Psychological Science Stepping Up a Level

What's in a Badge? A Computational Reproducibility Investigation of the Open Data Badge Policy in One Issue of Psychological Science

In April 2019, Psychological Science published its first issue in which all Research Articles received the Open Data badge. We used that issue to investigate the effectiveness of this badge, focusing on the adherence to its aim at Psychological Science: sharing both data and code to ensure reproducibility of results. Twelve researchers of varying experience levels attempted to reproduce the results of the empirical articles in the target issue (at least three researchers per article). We found that all 14 articles provided at least some data and six provided analysis code, but only one article was rated to be exactly reproducible, and three were rated as essentially reproducible with minor deviations. We suggest that researchers should be encouraged to adhere to the higher standard in force at Psychological Science. Moreover, a check of reproducibility during peer review may be preferable to the disclosure method of awarding badges.

Advances in transparency and reproducibility in the social sciences

Worries about a "credibility crisis" besieging science have ignited interest in research transparency and reproducibility as ways of restoring trust in published research. For quantitative social science, advances in transparency and reproducibility can be seen as a set of developments whose trajectory predates the recent alarm. We discuss several of these developments, including preregistration, data-sharing, formal infrastructure in the form of resources and policies, open access to research, and specificity regarding research contributions. We also discuss the spillovers of this predominantly quantitative effort towards transparency for qualitative research. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of mutual accountability for effective science, the essential role of openness for this accountability, and the importance of scholarly inclusiveness in figuring out the best ways for openness to be accomplished in practice.