Readings
These are starter readings for Topic 5. Please also read the associated blog posts and listen to the podcasts.
The preregistration revoultion
Registered reports - realigning incentives in scienctific publishing
Podcasts and links
- Psychological Science Editor in Chief D. Stephen Lindsay, Clinical Psychological Science Editor Scott O. Lilienfeld, and APS Fellow Daniel J. Simons explain the rationale for and benefits of preregistration, for researchers and for the field of psychological science at large.
Reproducibilitea Episode 8: The preregistration revolution
- It’s preregistration time! Distinguishing confirmatory (or prediction) and exploratory (or postdiction) analyses. We discuss this awesome paper from Nosek, Ebersole, DeHaven, and Mellor (2018) “The preregistration revolution”. Find the paper here.
Hertz Podcast 56: Registered Reports with Chris Chambers
Essay Topic - Pre-Registration and Registered Reports
If you were to accurately predict the outcome of the flip of a coin 10 times in a row, that would be very impressive. If you were to flip a coin 10 times, see what the outcome is, and then claim that you had correctly predicted the outcome, that wouldn’t be impressive at all. The same is true for predicting the outcome of a psychology experiment. If you predict the outcome of an experiment ahead of time, it lends credibility to the theory you used to derive your hypothesis. However, if you can only make an accurate prediction after you have seen the results of your experiment, then it really doesn’t suggest that your theory is correct at all. It merely suggests that you are good at explaining how the results of your experiment fit within your theory.
In this essay, you will consider the ways that the preregistration of hypotheses may improve psychological science. Read the starter articles in the Topic 5 section to begin.
Some questions to consider:
- At what stage of the scientific method should preregistration occur? Does this always happen with preregistered projects?
- In what ways might preregistration improve psychological science overall?
- What are the steps involved in preregistration?
- Does preregistration prevent all types of scientific misconduct? If not, what might be limitations of preregistration?
- Do Registered Reports offer more promise than preregistration? What are the limitations of Registered Reports?
Forum
After having read the readings and listened to the corresponding podcasts, has your opinion been changed about how we should conduct research? Do you think you will try to preregister your own fourth-year project? Do you think we should ask all fourth-year students to do this, or at least offer the option? What about Masters/PhD students?
Are registered reports too cumbersome to catch on, or will they change the way we do science in psychology? Post your original thoughts below!