Replication Studies and Negative Results
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Replication Studiesand
Negative Results
What do journals hesitate to publish?
Two types of submissions
Replication studies Negative results
Let’s understand these two types of submissions better.
Replication studies
What are replication studies?
A replication study involves repeating a study using the same
methods but with different subjects and experimenters.
Replication studies:
Ensure that results are reliable and valid
Apply the previous results to new situations
Inspire new research that builds upon previous findings from related studies
Importance of replication studies
Scientific experiments must be reproducible! If you cannot repeat a trial using a different set of parameters,
your scientific method has failed.
Did you know?The results of a landmark study, which had been cited over 1,900 times, could not be reproduced even by the original researchers in their own laboratory.
Validation of research findings is the cornerstone of science.
If you cannot replicate the results of a study, you must report it. This can lead to new discoveries and a better understanding of the original study.
Why most journals do not favor replication studies
Replication studies may not interest some journals because their publishers:
Are biased towards publishing original research
Feel that this will give authors an easy way to get published
Believe that replication studies don’t reveal new information
Think the results are not dramatic enough to attract the journal’s readership
Want to avoid any potential controversy regarding the results of the replication
Prefer to publish successful replication results, and not all replication studies are successful
This is a problem
If journals do not publish replication studies:
×Fewer researchers will choose to perform reproducibility experiments.
×Scientific development could be at stake.
×In the case of clinical trials, in particular, this could lead to serious health care consequences.
Some solutions
Journals could publish yearly special issues/include regular sections dedicated to replication studies.
Publishers could set up forums that encourage alternative forms of publishing, e.g., a website/blog that publishes replication studies.
We need tools to validate scientific research data. One such tool is CrossMark, which validates content with a unique approval stamp and displays most updated data: readers can assume that information without the approval stamp is not up to date/has not yet been taken up for a replication check and that the results may be inaccurate.
Negative results
NEGATIVE RESULTS
What are negative results?
Example: A researcher conducts a study to prove that drug X can destroy cancerous cells in the human body.
But the researcher finds out that drug X is incapable of fighting cancerous cells.
Thus, he ends up with a negative result.
When a hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, the study is considered to
have produced negative results.
Why journals do not favor negative results
Negative findings have lesser impact than positive results.
Papers with negative results may not have a high number of citations, affecting the journal’s impact factor.
Readers may not be as interested in reading about negative results as they would be in breakthrough results.
Proportion of negative and positive results in the literature
Did you know this about negative results?
More than 60% of research experiments fail to produce results or expected discoveries.
Negative results have been gradually disappearing from academic literature over the past two decades.
Articles primarily and clearly stating positive results have grown by 22% between 1990 and 2007. Annual odds of a positive result getting published have increased by around 6% every year.
This is a problem!
Just because an experiment failed, it does not mean that it should not be shared/published. In fact, publishing negative results will only give other
researchers the opportunity to build upon the data and make further discoveries.
How can we solve this problem?
The perspective towards negative results can be changed by:
Creating awareness (among authors, journals, and publishers) about the importance of publishing negative results
Increased focus on journals that publish negative results (e.g. Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine, PLoS ONE, The All Results Journals)
Universities, funding committees, and companies backing researchers for publishing important negative findings
Together! Every member of the academic publishing community should
work towards embracing negative results and their publication.
Moving towards scientific progress
The next time you want to replicate an experiment
ORPublish negative results of your
study
Go ahead and submit it
because…
Authors Publishers
By doing so, you’re helping science grow!
The next time you receive a replication study
ORA paper that describes negative
results
Give it a fair chance
because…
References
● http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/07/18/a-proposed-list-60-things-journal-publishers-do/
● http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org//?s=what+do+journals+consider+when+accepting+a+paper+for+publication
● https://becker.wustl.edu/sites/default/files/archived-pdfs/preparepub.pdf
● http://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/119
● http://scx.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/24/1075547012472684.abstract
● http://www.nature.com/news/replication-studies-bad-copy-1.10634
● http://andrewgelman.com/2011/06/13/how_should_jour/
● http://www.crossref.org/crossmark/
● http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/12/is-the-scientific-literature-self-correcting.html
www.editage.com/insights
@EditageInsights
Visit our website
Connect with us
Related Documents
