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I need material around arguments for and against (but mostly for) Pre-Registration of scientific manuscripts, specifically in neuroscience. I'll need a rough timeline of when pre-registration picked up, and motivation behind it. I'll also need a cumulative list of each journal that does Pre-Registration and what their process is.
Hello! Thanks for asking Wonder about pre-registration of scientific research. The short answer is that pre-registration developed as way to address systemic issues with the process of research and publication of scientific experiments and to improve the integrity of published research. It helps to address intentional and unintentional errors often found in the research process as well as to help scientists, reviewers and the public remember and understand the methodology used in scientific research. Below you'll find a deeper review of the debate surrounding pre-registration.
THE PROBLEM
Most career advancement paths in the research community are structured such that a "publish or perish" incentive is strong. This pressure leads to quality and integrity issues in published research including low statistical power, p-hacking, post-hoc hypothesizing, lack of data sharing, publication bias and absence of direct replication. Scientists feel pressure to produce novel and positive results which often increase the chances of publication. In additional to outright dishonesty, issues like HARKing often arise as unintended consequence of the research process. Researchers sometimes selectively report the results of research because they feel those are the "right analyses." These flexible, post-hoc approaches to data analysis and reporting have been around for years however they seem to have come under more intense scrutiny since 2010. Studies from Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn (2011), Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn (2012), John, Loewenstein, & Prelec, and Gelman & Loken (2014) have introduced terms like "researcher degrees of freedom," "p-hacking," "questionable "research practices," and "the garden of forking paths" to the scientific research lexicon. It seems as though the practice of pre-registration has developed in response to this trend.
THE SOLUTION
Preregistering a research project involves creating a permanent record of study plans before looking at the data. The nueroscience journal Cortex started offering registered report publishing in May 2013. More journals have followed suit and some offer guaranteed publication of results if a pre-registered report is published. A list of journals that offer pre-registration for their editorial processes can be found in the attached spreadsheet. Pre-registration helps overcome the publication bias that often blocks findings from scientific literature. The APA believes that pre-registration will encourage improved use of theory and stronger research methods. Because a formal proposal is required for a new study, more attention will be paid to research motivation and design. The APA also expects to see a decline in false positive publications. In general, pre-registration offers a means for reducing the frequency at which exploratory research is mistaken for having "a priori" design while also increasing rigour and transparency. Organizations like the Center for Open Science have helped introduce a framework for pre-registration publishing.
POTENTIAL DOWNSIDES
While some researchers and journals support the move to pre-registration, others are hesitant. Critics claim that pre-registration could lead to an undervaluing of exploratory research or create a bias for journals to publish based on researcher prestige rather than results to indicate the value of the study.
SUMMARY
In summary pre-registration is gaining traction across nueroscience journals and others as a means to improve the quality and integrity of scientific research. Thanks for asking Wonder and let us know if we can help with anything else.