Facts Are More Important Than Novelty

2014/08/01 by Matthew C. Makel, Jonathan A. Plucker · 3 citations
Decision Sciences · Psychology · #Educational Assessment and Improvement #Educational Strategies and Epistemologies #Meta-analysis and systematic reviews

paper · doi:10.3102/0013189x14545513

openalex publication_date 2014/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Despite increased attention to methodological rigor in education research, the field has focused heavily on experimental design and not on the merit of replicating important results. The present study analyzed the complete publication history of the current top 100 education journals ranked by 5-year impact factor and found that only 0.13% of education articles were replications. Contrary to previous findings in medicine, but similar to psychology, the majority of education replications successfully replicated the original studies. However, replications were significantly less likely to be successful when there was no overlap in authorship between the original and replicating articles. The results emphasize the importance of third-party, direct replications in helping education research improve its ability to shape education policy and practice.

Citations

• The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results.
• Priming, Replication, and the Hardest Science
• Shall we Really do it Again? The Powerful Concept of Replication is Neglected in the Social Sciences
• Why Isn't Creativity More Important to Educational Psychologists? Potentials, Pitfalls, and Future Directions in Creativity Research
• Measuring the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices With Incentives for Truth Telling
• Peer-review practices of psychological journals: The fate of published articles, submitted again
• Misinformation and Its Correction
• Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect.
• Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association
• Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
• False-Positive Psychology
• Scientific Utopia
• Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children

Cited by

• Gender expression appraisals in introductory physics courses: A cross-institutional replication
• Student success prediction in MOOCs
• Psychology [wikipedia]
• Replication crisis [wikipedia]

Related

• The Prevalence of Direct Replication Articles in Top-Ranking Psychology Journals
• The prevalence of direct replication articles in top-ranking psychology journals.
• Publication Biases in Replication Studies
• Tracking and mainstreaming replications in the social, cognitive, and behavioral sciences
• Is replication possible in qualitative research? A response to Makel et al. (2022)