Research experience modifies how participants profit from journal clubs in academia

Abstract

Because Journal Clubs (JClubs) represent valued educational tools, we often assume optimality of Journal Club practices. We analyze here JClubs records from a research group to identify factors that modify how much attendants benefit from discussing a paper. We demonstrate that attendants benefit most from papers focusing on systems similar to those they work on and that their ability to profit from different contribution types changes with research experience. Common JClubs practices such as the assignment of the paper selection to a single individual could thus compromise participant experience. Our conclusions may also be generalizable to situations outside academia.

Keywords:

• Academic career stage
• collaborative learning
• Ecology
• Journal Club
• paper relevance

Acknowledgements

We thank Janis Antonovics and Fernando Maestre for constructive discussions, and members of the Plant, Soil and Fungal Ecology Laboratory for participating and for filling out questionnaires. The paper has improved immensely from the comments of two anonymous reviewers.