Pre-registration: Weighing costs and benefits for researchers

Jennifer M. Logg and Charles A. Dorison

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2021, vol. 167, issue C, 18-27

Abstract: In the past decade, the social and behavioral sciences underwent a methodological revolution, offering practical prescriptions for improving the replicability and reproducibility of research results. One key to reforming science is a simple and scalable practice: pre-registration. Pre-registration constitutes pre-specifying an analysis plan prior to data collection. A growing chorus of articles discusses the prescriptive, field-wide benefits of pre-registration. To increase adoption, however, scientists need to know who currently pre-registers and understand perceived barriers to doing so. Thus, we weigh costs and benefits of pre-registration. Our survey of researchers reveals generational differences in who pre-registers and uncertainty regarding how pre-registration benefits individual researchers. We leverage these data to directly address researchers’ uncertainty by clarifying why pre-registration improves the research process itself. Finally, we discuss how to pre-register and compare available resources. The present work examines the who, why, and how of pre-registration in order to weigh the costs and benefits of pre-registration to researchers and motivate continued adoption.

Keywords: Pre-registration; Open science; Methodology; Replication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:167:y:2021:i:c:p:18-27

DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2021.05.006

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