This preregistration template was designed to strike a balance between being both comprehensive and accessible for researchers and students who have little past experience with the preregistration process.
This preregistration template was designed to strike a balance between being both comprehensive and accessible for researchers and students who have little past experience with the preregistration process.
Preregistration is an open science practice, where researchers “specify, in as much detail as they can, their plans for a study (e.g., number and nature of subjects, stimulus materials, procedures, measures, rules for excluding data, plans for data analysis predictions/hypotheses, etc.) and post those plans in a time-stamped, locked file in an online repository that can be accessed by editors and reviewers (and, ultimately, by readers).”
-From the Association for Psychological Science and their journal Psychological Science
This preregistration template was created by Kevin McIntyre (Trinity University/Open Stats Lab) and Benjamin Le (Haverford College/2017-18 TIER Faculty Fellow), based on the preregistration forms available on the Open Science Framework (OSF). The goal is to strike a balance between being both comprehensive and accessible for researchers at all stages of their careers, including undergraduates and/or researchers who have little past experience with the preregistration process.
Although the template was originally designed with social/personality psychology in mind, it is flexible enough to be used in other areas of psychology, as well as other quantitative social sciences. Researchers are encouraged to modify the form to meet their particular disciplinary needs, skip questions/sections that do not apply to their research design, and/or include additional questions or appendices that cover particular aspects of their project that are not addressed in the form.
Once all of the relevant details are described in the template, the next part of the preregistration process is to upload the completed form to a secure, time-stamped, online repository. We recommend using the Open Science Framework (OSF) from the Center for Open Science (COS), but other platforms are available from AsPredicted.org, AEA, EGAP, and ClinicalTrials.gov.
To learn more about preregistration, see this piece by Lindsay, Simons, & Lilienfeld (2016).
Download the OSL/PT Preregistration Template
The template is available on the OSF.
This is v1.0 of the template (November, 2017). We will be making regular updates to the form based on user feedback. Please send suggestions to Kevin McIntyre (kmcintyr@trinity.edu) and Benjamin Le (ble@haverford.edu).
For additional guidance on transparent research methods, especially in the context of psychology, you may wish to review Ben Le's Open Science Manual.