[From the blog “[81] Data Replicada” by Joe Simmons and Leif Nelson, posted in December at Data Colada]

“With more than mild trepidation, we are introducing a new column called Data Replicada. In this column, we will report the results of exact (or close) preregistered replications of recently published findings.”

“…why does the world need Data Replicada? Allow us to justify our existence.”

“Even though it is much easier than ever to publish exact replications, it is still extremely hard to publish exact replications. We know for a fact that many high-quality replications remain unreported. You can’t publish failures to replicate unless you convince a review team both that the failure is robust and that it is really important. And you can’t publish a successful replication, well, ever…”

“Many published replications focus on studies that were conducted a long time ago, or at least before the field became aware of the perils of p-hacking and the importance of better research practices. We will focus on trying to replicate recently published findings, so as to get a sense for whether non-obvious research published after the “renaissance” is in fact reliable.”

“…replications have not caught on in our subfield of behavioral marketing. So at least at the outset, we intend to focus our efforts on trying to replicate studies recently published in the two top behavioral marketing journals: the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing Research.”

“Conducting replications is a great way to learn about the messy business of scientific discovery, and we hope to communicate what we learn to you.”

“We are hoping to make Data Replicada a regular, monthly feature of Data Colada. But since it will be effortful and expensive, we only feel comfortable committing to doing it for six months or so, at which point we will re-assess.”

To read the blog, click here.