Predicting Reproducibility

Academics are easily able to predict whether an experiment’s findings will be reproducible, according to a study that raises more questions about the reliability of research published in leading journals.

A major new investigation—undertaken by 12 research centers across the world in partnership with the Center for Open Science (COS) and published in Nature Human Behavior—sought to test the most significant findings in social science papers published in Science and Nature between 2010 and 2015.

Conducting replication experiments for 21 eligible studies, the collaborative team of researchers from five laboratories found that 13 showed evidence “consistent with” the findings of the original paper. As many as eight failed to do so, however, suggesting a reproducibility rate of 62 percent.

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