Colloqium: Promoting healthy research practices

Two earlier colloquia – “Beterschap in de Wetenschap” (January 16, 2014) and “Do we need better rules or better judgement?” (October 23, 2014) reflected on problematic research practices and on various initiatives and proposals to combat the “crisis of confidence” in psychology and social science. Much of the debate has centered on the need for better data and better predictions. The current colloquium follows this up by taking a slightly different perspective. The emphasis is less on past and present failure, more on the promotion of better practices, and how this could or should affect the training of researchers, to begin with at our faculty. Some of the questions that the colloquium will address are: Does a focus on better data risk that we neglect other factors that matter more? Does the emphasis on better predictions mean that we should not do exploratory research? Is our current teaching curriculum “post-crisis certified”? Do we teach scientific reasoning or research methodology? And: will collaboration between methodologists and researchers improve research quality? These and other questions will be discussed, from a research perspective and a methodological perspective respectively, by Tom Postmes, and Henk Kiers & Marieke Timmerman.

Tom Postmes has set out some of his views on healthy research practices in a recent blog post on Mindwise, the Groningen Psychology Blog.

Prof. Dr. Tom Postmes is professor of social psychology at the University of Groningen. After the discovery of Diederik Stapel’s fraud, he became interested in group dynamics and institutional arrangements that promote or discourage questionable research practices.

Prof. Dr. Henk Kiers is professor of Statistics and Data Analysis, with a more than average interest in the use and useability of statistical techniques.

Prof. Dr. Marieke Timmerman  is professor of Statistics, with an interest in the applications of statistics in psychological research.

Information: Maarten Derksen ( m.derksen rug.nl ; tel.: 6338)