Meta-Research Center at Tilburg University

The Meta-Research Center at Tilburg University is a metascience research center within the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Dutch Tilburg University. They were profiled in a September 2018 article in Science.[1]

Meta-Research Center
Established2012
Parent institution
Tilburg University
Location
Tilburg
,
Netherlands
Websitemetaresearch.nl

Research
Meta-analysis of stereotype threat on girls showing asymmetry typical of publication bias. From Flore, P. C., & Wicherts, J. M. (2014)[2]

Meta-research aims to improve reproducibility by studying how science is practiced and published and developing better ways for the scientific community to operate.

The research institute has published a large statistical meta-analysis of studies on the effect of Stereotype threat on girls' mathematics performance. They also use methods for estimating publication bias.[2]

The research institute has developed an R based software tool called Statcheck that can detect incorrect statistical methods used in research articles. A large amount of statistical errors were detected in a sample of 50 000 psychology research articles.[3] The use of it was perceived negatively by some of the researchers.[4][5][6] The data mining practices of the research center have been in conflict with the policies of scientific publisher Elsevier.[7]

A scientific misconduct case in the field of social psychology at Tilburg University has been a contributing factor in establishing the research center.[4]

Advocacy

The research center makes recommendations for other researchers about how to avoid publication bias and to improve the statistical strength of results. They have stated support for pre-registration of studies and open sharing of research data.[5]

See also

Other meta-research centres

References
  1. Stokstad, Erik (2018). "The truth squad". Science. 361 (6408): 1189–1191. doi:10.1126/science.361.6408.1189. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30237339.
  2. Flore, Paulette C.; Wicherts, Jelte M. (2014). "Does stereotype threat influence performance of girls in stereotyped domains? A meta-analysis". Journal of School Psychology. 53 (1): 25–44. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2014.10.002. ISSN 0022-4405. PMID 25636259.
  3. Nuijten, Michèle B.; Hartgerink, Chris H. J.; Van Assen, Marcel A. L. M.; Epskamp, Sacha; Wicherts, Jelte M. (2015). "The prevalence of statistical reporting errors in psychology (1985–2013)". Behavior Research Methods. 48 (4): 1205–1226. doi:10.3758/s13428-015-0664-2. PMC 5101263. PMID 26497820.
  4. Buranyi, Stephen (2017-02-01). "The high-tech war on science fraud". the Guardian. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
  5. Monya Baker (2015-10-28). "Smart software spots statistical errors in psychology papers". Nature News & Comment. Retrieved 2017-02-25.
  6. Buranyi, Stephen (2016-09-05). "Scientists Are Worried About 'Peer Review by Algorithm' - Motherboard". motherboard.vice.com. Retrieved 2017-02-24.
  7. Jozien Wijkhuis (2015-11-23). "PhD student stops research because of Elsevier conflict | Univers". Univers. The Independent News Website of Tilburg University. Retrieved 2017-02-25.
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