Nagy, T. and Hergert, J. and Elsheriff, M. and Wallrich, Lukas and Schmidt, K. and Waltzer, T. and Payne, J. and Gjoneska, B. and Seetahul, Y. and Wang, Y.A. and Scharfenberg, D. and Tyson, G. and Yang, Y.-F. and Skvortsova, A. and Alarie, S. and Graves, K. and Sotola, L.K. and Moreau, D. and Rubínová, E. (2025) Bestiary of questionable research practices in psychology. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science 8 (3), ISSN 2515-2459.
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Abstract
Questionable research practices (QRPs) pose a significant threat to the quality of scientific research. However, historically, they remain ill-defined and a comprehensive list of QRPs is lacking. The article addresses this concern by defining, collecting, and categorizing QRPs using a community consensus method. Collaborators of the study agreed on the following definition: “Questionable research practices (QRPs) are ways of producing, maintaining, sharing, analyzing, or interpreting data that are likely to produce misleading conclusions, typically in the interest of the researcher. QRPs are not normally considered to include research practices that are prohibited or proscribed in the researcher’s field (e.g., fraud, research misconduct). Neither do they include random researcher error (e.g., accidental data loss)”. Drawing from both iterative discussions and existing literature, we collected, defined, and categorized 40 QRPs for quantitative research. We also considered attributes such as potential harms, detectability, clues, and preventive measures for each QRP. The results suggest that QRPs are pervasive and versatile, and have the potential to undermine all stages of the scientific enterprise. This work contributes to the maintenance of research integrity, transparency, and reliability by raising awareness for and improving the understanding of QRPs in quantitative psychological research.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | credibility crisis, expert consensus, metascience, open science, QRP, research integrity, research methods |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School |
| Depositing User: | Lukas Wallrich |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Aug 2025 13:40 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Sep 2025 15:09 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/55833 |
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