Indicators of successful submissions to the law and social science program of the national science foundation

Law & Society Review, 1998 by Hosch, Harmon M, Oliveri, Matthew W

The most prominent of the professional societies of which investigators might be members are the American Judicature Society, the American Psychology-Law Society, the American Society of Criminology, the Law and Society Association (LSA), and the general professional associations: the American Bar Association, American Political Science Association, American Psychological Association, and the American Sociological Association. Because of the prominence of the LSA in the field of sociolegal scholarship, we chose to examine the relation between LSA membership and success in earning grants.

Membership in the LSA was positively related to success. Those investigators who had never been members of the LSA submitted 68% of the proposals but were successful 24.2% of the time. Those who had been LSA members at one time but were not at the time they submitted their proposal represented only 5% of the PIs. They were successful 30% of the time. Most important, those who were members at the time of their submission (27% of the PIs) had a success rate of 44.3%. These differences in success rates were statistically reliable, (chi)^sup 2^ (2; N = 1,428) = 53.36, p

Because the relation between LSA membership and success was so strong, we decided to compare this relation with membership in another professional association. We tested the success rate for PIs from psychology departments who were members of the American Psychology-Law Society (APLS). Coding for APLS membership was dichotomous: they were members at the time of submission or they were not. Success for APLS members was higher than that of psychologists who were not members of APLS, but the relation failed to reach the traditional level of statistical significance, (chi)^sup 2^ (1; N= 157) = 2.92, p

4. Characteristics of PIs

Gender

A scientist's gender has been associated with success in publication, and those who earn extramural funding may be more successful than those who do not (de Meuse 1987). Whether gender is associated with success in LSSP funding is therefore of interest. A total of 401 proposals were submitted by women and 1,005 by men. The proportion of proposals submitted by each gender did not change over the 12 years that are the focus of this study, (chi)^sup 2^ (11; N = 1406) = 16.8, p = .11. Success rates for funding by women (28.7%) and by men (30.9%) did not differ, (chi)^sup 2^ (1; N = 1,406) = 0.69, p = .40, nor did the average award amounts differ for men (M = $71,185) and women (M = $72,940) PIs, F (1,403) = 0.18, p = .67.

Academic Experience

The data suggest that there was a linear relation between years since Ph.D. and probability of success. Those with more experience are more likely to be successful, F (1, N = 1,350) = 17.59, p

5. Institutional Characteristics

Institution Type

Previous assessments of success rates at NSF have explored the impact of being trained at and working at "elite" schools on the probability of being funded (see Intermaggio & Ing 1989; Plattner et al. 1993). These investigators used the ratings of departments to define their criterion for "elite." Results have been mixed, and the issue has not been resolved.