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IELTS-style reading: the cost of counting
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Independent practice in the IELTS Academic reading style, not an official test: an argumentative passage about measuring research, with Yes/No/Not Given on the writer's views, multiple choice and completion.
The cost of counting
Few workplaces have embraced measurement as wholeheartedly as the modern research university. A scientist's career now generates a trail of figures: papers published, times those papers are cited, the prestige ranking of the journals that accepted them, and an index that combines several of these into a single number. Administrators find such figures irresistible, and it is easy to see why. Deciding whether a physicist's work on unstable particles is better than a botanist's catalogue of mountain grasses is a task for which almost no one has the expertise, whereas comparing two integers requires none at all.
The difficulty is that a measure adopted as a convenience tends to become a target, and a target soon ceases to measure anything reliably. This principle, familiar to economists for decades, has a predictable effect on research. When promotion depends on the number of papers produced, researchers divide one substantial study into several thin ones; when citations count, they cite colleagues generously and expect the courtesy to be returned. None of this requires dishonesty in any ordinary sense. It is simply what intelligent people do when the rules of a game are announced in advance. The numbers rise; whether knowledge rises with them is another matter.
Consider a hypothetical department that is told its funding will depend on average citations per member. The sensible response is not to improve the research but to reshape the department: to recruit people working in fields where papers attract many citations, and to quietly discourage those whose subjects are small and specialised. Such decisions are made without any ill will and are described in meeting minutes as strategic alignment. The result, over a decade, is a department that scores well and covers less.
Defenders of the system are quick to point out that the alternative is not a golden age of disinterested inquiry but the old patronage of senior professors, in which appointments were decided by reputation, friendship and sometimes prejudice. They have a point. Metrics did open doors for gifted researchers from unfashionable institutions, and a figure at least can be contested in public in a way that a whispered opinion cannot. Yet to concede this is not to concede that the present arrangement is the best available, still less that it should be extended to every corner of academic life.
A more subtle objection concerns what gets measured at all. Slow projects, those that take ten years to yield a single result, are poorly suited to an annual review. So are negative findings, the careful demonstration that a promising treatment does not work, which are valuable to other researchers but unlikely to be cited. Most worrying of all is the effect on the questions scientists choose to ask. A young researcher who knows that a safe, incremental problem will produce three papers in two years, while a bold one may produce none, is not being cowardly in choosing the former. The system has made caution the rational choice, and rational people respond accordingly.
The pressure extends to the journals themselves. Editors know that articles on fashionable subjects attract citations, and that a journal's own ranking depends on them; it is hardly surprising, then, that fashionable subjects fill their pages. Reviewers, too, have been known to favour work that resembles what they have already read. None of this is sinister, but together these habits make a field more conservative than the individuals within it would choose to be.
Some institutions have begun to experiment. One approach asks applicants for promotion to submit only a small number of their best works, accompanied by a short statement of why each matters, so that the panel reads rather than counts. Early reports suggest that panels find the process considerably more time-consuming, and it would be surprising if they did not; reading is slower than arithmetic. Whether overstretched committees will tolerate the burden once the novelty has worn off remains to be seen. The risk is that such schemes become a ritual, in which the statements are written to a formula and read by no one.
It would be comforting to conclude with a neat remedy, but the honest conclusion is less tidy. Any system that rewards people according to visible criteria will be gamed by them, and any system that dispenses with criteria invites favouritism. The sensible aim is not to find an incorruptible measure but to keep measures in their place, treating them as a clue to be weighed alongside judgement rather than a verdict that replaces it. That requires something metrics were invented to avoid: people willing to take responsibility for a decision that cannot be defended by pointing to a number.
Yes, No or Not Given
Do the statements agree with the views or claims of the writer? Choose Yes if the statement agrees with the writer, No if it contradicts the writer, or Not Given if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
- Administrators like research metrics partly because they allow very different fields to be compared without specialist knowledge.
- Most researchers who divide a study into several thin papers are behaving dishonestly.
- The old system of appointments by senior professors was sometimes unfair.
- Metrics have never helped researchers from less well-known institutions.
- Young researchers who choose bold problems tend to be more talented than those who choose safe ones.
- Early reports show that panels which read selected works reach fairer decisions than panels which count papers.
- With enough effort, a measure of research quality that cannot be manipulated can be designed.
- The kind of department described in the third paragraph usually acts without bad intentions.
Multiple choice
Choose the correct answer, A, B, C or D.
- What is the main purpose of the first paragraph?
- What does the courtesy refer to in the second paragraph?
- What does the writer suggest about the hypothetical department in paragraph three?
- How does the writer respond to the defenders of the system in paragraph four?
- What does the writer mean by saying that rational people respond accordingly?
Short-answer completion
Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
- Projects that take ten years to yield a result suit an annual ___ poorly.
- A careful demonstration that a promising treatment does not work is called a ___ finding.
- Some institutions ask applicants to submit only a few of their ___ works.
- The writer fears that new schemes may become a ___ in which statements are written to a formula.
- The writer says measures should be treated as a ___ rather than a verdict.
Answer key
Yes, No or Not Given
- a) YesThe writer says that comparing a physicist and a botanist needs expertise nobody has, whereas comparing two integers requires none.
- b) NoThe writer says none of this requires dishonesty in any ordinary sense.
- a) YesThe writer lists reputation, friendship and sometimes prejudice as the basis of appointments.
- b) NoThe writer says metrics did open doors for gifted researchers from unfashionable institutions.
- c) Not GivenThe writer explains why safe problems are the rational choice but says nothing about which researchers are more talented.
- c) Not GivenThe early reports mentioned in paragraph seven are only about the process being more time-consuming; nothing is said about fairness.
- b) NoThe writer says the sensible aim is not to find an incorruptible measure.
- a) YesThe writer says such decisions are made without any ill will.
Multiple choice
- b) To explain why numerical measures appeal to the people who manage universitiesThe paragraph describes the figures and ends by explaining why they are attractive to administrators; the writer does not call anyone lazy.
- c) citing colleagues generouslyResearchers cite colleagues generously and expect this courtesy to be returned in the same way.
- b) It may raise its score while becoming narrower in what it studies.The department scores well and covers less, so its score improves while its range shrinks.
- c) By accepting part of the argument but resisting its wider conclusionThe writer says they have a point, but denies that this makes the present system the best or one to extend further.
- b) Choosing safe problems is a sensible reaction to the incentives they face.Caution has become the rational choice, so people who weigh their interests sensibly will choose it.
Short-answer completion
- reviewParagraph five: slow projects are poorly suited to an annual review.
- negativeParagraph five refers to negative findings.
- bestParagraph seven: a small number of their best works.
- ritualParagraph seven: the risk is that such schemes become a ritual.
- clueThe final paragraph: a clue to be weighed alongside judgement.