Note on Chizmar & Ostrosky, “The One Minute Paper”

Those interested in performing assessment and evaluation studies under the umbrella of the scholarship of teaching and learning may ask what is required to get studies published in major refereed journals within a discipline. Although there are no uniformly applied standards or criteria for publication in peer reviewed outlets, the reasons why “The One-Minute Paper: Some Empirical Findings,” by John Chizmar and Anthony Ostrosky, was published in the Journal of Economic Education (Volume 29, Number 1, Winter 1999, pp. 3-10) are worth considering. As editor of the Journal of Economic Education, I published this article because:

1. the topic (effectiveness of the one-minute paper) is timely, and likely will get a lot of attention (as measured by citations from other authors and hits on the JEE Web page),
2. the authors’ literature review (endnote 3) shows that few if any other empirical studies have addressed the topic empirically,
3. the authors have a mathematical model that incorporates covariates to control for things other than exposure to the one-minute paper that may influence learning (e.g., instructor differences, student aptitude) but which cannot be dismissed by randomization (which is not possible in most education settings),
4. the authors check the sensitivity of their results to alternative model specifications,
5. registrar data, and not self-reported data, are employed,
6. there are relatively large sample sizes for both the control and experimental groups,
7. a validated measure for pre-course and post-course knowledge is used (in this case a nationally normed standardized test),
8. the authors do not over-sell their results (they bill their work as a “pilot project” with “some empirical findings”),
9. some interesting qualitative observations are provided (e.g., endnote 7), and finally
10. the article is short and well written.

I would have liked the authors to consider multiple output measures that go beyond pre- and post-course multiple-choice testing. For example, they could have addressed the implications of attrition that likely took place from their pre-course test to the post-course test, which sometimes can be done through simultaneous equation modeling. I also question whether they have done an exhaustive search of influential covariates. Nevertheless, points one through ten are sufficiently strong to justify publication of this article in the Journal of Economic Education, and to present it here as an example of the scholarship of teaching and learning to be emulated.

William E. Becker
Professor of Economics, Indiana University, and
Editor, Journal of Economic Education

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