Methodological Flexibility, Questionable Research Practices, and the Quest for Beauty: Communication Research Needs to be an Open Science

• In Event: Open Science Practices in Communication Research and Reviewing: Overdue or Overrated?

Abstract

Abstract: There is good reason to believe that severely fraudulent behaviors are extremely rare among scientists of all disciplines. However, there is a large gray area of questionable research practices (QRPs) that have a higher acceptance in the community, and that a considerable number of scholars engage in (e.g., flexibility in the calculation of outcome measures, selective of reporting studies confirming hypotheses), ultimately inducing publication bias in the published scholarship. Approximately 90% of all social scientific papers are in support of a tested hypothesis. Systematic replications as a solution to this problem seem to be even less popular than nonsignificant studies, given that only 0.5-1% of all empirical work is ever subjected to replication attempts. This presentation discusses these and other systemic problems illustrated by a few exemplary cases, and how employing mechanisms and practices to open communication research could ultimately increase its reliability and veracity.

Qualifications: Dr. Malte Elson is a research associate at the University of Münster and co-founder of the crowdsourced journal peer review rating site JournalReviewer.org. For several years, Dr. Elson has studied theoretical and methodological problems of media effects research, and in particular the research on violent video game effects, extensively. This program of research has covered a wide range of topics, such as theoretical perspectives on the etiology of human aggression and the specific role of exposure to violent media (Elson & Ferguson, 2014), as well as the challenges for science and public policy in effective legislation to reduce gun violence (Elson & Ferguson, 2013). Dr. Elson has also published research concerning issues of stimulus control and operationalization of variables in experimental studies on violent games (Elson, Breuer, Van Looy, Kneer, & Quandt, 2014; Elson & Quandt, 2014) as well as problems with standardization of common laboratory measures of aggressive behavior and their interpretation (Elson, Mohseni, Breuer, Scharkow, & Quandt, 2014).

Author

• Malte Elson, Ruhr University Bochum