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Category: Project

Description: In recent years, there has been an intensive debate within psychology about the conclusions that should be drawn as a consequence of the replication crisis. The use of questionable research practices (QRPs) was identified as one reason for the problems in replicability. While there are extensive studies on the prevalence of QRPs among scientists, little is known about the occurence of these practices among students. The work presented here is a first large-scale survey among 1397 psychology students in German-speaking countries to investigate the occurrence of QRPs in student projects and the current state of academic teaching with regard to the replication crisis and open science. The joint examination of teaching and the use of questionable research practices promises to provide information on how psychological teaching is related to the empirical approach of students. The results show that questionable research practices do occur in student projects, with large differences in the occurence of specific QRPs. There were also differences in the incidence of QRPs between different project types: qrp usage was most frequent in empirical internships and least frequent in master’s theses. Our data suggest that the extent of reported QRPs generally decreases as students make progress in their study programs. In addition, the majority of students seem to have already come into contact with the replication crisis in teaching, mostly in methodology classes. Finally, we provide impulses for the further development of psychological teaching. The principles of openness, transparency, and collaboration play an important role in these recommendations, which are aimed at teaching and producing robust research from early on.