Again, Chambers arrives at pulling together most important trends, concrete ideas and more general, far reaching avenues.
The last chapter is devoted to solutions (“remedies”) arguably, this is the most important chapter in the book. Although methodologically sound, as far as I can say, no special statistical knowledge is needed to follow and benefit from the whole exposition. The book is well written, pleasurable to read, suitable for a number of couch evenings (as in my case). Just assuming that my sum-score does possess metric niveau is not enough (15). Still, psychologists turn a dead ear to this issue, sadly. Without precise measurement, it appears unlikely that any theory will advance. Measurement builds the very rock of any empirical science. Personally, I feel that one point only would merit some more scrutiny: the unchallenged assumption that psychological constructs are metric (12,13,14). Chambers book knits together the most important aspects of the replicability (or reproducibility) the first “umbrella book” on that topic, as far as I know.
True, a lot is at stake (9, 10, 11), and a train wreck may have appeared. Thus, Chambers’ book hit the nerve of many psychologists. However, a substantial number of prominent psychologist oppose the more open approach towards higher validity and legitimateness (8). For example, recently, the German psychological association (DGPs) opened up (more) towards open data (7). The discomfort with the status quo is gaining momentum (3,4,5, 6) see also the work of psychologists such as J. Precisely, Chambers mentions seven “sins” that the psychological research community appears to be guilty of: confirmation bias, data tuning (“hidden flexibility”), disregard of direct replications (and related problems), failure to share data (“data hoarding”), fraud, lack of open access publishing, and fixation on impact factors.Ĭhambers is not alone in out-speaking some dirty little (or not so little) secrets or tricks of the trade. To good to be true? In the light of all this unbehagen, Chambers’ book addresses some of the (possible) roots of the problem of (un)reliability of psychological science. In a similar vein, a recent papers states that in many research areas, researchers mostly report “successes” in the sense of that they report that their studies confirm their hypotheses - with Psychology leading in the proportion of supported hypotheses (2). Can we at all, or to what degree, be certain about the conclusions reached in psychological research? More recently, replications efforts have cast doubt on our confidence in psychological research (1). The “Seven Sins” is concerned about the validity of psychological research.
0 kommentar(er)
