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Survey of open science practices and attitudes in the social sciences

Author

Listed:
  • Ferguson, Joel
  • Littman, Rebecca
  • Christensen, Garret
  • Paluck, Elizabeth
  • Swanson, Nicholas
  • Wang, Zenan
  • Miguel, Edward
  • Birke, David
  • Pezzuto, John-Henry
Abstract
Open science practices such as posting data or code and pre-registering analyses are increasingly prescribed and debated in the applied sciences, but the actual popularity and lifetime usage of these practices remain unknown. This study provides an assessment of attitudes toward, use of, and perceived norms regarding open science practices from a sample of authors published in top-10 (most-cited) journals and PhD students in top-20 ranked North American departments from four major social science disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. We observe largely favorable private attitudes toward widespread lifetime usage (meaning that a researcher has used a particular practice at least once) of open science practices. As of 2020, nearly 90% of scholars had ever used at least one such practice. Support for posting data or code online is higher (88% overall support and nearly at the ceiling in some fields) than support for pre-registration (58% overall). With respect to norms, there is evidence that the scholars in our sample appear to underestimate the use of open science practices in their field. We also document that the reported lifetime prevalence of open science practices increased from 49% in 2010 to 87% a decade later.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferguson, Joel & Littman, Rebecca & Christensen, Garret & Paluck, Elizabeth & Swanson, Nicholas & Wang, Zenan & Miguel, Edward & Birke, David & Pezzuto, John-Henry, 2023. "Survey of open science practices and attitudes in the social sciences," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt95g5h77z, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt95g5h77z
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Burlig, Fiona, 2018. "Improving transparency in observational social science research: A pre-analysis plan approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 56-60.
    2. Garret Christensen & Edward Miguel, 2018. "Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 920-980, September.
    3. Garret Christensen & Allan Dafoe & Edward Miguel & Don A Moore & Andrew K Rose, 2019. "A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(12), pages 1-13, December.
    4. Lucas C. Coffman & Muriel Niederle, 2015. "Pre-analysis Plans Have Limited Upside, Especially Where Replications Are Feasible," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 81-98, Summer.
    5. Monya Baker, 2016. "1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility," Nature, Nature, vol. 533(7604), pages 452-454, May.
    6. Courtney K. Soderberg & Timothy M. Errington & Sarah R. Schiavone & Julia Bottesini & Felix Singleton Thorn & Simine Vazire & Kevin M. Esterling & Brian A. Nosek, 2021. "Initial evidence of research quality of registered reports compared with the standard publishing model," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(8), pages 990-997, August.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Felix Holzmeister & Magnus Johannesson & Robert Böhm & Anna Dreber & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2023. "Heterogeneity in effect size estimates: Empirical evidence and practical implications," Working Papers 2023-17, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.

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    Keywords

    Humans; Social Sciences; Politics; Research Personnel; Students; Attitude;
    All these keywords.

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