Comparing dream to reality: an assessment of adherence of the first generation of preregistered studies

Abstract

Preregistration is a method to increase research transparency by documenting research decisions on a public, third-party repository prior to any influence by data. It is becoming increasingly popular in all subfields of psychology and beyond. Adherence to the preregistration plan may not always be feasible and even is not necessarily desirable, but without disclosure of deviations, readers who do not carefully consult the preregistration plan might get the incorrect impression that the study was exactly conducted and reported as planned. In this paper, we have investigated adherence and disclosure of deviations for all articles published with the Preregistered badge in Psychological Science between February 2015 and November 2017 and shared our findings with the corresponding authors for feedback. Two out of 27 preregistered studies contained no deviations from the preregistration plan. In one study, all deviations were disclosed. Nine studies disclosed none of the deviations. We mainly observed (un)disclosed deviations from the plan regarding the reported sample size, exclusion criteria and statistical analysis. This closer look at preregistrations of the first generation reveals possible hurdles for reporting preregistered studies and provides input for future reporting guidelines. We discuss the results and possible explanations, and provide recommendations for preregistered research.

Keywords

• preregistration
• researcher degrees of freedom
• open science
• psychological science
• transparency