Detecting Bad Science - Reviewing and Improving Social Science Research Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Overview

The Detecting Bad Science - Reviewing and Improving Social Science Research course at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam will teach you how to use analytical tools and software to identify the weaknesses of research and evaluate the quality of research in the social and behavioural sciences.

 At least half of researchers in the social and behavioural sciences in the Netherlands admit to have engaged in questionable research practices (Gopalakrishna et al., 2022a). Yes – for every pair of scholars you randomly choose, one is engaging in bad science. For every sixteen researchers you choose, one has even committed fraud or fabricated data. Though the number of retractions by academic journals for fraud, fabrication, plagiarism and other integrity violations is rising, most bad science is still undetected. The quality control system that peer review is commonly believed to be is a very lax one, and easy to fool (Smith, 2006).

How then can you tell the difference between good and bad science? What signals tell you something about the quality of research? As a bad science detective, you’ll be able to call bullshit on the texts that your professors require you to read – including their own work. At the same time, we will collectively improve the chances that bad science is identified. With a higher discovery rate of bad science, researchers will be more careful, and the quality of research will improve (Gopalakrishna et al., 2022b). In addition, by identifying the weaknesses in the work of others, you learn in which aspects you can improve your own research.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, you will be able to use analytical tools and software to identify the weaknesses of research and evaluate the quality of research in the social and behavioural sciences.