Inclusive, open, and reproducible developmental science

Abstract

Over the past decade, there has been a growing appreciation of issues around metascience—how research is conducted—in psychological science. In addition to enhancing rigor and reproducibility through open and transparent research practices, greater inclusivity through diverse samples can enhance research relevance and applicability for historically marginalized and understudied populations. The present study reports on a comprehensive analysis of 2,615 posters presented at the 2021 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Results revealed that research that was presented is heavily skewed towards quantitative studies featuring American researchers and Western hemisphere samples. Sharing of data/materials, preregistrations, and replications are extremely uncommon. Data provide a much-needed baseline by which developmental science can benchmark progress towards greater inclusivity and openness.

Open developmental science: An overview and annotated reading list

“…Our reading list demonstrates that some practices are discussed more than others within developmental science. For example, we could identify only one white paper (Kim et al, 2020 about teaching open science that also mentions developmental scientists. Therefore, we direct readers interested in reading about teaching open science to the excellent Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT‐https://forrt.org/).…”