ERIC Number: EJ1200368
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 2
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0164-775X
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Implications of "Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychology Science" for School Psychology Research
Solomon, Benjamin G.
Communique, v44 n8 p9-10 Jun 2016
In August 2015, in an article entitled "Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychology Science," the journal "Science" reported the findings of a comprehensive collaboration of social scientist researchers, collectively described as the "Open Science Collaboration" (OSC), who replicated the findings of 100 experiments that were published in three well regarded peer-reviewed journals in psychology (OSC, 2015). The opening sentence of the abstract was telling: "Reproducibility is a defining feature of science, but the extent to which it characterizes current research is unknown" (p. 943). The OSC reported that while 97% of original research yielded significant findings, only 36% of their replications did so. The concern for school psychology is how valid recommendations are for practice generated out of its research base. Although it appears that findings from the OSC (2015) excluded any study directly related to school psychology practice, the overall cross-disciplinary trend is clear: It is likely that all branches of psychology contain a large proportion of nonreplicable findings in their published literature, which raises questions regarding the validity of the original research. Peer review is one way scientific communities weed out poor research, although this study shows that it is an imperfect process. In this article the author discusses a basic set of such tools and their potential implications for school psychologists as consumers of research.
Descriptors: Psychological Studies, School Psychologists, Replication (Evaluation), Probability, Validity, Hypothesis Testing, Experimental Psychology, School Psychology
National Association of School Psychologists. 4340 East West Highway Suite 402, Bethesda, MD 20814. Tel: 301-657-0270; Fax: 301-657-0275; e-mail: publications@naspweb.org; Web site: http://www.nasponline.org/publications/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Counselors
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A