Nature Comment: Rule Out Conflicts of Interest in Psychology Awards

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In a comment in Nature that came out today, we address the potential problem of conflicts of interest in psychology awards. We went over the websites of 58 psychological societies, and found that the large majority did not mention any conflict of interest policy with respect to awards. This means we can’t rule out the possibility that recipients of the awards may be closely affiliated with the award committee (e.g., a supervisor selecting his/her PhD student for an award). We urge societies to be open about their award procedures, to avoid the impression of hidden nepotism.

We thank everyone who helped us coding the websites at the 2019 SIPS meeting.

Read the Nature comment here.

Read the working paper here.

 

Guest at “KennisCafé: De Foute Avond”

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Yesterday, I was part of the discussion panel at the “KennisCafé: De Foute Avond”. The KennisCafé is a monthly night at de Balie, Amsterdam, where scientists and other experts discuss a certain topic for a laymen’s audience. This night, the theme was: problems and mistakes in science.

Together with panel members Lotty Hooft (director Cochrane Netherlands), Lex Bouter (professor in scientific integrity and methodology), and Paul Iske (“Chief Failure Officer”), I discussed topics such as statistical mistakes, problems with replication, and possible directions for solutions.

The livestream (in Dutch) can be found here:

The KennisCafé is a production of NEMO Science Museum, KNAW, de Volkskrant, and de Balie. More information can be found here.

Teacher of the Year

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I am proud and happy to announce that I was elected Teacher of the Year of Tilburg University.

In teaching, I hold on to a famous Dutch saying: “beter goed gejat, dan slecht bedacht”, or “it’s better to steal something good, than to come up with something bad”. There are so many smart people coming up with innovative, educational tips, tricks, and tools, that it doesn’t make sense (to me) to try and reinvent the wheel.

I’m always trying to improve my teaching and my courses, and I’m incredibly thankful that my students seem to notice that 🙂

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Tilburg University Dissertation Prize

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Yesterday I was awarded the Tilburg University Dissertation Prize. It is a great honor, but I’m especially grateful because this as a sign that Tilburg University thinks it is good to be critical about the current scientific system, and that open science is an important step forward.

I would like to thank my advisors and collaborators, without whom this dissertation would not exist.

My full dissertation, “Research on Research: A Meta-Scientific Study of Problems and Solutions in Psychological Science”, can be downloaded here.

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In the Chronicle: The Open Science Movement is Cooperative, not Destructive

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In a recent letter to the editor in the Chronicle, we reply to an earlier article that

presented the open science movement as “burning things to the ground”. We disagreed. We mainly see cooperative, constructive, and pragmatic initiatives to improve the state of psychological science.

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Read the full letter here.

Chartier, C. R., Kline, M. E., McCarthy, R. J., Nuijten, M. B., Dunleavy, D. J., & Ledgerwood, A. A cooperative revolution in psychology. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Open Software for Open Science

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At the Solid Science Workshop in Bordeaux (September 6-7, 2018), I gave a workshop about free software to facilitate solid research practices. During this workshop, we collaboratively worked on a list of resources/software/tools that can be used to improve different stages of the research process.

Check out the list, share it with colleagues, or add your own resources to it here: https://bit.ly/opensciencesoftware.

The slides of the workshop can be found here: https://osf.io/s8wpz/.

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In Press: Practical Tools and Strategies for Researchers to Increase Replicability

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I wrote an invited review for Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology about “Practical tools and strategies for researchers to increase replicability”.

Problems with replicability have been widely discussed over the last years, especially in psychology. By now, a lot of promising solutions have been proposed, but my sense is that researchers are sometimes a bit overwhelmed by all the possibilities.

My goal in this review was to make a list of some of the current recommendations that can be easily implemented. Not every solutions is always feasible for every project, so my advice is: copy best practices from other fields, see what works on a case-by-case basis, and improve your research step by step.

The preprint can be found here: https://psyarxiv.com/emyux.

Radio interview: dr Kelder & Co

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Saturday June 30, I was interviewed about my dissertation for the Dutch radio show “Dr Kelder & Co”, for NPO Radio 1. The main takeaways: scientists are also just people, psychology is heading into the right direction, and trains don’t always do what you want.

Listen to the whole interview (in Dutch) here.

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Dr. Nuijten

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Wednesday May 30, 2018, I successfully defended my PhD thesis, which means that I can now finally call myself Dr. Nuijten!

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I thank my promotors Jelte Wicherts and Marcel van Assen for all their advice over the last 5 years, and my committee – Chris Chambers, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Rolf Zwaan, and Marjan Bakker – for their interesting (and fun!) questions.

My full thesis “Research on research: A meta-scientific study of problems and solutions in psychological science” can be found here.

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