scholarly journals Psychology and open science in Africa: Why is it needed and how can we implement it?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soufian Azouaghe ◽  
Adeyemi Adetula ◽  
Patrick S. Forscher ◽  
Dana Basnight-Brown ◽  
Nihal Ouherrou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Western World ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Replication Crisis

The quality of scientific research is assessed not only by its positive impact on socio-economic development and human well-being, but also by its contribution to the development of valid and reliable scientific knowledge. Thus, researchers regardless of their scientific discipline, are supposed to adopt research practices based on transparency and rigor. However, the history of science and the scientific literature teach us that a part of scientific results is not systematically reproducible (Ioannidis, 2005). This is what is commonly known as the "replication crisis" which concerns the natural sciences as well as the social sciences, of which psychology is no exception.Firstly, we aim to address some aspects of the replication crisis and Questionable Research Practices (QRPs). Secondly, we discuss how we can involve more labs in Africa to take part in the global research process, especially the Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA). For these goals, we will develop a tutorial for the labs in Africa, by highlighting the open science practices. In addition, we emphasize that it is substantial to identify African labs needs and factors that hinder their participating in the PSA, and the support needed from the Western world. Finally, we discuss how to make psychological science more participatory and inclusive.

“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 Privacy versus Open Science

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Dennis ◽  
Paul Michael Garrett ◽  
Hyungwook Yim ◽  
Jihun Hamm ◽  
Adam F Osth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Science ◽  
Privacy Preserving ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Good Research

Pervasive internet and sensor technologies promise to revolutionize psychological science. However, the data collected using these technologies is often very personal - indeed the value of the data is often directly related to how personal it is. At the same time, driven by the replication crisis, there is a sustained push to publish data to open repositories. These movements are in fundamental conflict. In this paper, we propose a way to navigate this issue. We argue that there are significant advantages to be gained by ceding the ownership of data to the participants who generate it. Then we provide desiderata for a privacy-preserving platform. In particular, we suggest that researchers should use an interface to perform experiments and run analyses rather than observing the stimuli themselves. We argue that this method not only improves privacy but will also encourage greater compliance with good research practices than is possible with open repositories.

scholarly journals Psychology’s Replication Crisis and the Grant Culture: Righting the Ship

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 660-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott O. Lilienfeld
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
External Funding ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Institutional Variables ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
The Past ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Replication Crisis

The past several years have been a time for soul searching in psychology, as we have gradually come to grips with the reality that some of our cherished findings are less robust than we had assumed. Nevertheless, the replication crisis highlights the operation of psychological science at its best, as it reflects our growing humility. At the same time, institutional variables, especially the growing emphasis on external funding as an expectation or de facto requirement for faculty tenure and promotion, pose largely unappreciated hazards for psychological science, including (a) incentives for engaging in questionable research practices, (b) a single-minded focus on programmatic research, (c) intellectual hyperspecialization, (d) disincentives for conducting direct replications, (e) stifling of creativity and intellectual risk taking, (f) researchers promising more than they can deliver, and (g) diminished time for thinking deeply. Preregistration should assist with (a), but will do little about (b) through (g). Psychology is beginning to right the ship, but it will need to confront the increasingly deleterious impact of the grant culture on scientific inquiry.

Open Science: Recommendations for research on school bullying

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Noret ◽  
Simon C. Hunter ◽  
Sofia Milheiro Pimenta ◽  
Rachel Taylor ◽  
Rebecca Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Open Science ◽  
School Bullying ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Science Practices ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Participatory Research Methods ◽  
Science Movement

The open science movement has developed out of growing concerns over the scientific standard of published academic research and a perception that science is in crisis (the "replication crisis"). Bullying research sits within this scientific family and without taking a full part in discussions risks falling behind. Open science practices can inform and support a range of research goals while increasing the transparency and trustworthiness of the research process. In this paper, we aim to explain the relevance of open science for bullying research and discuss some of the questionable research practices which challenge the replicability and integrity of research. We also consider how open science practices can be of benefit to research on school bullying. In doing so, we discuss how open science practices, such as pre-registration, can be of benefit to a range of methodologies including quantitative and qualitative research and studies employing a participatory research methods approach. To support researchers in adopting more open practices, we also highlight a range of relevant resources and set out a series of recommendations to the bullying research community.

scholarly journals Putting open science into practice: A social dilemma?

First Monday ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaja Scheliga ◽  
Sascha Friesike
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Individual Scientist ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Opening Up

Digital technologies carry the promise of transforming science and opening up the research process. We interviewed researchers from a variety of backgrounds about their attitudes towards and experiences with openness in their research practices. We observe a considerable discrepancy between the concept of open science and scholarly reality. While many researchers support open science in theory, the individual researcher is confronted with various difficulties when putting open science into practice. We analyse the major obstacles to open science and group them into two main categories: individual obstacles and systemic obstacles. We argue that the phenomenon of open science can be seen through the prism of a social dilemma: what is in the collective best interest of the scientific community is not necessarily in the best interest of the individual scientist. We discuss the possibilities of transferring theoretical solutions to social dilemma problems to the realm of open science.

Conceptualising personhood, agency, and morality for African psychology

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 484-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Baffour Adjei
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
Spatio Temporal

One of the functions of psychological science is to develop concepts for thinking about people and their well-being. Since its establishment as a scientific discipline in the late 19th century, psychology has developed concepts that are essentially rooted in the specific spatio-temporal context of Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries. There is a growing ontological and epistemological awareness that psychological science and practices from WEIRD cultural spaces cannot be exclusively representative of the African experience. I draw from interpersonal violence research to discuss the concepts of personhood, agency, and morality from an African perspective and highlight their theoretical and practical utility for psychological science. Based on African communalism, I argue that an understanding of personhood, agency, and morality as culturally contextualised and socially intentioned phenomena is foundational to the advancement of heterogeneous practices of knowledge production in diverse contexts.

scholarly journals ­Questionable Research Practices and Open Science in Quantitative Criminology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Chin ◽  
Justin T. Pickett ◽  
Simine Vazire ◽  
Alex O. Holcombe
Keyword(s):  
Open Science ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Questionable Research Practices

scholarly journals Open Science and Educational Technology Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Jason M. Lodge ◽  
Linda Corrin ◽  
Gwo-Jen Hwang ◽  
Kate Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Educational Technology ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Educational Technology Research ◽  
Technology Research ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Replication Crisis

Over the last decade a spate of issues has been emerging in empirical research spanning diverse fields such as biology, medicine, economics, and psychological science. The crisis has already led to fundamental shifts in how research is being conducted in several fields, particularly psychological science. Broadly labelled the ‘replication crisis’, these issues place substantial doubt on the robustness of peer-reviewed quantitative research across many disciplines. In this editorial, we will delve into the replication crisis and what it means for educational technology research. We will address two key areas, describing the extent to which the replication crisis applies to educational technology research and suggestions for responses by our community.

scholarly journals Advancing Transparency and Impact of Research: Initiating Crosstalk between Indigenous Research and Mainstream “Open Science”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Priscilla Lui ◽  
Monica C. Skewes ◽  
Sarah Gobrial ◽  
David Rollock
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Human Functioning ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Science Movement

To answer questions about human psychology, psychological science needs to yield credible findings. Because of their goals of understanding people’s lived experiences and advocating for the needs of the Native communities, Indigenous scholars tend to use community-based participatory research (CBPR) or approach science from a constructivist framework. The primary goal of mainstream psychological science is to uncover generalizable facts about human functioning. Approached from a postpositivist framework, mainstream psychological scholars tend to assume the possibility of identifying researcher biases and achieving objective science. Recently, many psychological findings fail to replicate in new samples. The replication crisis raised concerns about the validity of psychological science. The mainstream open science has been promoted as a solution to this replication crisis; the open science movement encourages researchers to emphasize transparency and accountability to the broad research community. The notion of transparency aligns with the principles of CBPR—research approach common in Indigenous research. Yet, open science practices are not widely adopted in Indigenous research, and mainstream open science does not emphasize researchers’ accountability to the communities that their science is intended to serve. We examined Indigenous researchers’ awareness and concerns about mainstream open science. Participants endorsed the value of transparency with the participants and their communities. They also were concerned about being disadvantaged and the possible negative impact of data sharing on the Native communities. We suggest that there is value in connecting mainstream open science and Indigenous research to advance science that empowers people and makes positive community impact.

scholarly journals Research practices and statistical reporting quality in 250 economic psychology master's theses: a meta-research investigation

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 190738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Olsen ◽  
Johanna Mosen ◽  
Martin Voracek ◽  
Erich Kirchler
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Power ◽  
Testing Effect ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Sample Size Determination ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Standardized Effect Sizes ◽  
Research Findings

The replicability of research findings has recently been disputed across multiple scientific disciplines. In constructive reaction, the research culture in psychology is facing fundamental changes, but investigations of research practices that led to these improvements have almost exclusively focused on academic researchers. By contrast, we investigated the statistical reporting quality and selected indicators of questionable research practices (QRPs) in psychology students' master's theses. In a total of 250 theses, we investigated utilization and magnitude of standardized effect sizes, along with statistical power, the consistency and completeness of reported results, and possible indications of p -hacking and further testing. Effect sizes were reported for 36% of focal tests (median r = 0.19), and only a single formal power analysis was reported for sample size determination (median observed power 1 − β = 0.67). Statcheck revealed inconsistent p -values in 18% of cases, while 2% led to decision errors. There were no clear indications of p -hacking or further testing. We discuss our findings in the light of promoting open science standards in teaching and student supervision.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document