Survey of open science practices and attitudes in the social sciences

Joel Ferguson, Rebecca Littman, Garret Christensen, Elizabeth Levy Paluck (), Nicholas Swanson, Zenan Wang, Edward Miguel, David Birke and John-Henry Pezzuto
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Joel Ferguson: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Rebecca Littman: University of Illinois Chicago, Department of Psychology
Elizabeth Levy Paluck: Princeton University, Department of Psychology
Nicholas Swanson: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Economics
Zenan Wang: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Economics
David Birke: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Economics
John-Henry Pezzuto: University of California, San Diego, Rady School of Management

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Open science practices such as posting data or code and pre-registering analyses are increasingly prescribed and debated in the applied sciences, but the actual popularity and lifetime usage of these practices remain unknown. This study provides an assessment of attitudes toward, use of, and perceived norms regarding open science practices from a sample of authors published in top-10 (most-cited) journals and PhD students in top-20 ranked North American departments from four major social science disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. We observe largely favorable private attitudes toward widespread lifetime usage (meaning that a researcher has used a particular practice at least once) of open science practices. As of 2020, nearly 90% of scholars had ever used at least one such practice. Support for posting data or code online is higher (88% overall support and nearly at the ceiling in some fields) than support for pre-registration (58% overall). With respect to norms, there is evidence that the scholars in our sample appear to underestimate the use of open science practices in their field. We also document that the reported lifetime prevalence of open science practices increased from 49% in 2010 to 87% a decade later.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41111-1

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