Preregistration

Open Science Bites

The

Replication Crisis

https://xkcd.com/882/

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

Questionable Research Practices?

Munafò, et. al. „A manifesto for reproducible science“. Nature Human Behaviour

Anything can become significant with a
creative approach

  • Optional stopping (ending data collection when p<0.05)
  • Selective reporting of variables and conditions
  • Exclusion of participants („Outlier“)
  • Conducting tons of analyses but only report the one that best fits the hypothesis (“Garden of forking paths”)
  • Adding covariates to the analysis
  • Transforming the data
  • Forming hypotheses post-hoc (HARKing)

https://osf.io/q2ekw

The Solution:

Preregistration!

What is Preregistration?

The specification of a research design, hypotheses, and analysis plan prior to observing the outcomes of a study

Why Preregister?

  • Transparency: Differentiate between confirmatory and exploratory hypotheses
    • Avoid HARKing
  • Minimize false positives through p-hacking
  • Think more deeply about hypotheses/design in advance
  • ...?

What to preregister?

As much as possible!

  • sample size, hypotheses, analysis...
  • decision rules etc.
  • standards

How to preregister?

  • aspredicted.org
  • osf.io
  • RTG study checklist! :)

Aspredicted

OPEN SCIENCE FRAMEWORK

What is a good Preregistration?

(next time?)

Title Text

  1. Have any data been collected for this study already?

 

  1. What's the main question being asked or hypothesis being tested in this study?

 

  1. Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured.

 

 

  1. Anything else you would like to pre-register? (e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)

Title Text


RTG_Preregistration

By leahilde

RTG_Preregistration

These are Intro Slides for the initial session of the Open Science Journal Club at the University of Würzburg

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