Research with in-built replications:comment and further suggestions for replication research

Abstract

This brief commentary on the paper Designing Research with In-built Differentiated Replication expands on concerns about a lack of replication research by focusing on three key questions of continuous importance: Why should researchers conduct more replication research? Why do so few researchers conduct replication studies? What can researchers do to add more studies? This paper identifies barriers preventing replication related to the scientific system, the replication researcher, and the initial research. Suggestions include publishing all papers electronically along with reviews; authors taking steps to encourage replications of their work; and editors inviting replications of important papers. The scientific community should establish a replication index as a measure of output quality.