NLP researcher Goldberg: low-quality ed research matters more than plagiarism formalities
yoavgo · x · 2026-08-21
Yoav Goldberg and Brown professor Shriram Krishnamurthi debated a controversial PhD thesis. Goldberg argued that everyone fixates on the formalities of plagiarism while the more relevant issue is low research quality: recommendations built on qualitative experience from just two student-teacher pairs at one school are insufficient evidence, and the original thesis being copied from is clearly higher quality. Krishnamurthi distinguished "experience reports" from "research": Brown's IRB defines research as seeking generalizable results, and experience reports are a legitimate framing; CS Ed often uses multi-institution, multi-national (MIMN) panels to turn experience into research. Their shared conclusion: frame preliminary evidence as "things to try and assess in other contexts," not as established science.
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