The ‘replication crisis’ has prompted a methodological reform movement. How we do research is changing: open science, big team science, and concerns over questionable research practices are here to stay. We’ve seen progress toward transparency and rigor, but this methodological reform movement hasn’t been spearheaded by methodologists. I’ll discuss three related problems faced by applied researchers that methodologists can tackle: large-scale and heterogenous measurement, analysis planning for complex models, and the limited scope and reproducibility of simulation research. I will explain how these problems prevent the uptake of open science practices, threaten the validity of applied research, and limit the impact of methodological research. The good news is that methodological advances can solve these problems. I’ll discuss my ideas for how methodologists can work with applied researchers to do this and invite ideas from the whole community.
Dr. Flake developed an interest in psychology and statistics as an undergraduate at Northern Kentucky University and went on to complete a PhD in Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment from the University of Connecticut in 2015. Since 2018, she has been a faculty member in the Quantitative Psychology Area of the Department of Psychology at McGill University. At McGill, she teaches introduction to statistics, measurement theory, and multilevel modelling. Her lab works on applied problems in psychological measurement including scale development and use, as well as psychometrics, with an emphasis on reproducibility and replicability. Their research has been published in top journals such as Nature: Human Behavior, Psychological Methods, Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, Psychological Science, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In 2018, she helped found the Psychological Science Accelerator, a distributed laboratory network of over 1,000 researchers and served as the Assistant Director of the Data and Methods Committee from 2018 to 2023. Currently she is an Associate Editor at Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, as well as a member of the Statistics, Transparency, and Rigor team at Psychological Science.
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