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Cited by 346Academic integrity and plagiarismMeta-analysis and systematic reviewsAcademic Publishing and Open Access

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 43 of the 45 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Questionable research practices in ecology and evolution

Open access
Fraser, Hannah, Parker, Tim, Nakagawa, Shinichi, Barnett, Ashley, Fidler, Fiona·2018·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0200303PMC PMC6047784

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Abstract

We surveyed 807 researchers (494 ecologists and 313 evolutionary biologists) about their use of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs), including cherry picking statistically significant results, p hacking, and hypothesising after the results are known (HARKing). We also asked them to estimate the proportion of their colleagues that use each of these QRPs. Several of the QRPs were prevalent within the ecology and evolution research community. Across the two groups, we found 64% of surveyed researchers reported they had at least once failed to report results because they were not statistically significant (cherry picking); 42% had collected more data after inspecting whether results were statistically significant (a form of p hacking) and 51% had reported an unexpected finding as though it had been hypothesised from the start (HARKing). Such practices have been directly implicated in the low rates of reproducible results uncovered by recent large scale replication studies in psychology and other disciplines. The rates of QRPs found in this study are comparable with the rates seen in psychology, indicating that the reproducibility problems discovered in psychology are also likely to be present in ecology and evolution.

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Fig 1 The prevalence of Questionable Research Practices in ecology and evolution. Light columns represent the proportion of evolution researchers and dark columns represent the proportion of ecology researchers who reported having used a practice at least once. The dots show researchers’ mean estimates of suspected use by colleagues in their field. Dots that are much higher than bars may suggest that the QRP is considered particularly socially unacceptable [17]. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.
Fig 1 The prevalence of Questionable Research Practices in ecology and evolution. Light columns represent the proportion of evolution researchers and dark columns represent the proportion of ecology researchers who reported having used a practice at least once. The dots show researchers’ mean estimates of suspected use by colleagues in their field. Dots that are much higher than bars may suggest that the QRP is considered particularly socially unacceptable [17]. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 2 Proportion of researchers in ecology and evolution reporting frequency of use (or not) of 10 Questionable Research Practices. Shading indicates the proportion of each use category that identified the practice as acceptable. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.
Fig 2 Proportion of researchers in ecology and evolution reporting frequency of use (or not) of 10 Questionable Research Practices. Shading indicates the proportion of each use category that identified the practice as acceptable. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.CC BY · PubMed Central

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Reuters T. Thomson Reuters Research Analytics Unveils 2013 Edition of Its Journal Citation Reports. PR Newswire. Ipswich, MA; 2013.
  2. G Schneider, 2017, NSM3: Functions and Datasets to Accompany Hollander, Wolfe, and Chicken, Nonparametric Statistical Methods

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Metadata

Authors
Fraser, H., Parker, T., Nakagawa, S., Barnett, A., & Fidler, F.
Affiliations
  • The University of Melbourne (AU)
  • Whitman College (US)
  • UNSW Sydney (AU)
Corresponding author
Fraser, Hannah
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2018-07-16
Volume
13
Issue
7
Pages
e0200303
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0200303
PMC
PMC6047784
OpenAlex
W2793861965
Cited by
346
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 15
FWCI
83.45
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • EcoEvoRxiv (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • EcoEvoRxiv (submittedVersion)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT150100297)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Academic integrity and plagiarism
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Publishing and Open Access
Keywords
questionable research practices, cherry-picking, p-hacking, HARKing, research integrity, reproducibility, ecology, evolutionary biology, replication study, statistical significance
MeSH terms
Ecology, Biological Evolution, Humans, Surveys and Questionnaires, Research, Research Design, Research Personnel, Statistics as Topic, Reproducibility of Results, Scientific Misconduct

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