2024/01/01 by Veronica Boyce, Ben Prystawski, Adani Bennett Abutto +17 · 1 voice
Psychology · Decision Sciences · Mathematics · #Mental Health Research Topics #Meta-analysis and systematic reviews #Advanced Causal Inference Techniques
paper · doi:10.1525/collabra.125685
When a replication fails, scientists have to decide whether to make a second attempt or move on. Psychology researchers who attempt to replicate studies often face this decision, given the empirical rate of replication success in psychology, which is lower than desired. Here, we report 17 re-replications of experiments for which an original replication had failed. In 5/17 of these “rescue” projects (29%), the “rescue” study mostly or fully replicated the original results, albeit with a smaller effect size; in the other 12, the second replication was also judged to have failed. We speculate that successful rescue projects were due to larger sample sizes or methodological changes such as attention checks. In the absence of obvious weaknesses in a failed replication study’s sample or procedure, however, it may be most efficient to stop pursuing an effect after a single failed replication.