Degrees of Freedom in Planning, Running, Analyzing, and Reporting Psychological Studies: A Checklist to Avoid p-Hacking
JMJelte M. WichertsCLCoosje Lisabet Sterre VeldkampHEHilde Elisabeth Maria AugusteijnMBMarjan BakkerRCRobbie C. M. van Aert
Indexed incrossrefdoajpubmed
Abstract
The designing, collecting, analyzing, and reporting of psychological studies entail many choices that are often arbitrary. The opportunistic use of these so-called researcher degrees of freedom aimed at obtaining statistically significant results is problematic because it enhances the chances of false positive results and may inflate effect size estimates. In this review article, we present an extensive list of 34 degrees of freedom that researchers have in formulating hypotheses, and in designing, running, analyzing, and reporting of psychological research. The list can be used in research methods education, and as a checklist to assess the quality of preregistrations and to determine the potential for bias…
Citation impact
830
total citations
- FWCI
- 50.89
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 63
Citations per year
Authors
6Topics & keywords
Topics
Keywords
- Checklist
- Psychology
- Quality (philosophy)
- Hacker
- Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry)
- Psychological research
- Applied psychology
- Social psychology
UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Peace, Justice and strong institutions
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