No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications

What explanation is there when teams of researchers are unable to successfully replicate already established ‘canonical’ findings? One suggestion that has been put forward, but left largely untested, is that those researchers who fail to replicate prior studies are of low ‘expertise and diligence’ a...

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Main Authors: John Protzko, Jonathan W. Schooler
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: PeerJ Inc. 2020-03-01
Series:PeerJ
Subjects:
Online Access:https://peerj.com/articles/8014.pdf
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author John Protzko
Jonathan W. Schooler
author_facet John Protzko
Jonathan W. Schooler
author_sort John Protzko
collection DOAJ
description What explanation is there when teams of researchers are unable to successfully replicate already established ‘canonical’ findings? One suggestion that has been put forward, but left largely untested, is that those researchers who fail to replicate prior studies are of low ‘expertise and diligence’ and lack the skill necessary to successfully replicate the conditions of the original experiment. Here we examine the replication success of 100 scientists of differing ‘expertise and diligence’ who attempted to replicate five different studies. Using a bibliometric tool (h-index) as our indicator of researcher ‘expertise and diligence’, we examine whether this was predictive of replication success. Although there was substantial variability in replication success and in the h-factor of the investigators, we find no relationship between these variables. The present results provide no evidence for the hypothesis that systematic replications fail because of low ‘expertise and diligence’ among replicators.
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spelling doaj.art-ac1edf3ee2064beaaf0f561f4ffab6342023-12-03T06:47:20ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592020-03-018e801410.7717/peerj.8014No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replicationsJohn Protzko0Jonathan W. Schooler1Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States of AmericaPsychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States of AmericaWhat explanation is there when teams of researchers are unable to successfully replicate already established ‘canonical’ findings? One suggestion that has been put forward, but left largely untested, is that those researchers who fail to replicate prior studies are of low ‘expertise and diligence’ and lack the skill necessary to successfully replicate the conditions of the original experiment. Here we examine the replication success of 100 scientists of differing ‘expertise and diligence’ who attempted to replicate five different studies. Using a bibliometric tool (h-index) as our indicator of researcher ‘expertise and diligence’, we examine whether this was predictive of replication success. Although there was substantial variability in replication success and in the h-factor of the investigators, we find no relationship between these variables. The present results provide no evidence for the hypothesis that systematic replications fail because of low ‘expertise and diligence’ among replicators.https://peerj.com/articles/8014.pdfReproducibilityBibliometricsMetascienceh-indexRegistered Replication ReportsScientometrics
spellingShingle John Protzko
Jonathan W. Schooler
No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
PeerJ
Reproducibility
Bibliometrics
Metascience
h-index
Registered Replication Reports
Scientometrics
title No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
title_full No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
title_fullStr No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
title_full_unstemmed No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
title_short No relationship between researcher impact and replication effect: an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
title_sort no relationship between researcher impact and replication effect an analysis of five studies with 100 replications
topic Reproducibility
Bibliometrics
Metascience
h-index
Registered Replication Reports
Scientometrics
url https://peerj.com/articles/8014.pdf
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AT jonathanwschooler norelationshipbetweenresearcherimpactandreplicationeffectananalysisoffivestudieswith100replications