Motivations and Obstacles of Preregistration

Lisa Spitzer:
After earning her Master's degree in Psychology from the University of Cologne, Lisa completed her PhD at the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID), an open science institute in Germany. Her PhD research primarily centered on preregistration in psychology, with a particular focus on current motivations, obstacles, and the empirical evaluation of preregistration templates. Additionally, she explored the reproducibility of eye-tracking. Through her research, she hopes to contribute to the open science movement and a shift toward greater transparency and reproducibility in scientific practice.

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Abstract

Preregistration, the practice of documenting and publishing a study protocol before data collection or analysis, helps to increase the transparency and reproducibility of research. However, despite active support for preregistration in psychology, it is still not the norm in the field. In our study, which was published as a Registered Report ([1], https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281086), we explored psychologists' current attitudes, motivations, and obstacles regarding preregistration, as well as influences on their intention to preregister, to explore possible reasons for this. Our results indicate an overall positive outlook, as many researchers view preregistration positively and intend to preregister in the future. However, we also identified some obstacles currently hindering preregistration, which should be addressed to facilitate and foster this open science practice. In this talk, I will highlight some of the most important identified motivations and obstacles of preregistration in psychology.

[1] Spitzer L, Mueller S (2021) Registered Report Protocol: Survey on attitudes and experiences regarding preregistration in psychological research. PLOS ONE 16(7): e0253950.

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