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This Photo Shows Exactly Why You Should Be Skeptical Of Psychology Research

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-psychology-research-is-unreliable-2012-10

One of the biggest problems in the world of science is researcher bias.

More transparency is needed across the board, say Joseph Simmons and Uri Simonsohn of Wharton and Leif Nelson of UC Berkeley in their paper “21 word solution.”

It’s a follow-up to their 2011 paper, “False Positive Psychology,” which uncovered many of the holes that exist in psychology research. One of the problems is “p-hacking,” or the practice of changing assumptions or data in an experiment to ensure that the probability (“p”) an opposite hypothesis (“null”) contradicts the research is below a certain level. Ultimately, “p-hacking” makes research less valid and increases the number of “false positives.”

Because of this, the authors put together a 21-word statement every researcher should use as a disclosure, which they hope will make the field of science more transparent:

“We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study.”

The authors perfectly sum up the transparency problem with an analogy and a photo. Whereas coffee shops are required to label milk containers, scientists don’t have to “label their milk.” In other words, researchers don’t have to relay what data they started out with, whether they took observations out, or whether they’ve dropped things from their model:

The table below of simulated results from their earlier paper shows how much these! unrepor ted techniques can impact statistical significance:

The lesson? Look for disclosures in any scientific paper, and always be skeptical.

Read the full article here

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