4.4 Article

Estimating the Prevalence of Transparency and Reproducibility-Related Research Practices in Psychology (2014-2017)

Journal

PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 17, Issue 1, Pages 239-251

Publisher

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/1745691620979806

Keywords

transparency; reproducibility; meta-research; psychology; open science

Funding

  1. Laura and John Arnold Foundation
  2. Einstein Foundation
  3. Stiftung Charite
  4. Fonds de la recherche en sante du Quebec
  5. Yale University from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation
  6. U.S. Food and Drug Administration [U01-FD00593]
  7. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [K01-AA028258]

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A manual examination of 250 psychology articles published between 2014 and 2017 found that while over half of the articles were publicly available, sharing of research materials, preregistration, and other transparency and reproducibility-related research practices were rare. This suggests that these practices are far from routine in psychology research, highlighting the need for further efforts to increase credibility and utility.
Psychologists are navigating an unprecedented period of introspection about the credibility and utility of their discipline. Reform initiatives emphasize the benefits of transparency and reproducibility-related research practices; however, adoption across the psychology literature is unknown. Estimating the prevalence of such practices will help to gauge the collective impact of reform initiatives, track progress over time, and calibrate future efforts. To this end, we manually examined a random sample of 250 psychology articles published between 2014 and 2017. Over half of the articles were publicly available (154/237, 65%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [59%, 71%]); however, sharing of research materials (26/183; 14%, 95% CI = [10%, 19%]), study protocols (0/188; 0%, 95% CI = [0%, 1%]), raw data (4/188; 2%, 95% CI = [1%, 4%]), and analysis scripts (1/188; 1%, 95% CI = [0%, 1%]) was rare. Preregistration was also uncommon (5/188; 3%, 95% CI = [1%, 5%]). Many articles included a funding disclosure statement (142/228; 62%, 95% CI = [56%, 69%]), but conflict-of-interest statements were less common (88/228; 39%, 95% CI = [32%, 45%]). Replication studies were rare (10/188; 5%, 95% CI = [3%, 8%]), and few studies were included in systematic reviews (21/183; 11%, 95% CI = [8%, 16%]) or meta-analyses (12/183; 7%, 95% CI = [4%, 10%]). Overall, the results suggest that transparency and reproducibility-related research practices were far from routine. These findings establish baseline prevalence estimates against which future progress toward increasing the credibility and utility of psychology research can be compared.

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