Author: Dan James
Date: March, 2023
Text: PDF, Substack (https://doi.org/10.53975/1y7h-g9wd)
There is an ever-increasing number of quantitative metrics, most of which are intended to act as proxies of quality for either authors or journals in current scholarly publishing. In contrast, this paper presents a more directly qualitative paper-level metric that adds a falsifiability dimension to the existing methods used to assess scholarly research. This new metric, the "F-index", is derived from a "Falsifiability Statement" (FS) (examples of both are applied self-referentially in Annex A). An FS is a discrete metalevel statement provided by the author(s) outlining how their research or assumptions can be foreseeably falsified, and the F-index is a numerical estimate of how clear and practical the steps are to falsify the research or stated assumptions as outlined in the FS. Though the F-index is particularly suited to hypothesis or theory-driven fields, it is also relevant to any empirical inquiry that relies on propositions or assumptions that can be potentially falsified. An F-index is qualitative in that a high F-index number provides a good indication of how novel or original a paper is. Four candidate mechanisms for obtaining an F-index from a Falsifiability Statement are evaluated: a peer reviewer assessed metric, an author or self-reporting metric, a propositional density metric, and an NLP derived metric. This evaluation concludes that a FS is currently a practical proposition, and that the derivation of a meaningful F-Index is an achievable goal.