Publishing
Registered report
A registered report is a publishing format in which peer review happens in two stages. Reviewers evaluate the introduction and methods before data collection, and a journal grants in-principle acceptance based on the question and design. The results are published regardless of whether they are positive, null, or mixed.
The format attacks publication bias at its root. Because acceptance is decided before the outcome is known, editors cannot favor exciting results and authors gain nothing from p-hacking, since the analysis plan is already approved. A well-designed study that finds nothing is published on the same footing as one that finds a striking effect.
Stage 1 review scrutinizes the rationale, hypotheses, power, and analysis plan, which is exactly when methodological problems are cheapest to fix. Stage 2 checks that the authors followed the approved protocol and interpreted the findings soundly. Deviations are allowed but must be disclosed and justified.
Adopted by well over 300 journals across psychology, medicine, and neuroscience, registered reports have been shown to yield a much higher proportion of null results than conventional articles, evidence that the standard literature is skewed toward positive findings. For reviewers, the key task shifts from judging whether results are interesting to judging whether the design can actually answer the question.
Example
The journal granted in-principle acceptance after Stage 1 review, so the null result the authors later found was published without resistance.
Relevant in
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