What do incoming university students believe about open science practices in psychology?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L Beaudry ◽  
Matt N Williams ◽  
Michael Carl Philipp ◽  
Emily Jane Kothe
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Incoming Students ◽  
Teaching Implications

Background: Understanding students’ naive conceptions about how science works and the norms that guide scientific best practice is important so that teachers can adapt their teaching to students’ existing understandings. Objective: To describe what incoming undergraduate students of psychology believe about reproducibility and open science practices in psychology. Method: International online survey with participants who were about to start their first course in psychology at a university (N = 239). Results: When asked about how research should be done, most students endorsed most (but not all) of ten open science practices. When asked to estimate the proportion of published psychological studies that apply each of a set of 10 open science practices, participants’ estimates tended to average near 50%. Only 18% of participants had heard of the term “replication crisis.” Conclusion: Despite relatively significant media attention on the replication crisis, few incoming psychology students are familiar with the term. Incoming students nevertheless appear to be sympathetic toward most open science practices, although they may overestimate the prevalence of these practices in psychology. Teaching Implications: Teaching materials aimed at incoming psychology students should not assume pre-existing knowledge about open science or replicability.

“I know it's bad but I have been pressured into it”: Questionable research practices among psychology students in Canada

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Moran ◽  
Alexandra Richard ◽  
Kate Wilson ◽  
Rosemary Twomey ◽  
Adina Coroiu
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Online Advertising ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Replication Crisis

Background: Questionable research practices (QRPs) have been identified as a driving force of the replication crisis in the field of psychological science. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency of QRP use among psychology students in Canadian universities, and to better understand reasons and motivations for QRP use.Method: Participants were psychology students attending Canadian universities and were recruited via online advertising and university email invitations to complete a bilingual survey. Respondents were asked how often they and others engaged in seven QRPs. They were also asked to estimate the proportion of psychology research impacted by each QRP and how acceptable they found each QRP. Data were collected through Likert-scale survey items and open-ended text responses between May 2020 and January 2021, and was analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Results: 425 psychology students completed the survey. The sample consisted of 40% undergraduate students, 59% graduate students and 1% post-doctoral fellows. Overall, 64% of participants reported using at least one QRP, while 79% reported having observed others engaging in at least one QRP. The most frequently reported QRPs were p-hacking (46%), not submitting null results for publication (31%), excluding outcome measures (30%), and hypothesizing after results are known (27%). These QRPs were also the most frequently observed in others, estimated to be the most prevalent in the field, and rated as the most acceptable. Qualitative findings show that students reported that pressures to publish motivated their QRP use, with some reporting that certain QRPs are justifiable in some cases (e.g., in the case of exploratory research). Students also reported that QRPs contribute to the replication crisis and to publication bias and offered several alternatives and solutions to engaging in QRPs, such as gaining familiarity with open science practices. Conclusions: Most Canadian psychology students in this sample report using QRPs, which is unsurprising since they observe such practices in their research environment and estimate that they are prevalent. In contrast, most students believe that QRPs are not acceptable. The results of this study highlight the need to examine the pedagogical standards and cultural norms in academia that may promote or normalize QRPs in psychological science, to improve the quality and replicability of research in this field.

scholarly journals Remote learning and students’ mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic: A mixed-method enquiry

Prospects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Lischer ◽  
Netkey Safi ◽  
Cheryl Dickson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Status ◽  
University Students ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Distance Teaching ◽  
Learning Conditions ◽  
Support Students

AbstractThe disruption caused by Covid-19 in the educational sector may last longer than originally predicted. To better understand the current situation, this article analyses the mental health status of university students during the pandemic and investigates the learning conditions needed to support students. The sample included 557 undergraduate students who took part in an online survey. Overall, the students reported coping well during lockdown but indicated that lecturers were challenged by distance teaching, which created some stress for the students.

scholarly journals Researcher Degrees of Freedom in the Psychology of Religion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Jane Charles ◽  
James Edward Bartlett ◽  
Kyle J. Messick ◽  
Thomas Joseph Coleman ◽  
Alex Uzdavines
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Psychology Of Religion ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
The Way

There is a push in psychology toward more transparent practices, stemming partially as a response to the replication crisis. We argue that the psychology of religion should help lead the way toward these new, more transparent practices to ensure a robust and dynamic subfield. One of the major issues that proponents of Open Science practices hope to address is researcher degrees of freedom (RDF). We pre-registered and conducted a systematic review of the 2017 issues from three psychology of religion journals. We aimed to identify the extent to which the psychology of religion has embraced Open Science practices and the role of RDF within the subfield. We found that many of the methodologies that help to increase transparency, such as pre-registration, have yet to be adopted by those in the subfield. In light of these findings, we present recommendations for addressing the issue of transparency in the psychology of religion and outline how to move toward these new Open Science practices.

scholarly journals Teaching Computational Social Science Skills to Psychology Students: An Undergraduate Research Lab Case Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Brian A. Eiler ◽  
◽  
Patrick C. Doyle ◽  
Rosemary L. Al-Kire ◽  
Heidi A. Wayment ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Computational Social Science ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Science Practices

This article provides a case study of a student-focused research experience that introduced basic data science skills and their utility for psychological research, providing practical learning experiences for students interested in learning computational social science skills. Skills included programming; acquiring, visualizing, and managing data; performing specialized analyses; and building knowledge about open-science practices.

scholarly journals Publishing open, reproducible research with undergraduates

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Feld Strand ◽  
Violet Aurora Brown
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Publishing Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Reproducible Research ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Science Collaboration ◽  
Science Framework

In response to growing concern in psychology and other sciences about low rates of replicability of published findings (Open Science Collaboration, 2015), there has been a movement toward conducting open and transparent research (see Chambers, 2017). This has led to changes in statistical reporting guidelines in journals (Appelbaum et al., 2018), new professional societies (e.g, Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science), frameworks for posting materials, data, code, and manuscripts (e.g., Open Science Framework, PsyArXiv), initiatives for sharing data and collaborating (e.g., Psych Science Accelerator, Study Swap), and educational resources for teaching through replication (e.g., Collaborative Replications and Education Project). This “credibility revolution” (Vazire, 2018) provides many opportunities for researchers. However, given the recency of the changes and the rapid pace of advancements (see Houtkoop et al., 2018), it may be overwhelming for faculty to know whether and how to begin incorporating open science practices into research with undergraduates.In this paper, we will not attempt to catalogue the entirety of the open science movement (see recommended resources below for more information), but will instead highlight why adopting open science practices may be particularly beneficial to conducting and publishing research with undergraduates. The first author is a faculty member at Carleton College (a small, undergraduate-only liberal arts college) and the second is a former undergraduate research assistant (URA) and lab manager in Dr. Strand’s lab, now pursuing a PhD at Washington University in St. Louis. We argue that open science practices have tremendous benefits for undergraduate students, both in creating publishable results and in preparing students to be critical consumers of science.

scholarly journals The past, present, and future of ego depletion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Inzlicht ◽  
Malte Friese
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Current State ◽  
Scientific Status ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Mere Existence

At the center of social psychology just a few years ago, ego depletion is now widely seen as a controversial topic, one of the chief victims of the replication crisis. Despite over 600 studies of apparent support, many are now asking if ego depletion is even real. Here, we comment on the articles included in this Special Issue: Ego Depletion. Specifically, we delineate the contributions and limitations of these articles by embedding them in a brief history of ego depletion, describing the current state of uncertainty about ego depletion’s scientific status, and outlining necessary steps for the study of ego depletion to have a healthy future. To us, the most troubling aspect of this controversy is not what is suggests about ego depletion; but what it suggests about social psychology more broadly. If the mere existence of ego depletion is seriously doubted by many, what can be confidently regarded as real in social psychology? By increasing the precision of our theories, continuously validating our manipulations and measures, and practicing the full suite of open science practices we have the potential to identify legitimate and robust effects and build a cumulative and trustworthy psychological science.

scholarly journals ‘Trust Us’: Open Data and Preregistration in Political Science and International Relations

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bermond Scoggins ◽  
Matthew Peter Robertson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Replication Crisis

The scientific method is predicated on transparency -- yet the pace at which transparent research practices are being adopted by the scientific community is slow. The replication crisis in psychology showed that published findings employing statistical inference are threatened by undetected errors, data manipulation, and data falsification. To mitigate these problems and bolster research credibility, open data and preregistration have increasingly been adopted in the natural and social sciences. While many political science and international relations journals have committed to implementing these reforms, the extent of open science practices is unknown. We bring large-scale text analysis and machine learning classifiers to bear on the question. Using population-level data -- 93,931 articles across the top 160 political science and IR journals between 2010 and 2021 -- we find that approximately 21% of all statistical inference papers have open data, and 5% of all experiments are preregistered. Despite this shortfall, the example of leading journals in the field shows that change is feasible and can be effected quickly.

scholarly journals WILL I SURVIVE? THE ROLE OF PERCEIVED RISK AND KNOWLEDGE TOWARD HOPE IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC: STUDY ON INDONESIAN STUDENTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-114
Author(s):  
Gumgum Gumelar ◽  
Herdiyan Maulana ◽  
Gita Irianda Rizkyani Medellu
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
New Research ◽  
Risk Knowledge

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to examine participant’s hopes whether the pandemic will end based on the perception of risk concerning vulnerability, severity, and anxiety as well as their knowledge about the pandemic among university students in Indonesia. Methodology: 431 (20 % male and 80 % female; Age mean = 19.98; SD = 1.421) undergraduate students in psychology were recruited from across university in Indonesia. A battery scale consists of three questionnaires evaluating perceived risk, knowledge, and hope were administered using the online survey. A multiple regression analysis was applied to examine the hypotheses. Main Findings: The results demonstrated that perceived risk and knowledge emerge as significant predictors of hope. The results also showed that there was a negative relationship between the dimension of perceived risk and hope. There was no significant correlation between health knowledge and hope. The results indicated a statistically significant model of regression. However, this study revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between health knowledge and hope. Applications of this study: The psychological aspect of risk perception and knowledge could be acknowledged as important variables to enhance the hope of university students to face this pandemic. Novelty/Originality of this study: The study offers a further explanation about the scope of earlier research in the field of hope in pandemic -19. It also provides a new research paradigm to the area of perceived risk by introducing understudied individual factors, such as knowledge associated with the hope of facing the pandemic among college students.

scholarly journals Confinement, Comfort and Health: Analysis of the Real Influence of Lockdown on University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 5572
Author(s):  
Antonio Millán-Jiménez ◽  
Rafael Herrera-Limones ◽  
Álvaro López-Escamilla ◽  
Emma López-Rubio ◽  
Miguel Torres-García
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
University Students ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Room Temperature ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Good Relationship ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the population worldwide into lockdown. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of this measure on the health and comfort of university students and the role that the characteristics of the home may have played. It is essential to differentiate between the terms comfort and health both from the medical and architectural perspectives, as there are differences between the two concepts that are, nonetheless, shared by both disciplines. An online survey was fulfilled by 188 medicine and architecture undergraduate students at the University of Seville, Spain. In terms of health, 89% suffered neuropsychiatric disorders (56% anxiety and 49% depression), 38% gained weight and 59% reported alcohol consumption. In relation to comfort, the majority rated their home positively, comfortable in terms of room temperature and noise at night, and they had a good relationship with cohabitants. However, those who did not have a balcony or terrace would have liked to have open spaces They would have also liked to increase the size of their bedroom, where they spent most of their time and where they studied. A built-up environment gave them a sense of being imprisoned, while those who enjoyed open spaces found a sense of peace. The absence of open spaces in the house, the environment and the impossibility of making the most frequently used spaces more flexible may have had negative impacts on the health and comfort of university students during confinement.

scholarly journals Open science practices in higher education: Discussion of survey results from research and teaching staff in Germany

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-323
Author(s):  
Tamara Heck ◽  
Isabella Peters ◽  
Athanasios Mazarakis ◽  
Ansgar Scherp ◽  
Ina Blümel
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Educational Practices ◽  
Research Dissemination ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Survey Results

Aspects of open science and scholarly practices are often discussed with a focus on research and research dissemination processes. There is currently less discussion on open science and its influence on learning and teaching in higher education, and reversely. This paper discusses open science in relation to educational practices and resources and reports on a study to investigate current educational practices from the perspective of open science. We argue that offering students opportunities via open educational practices raises their awareness of future open science goals and teaches them the skills needed to reach those goals. We present online survey results from 210 participants with teaching responsibility at higher education institutions in Germany. While some of them try to establish more open learning and teaching settings, most respondents apply rather traditional ways of learning and teaching. 60% do not use open educational resources – many have not even heard of them – nor do they make their courses open for an online audience. Participants’ priority lies in resource accuracy and quality and we still see a gap between the benefit of open practices and their practicability and applicability. The paper contributes to the general discussion of open practices in higher education by looking at open science practices and their adaptation to the learning and teaching environment. It formulates recommendations for improvements of open practice support and infrastructure.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document