scholarly journals Moving Sport and Exercise Science Forward: A Call for the Adoption of More Transparent Research Practices

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron R Caldwell ◽  
Andrew David Vigotsky ◽  
Greg Nuckols ◽  
Ian Boardley ◽  
Julia Schmidt ◽  
...  

The primary means for disseminating sport and exercise science research is currently through journal articles. However, not all studies, especially those with null findings, make it to formal publication. This publication bias towards positive findings may contribute to questionable research practices. Preregistration is a solution to prevent the publication of distorted evidence resulting from this system. This process asks authors to register their hypotheses and methods before data collection on a publicly available repository or by submitting a Registered Report. In the Registered Reports format, authors submit a Stage 1 manuscript to a participating journal that includes an introduction, methods, and any pilot data indicating the exploratory or confirmatory nature of the study. After a Stage 1 peer review, the manuscript can then be offered in-principle acceptance, rejected, or sent back for revisions to improve the quality of the study. If accepted, the project is guaranteed publication, assuming the authors follow the data collection and analysis protocol. After data collection, authors re-submit a Stage 2 manuscript that includes the results and discussion, and the study is evaluated on clarity and conformity with the planned analysis. In its final form, Registered Reports appear almost identical to a typical publication, but give readers confidence that the hypotheses and main analyses are less susceptible to bias from questionable research practices. From this perspective, we argue that inclusion of Registered Reports by researchers and journals will improve the transparency, replicability, and trust in sport and exercise science research.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N Borg ◽  
Joshua J Bon ◽  
Kristin Sainani ◽  
Brenton J Baguley ◽  
Nicholas J Tierney ◽  
...  

This commentary discusses data and code sharing in sport and exercise science research.


Author(s):  
Christopher D O’Connor ◽  
John Ng ◽  
Dallas Hill ◽  
Tyler Frederick

Policing is increasingly being shaped by data collection and analysis. However, we still know little about the quality of the data police services acquire and utilize. Drawing on a survey of analysts from across Canada, this article examines several data collection, analysis, and quality issues. We argue that as we move towards an era of big data policing it is imperative that police services pay more attention to the quality of the data they collect. We conclude by discussing the implications of ignoring data quality issues and the need to develop a more robust research culture in policing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Isaac Nyabisa Oteyo ◽  
Mary Esther Muyoka Toili

AbstractResearchers in bio-sciences are increasingly harnessing technology to improve processes that were traditionally pegged on pen-and-paper and highly manual. The pen-and-paper approach is used mainly to record and capture data from experiment sites. This method is typically slow and prone to errors. Also, bio-science research activities are often undertaken in remote and distributed locations. Timeliness and quality of data collected are essential. The manual method is slow to collect quality data and relay it in a timely manner. Capturing data manually and relaying it in real time is a daunting task. The data collected has to be associated to respective specimens (objects or plants). In this paper, we seek to improve specimen labelling and data collection guided by the following questions; (1) How can data collection in bio-science research be improved? (2) How can specimen labelling be improved in bio-science research activities? We present WebLog, an application that we prototyped to aid researchers generate specimen labels and collect data from experiment sites. We use the application to convert the object (specimen) identifiers into quick response (QR) codes and use them to label the specimens. Once a specimen label is successfully scanned, the application automatically invokes the data entry form. The collected data is immediately sent to the server in electronic form for analysis.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Cohen-Azaria

Purpose In 2012, the Israeli Ministry of Education and its Testing and Evaluation Department introduced a new tool to evaluate the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This paper aims to identify how kindergarten teachers perceive the new multiple domains performance tool. Design/methodology/approach The study applied a qualitative paradigm of data collection and analysis. Data collection consisted of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 36 kindergarten teachers. Findings Findings indicated that most kindergarten teachers perceive their work plan and the kindergarten climate as the most important evaluation domains, while perceiving involving parents as the least important and even an unnecessary domain. One-third of them indicated that an innovation domain should be added. Also, the kindergarten teachers perceived the use of the KT-MDPT as both positive and negative. Originality/value There is a clear dearth in scholarly literature dealing with the evaluation of the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This study is the first to reveal Israeli kindergarten teachers' attitudes regarding this new tool for work quality evaluation.


2019 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamta Kazemi Koohbanani ◽  
Atefeh Zarei ◽  
Nasrolah Erfani

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the librarians’ quality of working life (QWL) in the Iranian public libraries. Design/methodology/approach The present study is an applied research in terms of purpose and an analytical survey in terms of data collection and analysis method. The Walton standard questionnaire was used as the data collection tool. The statistical population of this research consists of librarians in the Iranian public libraries. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in order to analyze the data. Findings The findings showed that the dimensions of organizational social integration, constitutionalism in the organization and the capacity for human development are at a good level; the dimensions of the environment opportunity for continued growth and security and safe and healthy work are at a moderate level. Finally, the dimensions of fair and adequate payment, social relevance of work life and total life space are at a weak level are shown. Originality/value The findings of the confirmed hypothesis indicated that the librarians at the Iranian public libraries have a desirable (high) QWL.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 200793
Author(s):  
Fumiya Yonemitsu ◽  
Ayumi Ikeda ◽  
Naoto Yoshimura ◽  
Kaito Takashima ◽  
Yuki Mori ◽  
...  

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is threatening not only health but also life worldwide. It is important to encourage citizens to voluntarily practise infection-prevention (IP) behaviours such as social distancing and self-restraint. Previous research on social cognition suggested that emphasizing self-identity is key to changing a person's behaviour. The present study investigated whether reminders that highlight self-identity would be effective in changing intention and behaviour related to the COVID-19 outbreak, and hypothesized that those who read reminders highlighting self-identity (Don't be a spreader) would change IP intention and behaviour better than those who read ‘Don't spread’ or no reminder. We conducted a two-wave survey of the same participants with a one-week interval, during which we assigned one of three reminder conditions to the participants: ‘Don't spread’ (spreading condition), ‘Don't be a spreader’ (spreader condition) and no reminder (control condition). Participants marked their responses to IP intentions and actual behaviours each week based on the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare guidelines. While the results did not show significant differences between the conditions, the post hoc analyses showed significant equivalence in either IP intentions or behavioural scores. We discussed the results from the perspective of the effect size, ceiling effects and ways of manipulation checks as future methods with more effective persuasive messaging. Following in-principle acceptance, the approved Stage 1 version of this manuscript was pre-registered on the OSF at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KZ5Y4. This pre-registration was performed prior to data collection and analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 1551-1553
Author(s):  
David N. Borg ◽  
Joshua J. Bon ◽  
Kristin L. Sainani ◽  
Brenton J. Baguley ◽  
Nicholas J. Tierney ◽  
...  

A prime objective of atmospheric science research in Antarctica is to use the special conditions found there to throw new light on global problems and, in particular, to test theories of the dynamics of the environment and its reactions to solar phenomena. This involves much international collaboration in planning, data collection and analysis, which is briefly described. The British Antarctic Survey theatre of operations is geographically and magnetically unique and therefore offers exceptionally favourable conditions for such tests. The development of new instruments, in particular those carried by satellite, has made research possible in uninhabited regions and enabled problems to be studied which were previously impracticable. The objects of this paper are to draw attention to the needs and possibilities, and to show some of the ways in which the specific investigations discussed by other contributors interact.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Motyl ◽  
Alexander Pantelis Demos ◽  
Timothy S Carsel ◽  
Brittany Elyse Hanson ◽  
JP Prims ◽  
...  

The scientific quality of social and personality psychology has been debated at great length in recent years. Despite research on the prevalence of questionable research practices (QRPs) and the replicability of particular findings, the impact of the current discussion on research practices is unknown. The current studies examine whether and how practices have changed, if at all, over the last 10 years. In Study 1, we surveyed 1,166 social and personality psychologists about how the current debate has affected their perceptions of their own and the field’s research practices. In Study 2, we coded the research practices and critical test statistics from social and personality psychology articles published in 2003-2004 and 2013-2014. Together, these studies suggest that (1) perceptions of the current state of the field are more pessimistic than optimistic; (2) the discussion has increased researchers’ intentions to avoid QRPs and adopt proposed best practices, (3) the estimated replicability of research published in 2003-2004 may not be as bad as many feared, and (4) research published in 2013-2014 shows some improvement over research published in 2003-2004, a result that suggests the field is evolving in a positive direction.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document