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Questionable research practices in student final theses - Prevalence, attitudes, and the role of the supervisor's perceived attitudes - PubMed

  • ️Mon Jan 01 2018

Questionable research practices in student final theses - Prevalence, attitudes, and the role of the supervisor's perceived attitudes

Anand Krishna et al. PLoS One. 2018.

Abstract

Although questionable research practices (QRPs) and p-hacking have received attention in recent years, little research has focused on their prevalence and acceptance in students. Students are the researchers of the future and will represent the field in the future. Therefore, they should not be learning to use and accept QRPs, which would reduce their ability to produce and evaluate meaningful research. 207 psychology students and fresh graduates provided self-report data on the prevalence and predictors of QRPs. Attitudes towards QRPs, belief that significant results constitute better science or lead to better grades, motivation, and stress levels were predictors. Furthermore, we assessed perceived supervisor attitudes towards QRPs as an important predictive factor. The results were in line with estimates of QRP prevalence from academia. The best predictor of QRP use was students' QRP attitudes. Perceived supervisor attitudes exerted both a direct and indirect effect via student attitudes. Motivation to write a good thesis was a protective factor, whereas stress had no effect. Students in this sample did not subscribe to beliefs that significant results were better for science or their grades. Such beliefs further did not impact QRP attitudes or use in this sample. Finally, students engaged in more QRPs pertaining to reporting and analysis than those pertaining to study design. We conclude that supervisors have an important function in shaping students' attitudes towards QRPs and can improve their research practices by motivating them well. Furthermore, this research provides some impetus towards identifying predictors of QRP use in academia.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Regression weights for models predicting reporting and analysis (R&A) and study design (S) QRP use.

Standard errors are given in parentheses. Asterisks denote statistical significance: *: p < .05, **: p < .01, ***: p < .001.

Fig 2
Fig 2. Regression weights for mediation models predicting self-reported reporting and analysis (R&A) and study design (S) QRP use.

Standard errors are given in parentheses. Asterisks denote statistical significance: *: p < .05, **: p < .01, ***: p < .001.

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This publication was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the University of Wuerzburg in the funding programme Open Access Publishing.

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