Preregistration

Preregistration serves multiple important purposes: e.g., (a) ensuring that research teams share a clear understanding of their research goals and processes, (b) separating the confirmatory aspects of the research from the exploratory aspects, (c) allowing for input from colleagues online prior to conducting the study, and (d) allowing journal editors to accept researchers’ papers conditionally, regardless of the outcomes themselves. A growing number of APA journals offer badges recognizing preregistration of studies and/or analysis plans.

The American Psychological Association, British Psychological Society, and German Psychological Society have partnered with the Leibniz Institute for Psychology and Center for Open Science to create Preregistration Standards for Quantitative Research in Psychologyopens in new window.

The video on this page presents information about preregistration and the standards. The video features presentations by Drs. Simine Vazire and E.​J.​ Wagenmakers, as well as members of the Preregistration Task Force.

Learn about preregistration best practices, logistics, journal requirements, and more.

What is the difference between preregistration and research design?

The preregistration is the documentation of planned hypotheses, research design, and analyses before beginning the research.

How does clinical trial preregistration (e.g., at clinicaltrials.gov) fit into these new psychology preregistration standards? Should researchers register their trial and also submit a preregistration form?

Clinical trial preregistration is a great example of an established framework for registering research design. There is no need to preregister using different templates; for those engaging in clinical trials, clinicaltrials.gov and similar repositories are a great option.

What does the new preregistration template (for standards in psychology) offer over and above pre-existing templates, such as Open Science Framework (OSF) quantitative preregistrations?

Part of the goal of this task force is to signal that major psychological societies are committed to transparent research practices, such as preregistration of design and analysis plans. To that end, we support researchers selecting the template that works best for them. Our attempt was to make a thorough template that would encourage detailed, upfront planning that aligns with the final publication.

Are there any potential drawbacks to preregistration?

Preregistration allows researchers to plan research, commit to those plans before conducting the research, and (usually) also disclose those plans before conducting the research. In this general sense, we see no down sides to preregistration, although there will always be general, discipline-specific, and study-specific considerations. Preregistration arise out of the many clear downsides to not doing so; those must be considered here as well.

Do we update preregistration with each amendment to protocol throughout the research process?

We recommend you keep good documentation of amendments to research protocols, and then include them in your final research report. Deviations from the original plan are likely to occur; what is important is disclosing them in the final report. Review the Transparent Changes Template Documentopens in new window.

Is APA going to require preregistration for APA journals? If so, starting when?

APA is not currently planning to require preregistration for publication in our journals. We recommend that researchers try out preregistration, and if a design isn’t preregistered, to be transparent in the reporting out of research, including distinguishing between planned and unplanned analyses. Read more at APA Style JARS.

As a journal editor, where do we go to view preregistrations?

Journal editors can check on the preregistration in a repository such as OSF and ZPID. Authors should include the persistent unique identifier in the author note.

Download the Preregistration Q&A PDF (92KB)opens in new window for more preregistration questions and answers.