Why we all want ‘others’ to do replication studies

Reproducibility is held as the gold standard for scientific research. The legitimacy of any published work depends on the question: can we replicate the analysis and come to the same results? Therefore, authors have to provide information on how exactly they collected the data and conducted the analysis. Without such transparency about the research process, scholars cannot evaluate work, fully understand the value of results, and move on to build further, new knowledge, as King (1995) has pointed out. But why are so few scholars doing replication studies?

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Promoting replications in graduate student teaching

A great way to promote reproducibility in political science is to let graduate students replicate published work. This way, they learn ‘hands-on’ statistics, but also how frustrating it is when authors don’t keep a log of their files and code. In the best case scenario, this encourages a new cohort of political scientists to be transparent in their future work. In the recent symposium on reproducibility in PS: Political Science & Politics (Vol 47, Issue 1), Thomas M. Carsey discusses his experiences of assigning replications to students – a thought-provoking and excellent read! [This blog post is part of a series of posts about the PS symposium, which summarizes and discusses the current state of reproducibility in political science.]

Would journals publish only failed replications?

Scholars in political science commonly agree that we need more researchers doing replications of published work. But how to motivate them? In the recent symposium on the topic in PS: Political Science & Politics (Vol 47, Issue 1), Thomas M. Carsey discusses concrete steps researchers and journals can take. This blog post is part of a series of posts about the PS symposium, which summarizes and discusses the current state of reproducibility in political science.

New ethics guidelines for data Access & research transparency

The current issue of PS: Political Science & Politics (Vol 47, Issue 1) is devoted to reproducibility, replication and data access. In eight articles, political scientists discuss the need for better quality standards in qualitative and quantitative research. This blog will publish a series of posts on the main points, starting with observations on the current state of reproducibility by Arthur Lupia and Colin Elman.