalism," which recognizes that "there may be universal psychological processes ... that ... manifest differently" depending on the culture, race/ethnicity, and or SES of participants (Beins, 2009, p. 356). This applies to the study of biological factors as well. In other words, researchers cannot assume that no differences exist between groups until this underlying hypothesis has been proven.
Additionally, a thorough description of participants allows readers and researchers to determine to whom research findings generalize and allows for comparisons to be made across replications of studies. It also provides information needed for research syntheses and secondary data analyses (Bein, 2009). As a result of these analyses, gaps in existing bodies of research can be identified as well as universals and variations that occur within and between populations.
Therefore, authors submitting manuscripts to AJSLP are encouraged to provide information about the participants in their studies that includes the racial/ethnic identity, educational level and/or SES, and languages spoken, as well as additional information that is pertinent to their sample and research questions, whenever possible. Additionally, reviewers are asked to attend to the description of study samples when reviewing manuscripts for publication. The inclusion of such information will greatly add to the field's knowledge base and understanding of universals and variations that exist among populations.
 Top References |
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- American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
- American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
- Beins, B. (2009). Research methods: A tool for life (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
- Ellis, C. (2009). Does race/ethnicity really matter in adult neurogenics? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18, 310–314.
[Abstract/Free Full Text] - Inglebret, E., Skinder-Meredith, A., Kellison, K., & Contreras-France, A. (2010, November). Reporting of children's race/ethnicity and languages spoken in research. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Philadelphia, PA.
- National Institutes of Health. (2001). NIH policy and guidelines on the inclusion of women and minorities as subjects in clinical research—Amended, October, 2001. Retrieved from http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/women_min/guidelines_amended_10_2001.htm
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