Our objective in this session is to provide a deeper understanding of the practice of “pre-registration”, which is gaining considerable momentum in scientific research. This practice entails publicly recording a study’s hypotheses, design (including sample size), and analysis plans before any data collection and/or data analysis begins.
We will commence the session by briefly discussing how pre-registration is an important component of the open science movement, which focuses on enhancing the transparency, replicability, and trustworthiness of research. This movement was largely driven by the “replication crisis” in science (i.e., the failure to reproduce results), itself caused by tendencies toward vague hypothesising, flexible analysis practices, and publication bias. We will outline the goals of pre-registration and note some key historical milestones in the development of this practice, most notably the launch of the Open Science Framework (OSF) as a central repository for pre-registration documents.
We next describe the components of a good pre-registration and explain the practical steps that researchers need to take to pre-register study. We will also compare and contrast pre-registration with the submission of “registered reports”, which is a related approach to engaging in good scientific practice. We will conclude the session by discussing the benefits of pre-registration while also noting some of the challenges and limitations associated with the approach.
