scholarly journals Assessing Open Science practices in physical activity behaviour change intervention evaluations

Author(s):  
Emma Norris ◽  
Isra Sulevani ◽  
Ailbhe N. Finnerty ◽  
Oscar Castro

Objectives: Concerns on the lack of reproducibility and transparency in science have led to a range of research practice reforms, broadly referred to as Open Science. The extent that physical activity interventions are embedding Open Science practices is currently unknown. In this study, we randomly sampled 100 reports of recent physical activity behaviour change interventions to estimate the prevalence of Open Science practices. Methods: One hundred reports of randomised controlled trial physical activity behaviour change interventions published between 2018-2021 were identified. Open Science practices were coded in identified reports, including: study pre-registration, protocol sharing, data-, materials- and analysis scripts-sharing, replication of a previous study, open access publication, funding sources and conflict of interest statements. Coding was performed by two independent researchers, with inter-rater reliability calculated using Krippendorffs alpha. Results: 78% of the 100 reports provided details of study pre-registration and 41% provided evidence of a published protocol. 4% provided accessible open data, 8% provided open materials and 1% provided open analysis scripts. 73% of reports were published as open access and no studies were described as replication attempts. 93% of reports declared their sources of funding and 88% provided conflicts of interest statements. A Krippendorffs alpha of 0.73 was obtained across all coding. Conclusion: Open data, materials, analysis and replication attempts are currently rare in physical activity behaviour change intervention reports, whereas funding source and conflict of interest declarations are common. Future physical activity research should increase the reproducibility of their methods and results by incorporating more Open Science practices.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Norris ◽  
Yiwei He ◽  
Rachel Loh ◽  
Robert West ◽  
Susan Michie

Introduction: Activities promoting research reproducibility and transparency are crucial for generating trustworthy evidence. Evaluation of smoking interventions is one area where vested interests may motivate reduced reproducibility and transparency. Aims: Assess markers of transparency and reproducibility in smoking behaviour change intervention evaluation reports.Methods: One hundred evaluation reports of smoking behaviour change intervention randomised controlled trials published in 2018-2019 were identified. Reproducibility markers of pre-registration, protocol sharing, data-, materials- and analysis script-sharing, replication of a previous study and open access publication were coded in identified reports. Transparency markers of funding and conflict of interest declarations were also coded. Coding was performed by two researchers, with inter-rater reliability calculated using Krippendorff’s alpha.Results: Seventy-one percent of reports were open access and 73% pre-registered. However, only 13% provided accessible materials, 7% accessible data and 1% accessible analysis scripts. No reports were replication studies. Ninety-four percent of reports provided a funding source statement and eighty-eight percent of reports provided a conflict of interest statement.Conclusions: Open data, materials, analysis and replications are rare in smoking behaviour change interventions, whereas funding source and conflict of interest declarations are common. Future smoking research should be more reproducible to enable knowledge accumulation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Emma Norris ◽  
Yiwei He ◽  
Rachel Loh ◽  
Robert West ◽  
Susan Michie

Introduction. Activities promoting research reproducibility and transparency are crucial for generating trustworthy evidence. Evaluation of smoking interventions is one area where vested interests may motivate reduced reproducibility and transparency. Aims. Assess markers of transparency and reproducibility in smoking behaviour change intervention evaluation reports. Methods. One hundred evaluation reports of smoking behaviour change intervention randomised controlled trials published in 2018-2019 were identified. Reproducibility markers of pre-registration; protocol sharing; data, material, and analysis script sharing; replication of a previous study; and open access publication were coded in identified reports. Transparency markers of funding and conflict of interest declarations were also coded. Coding was performed by two researchers, with inter-rater reliability calculated using Krippendorff’s alpha. Results. Seventy-one percent of reports were open access, and 73% were pre-registered. However, there are only 13% provided accessible materials, 7% accessible data, and 1% accessible analysis scripts. No reports were replication studies. Ninety-four percent of reports provided a funding source statement, and eighty-eight percent of reports provided a conflict of interest statement. Conclusions. Open data, materials, analysis, and replications are rare in smoking behaviour change interventions, whereas funding source and conflict of interest declarations are common. Future smoking research should be more reproducible to enable knowledge accumulation. This study was pre-registered: https://osf.io/yqj5p.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Kalandadze ◽  
Sara Ann Hart

The increasing adoption of open science practices in the last decade has been changing the scientific landscape across fields. However, developmental science has been relatively slow in adopting open science practices. To address this issue, we followed the format of Crüwell et al., (2019) and created summaries and an annotated list of informative and actionable resources discussing ten topics in developmental science: Open science; Reproducibility and replication; Open data, materials and code; Open access; Preregistration; Registered reports; Replication; Incentives; Collaborative developmental science.This article offers researchers and students in developmental science a starting point for understanding how open science intersects with developmental science. After getting familiarized with this article, the developmental scientist should understand the core tenets of open and reproducible developmental science, and feel motivated to start applying open science practices in their workflow.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraldine Wallbank ◽  
Catherine Sherrington ◽  
Colleen G. Canning ◽  
Leanne Hassett ◽  
Roberta Shepherd ◽  
...  

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