IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v4y2018i1d10.1057_s41599-018-0149-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The possibility and desirability of replication in the humanities

Author

Listed:
  • Rik Peels

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

  • Lex Bouter

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
    Amsterdam University Medical Centers)

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the debate on the poor reproducibility of scientific research has overlooked an entire field: replication is also possible and desirable in the humanities. So far, the debate on replicability has been carried out primarily in the biomedical, natural and social sciences. It turns out that, for a wide variety of reasons, many of which lead to selective reporting, a large proportion of studies in these fields are not replicable, sometimes as many as 70 percent. In this paper, we leave these fields mostly aside, since they have been extensively addressed in the recent literature, and turn to the humanities. First, we distinguish between replicability and replication. Subsequently, we defend the view that replication is entirely possible in the humanities: it meets all the criteria that have been identified for biomedical, natural and social science research. The uniqueness of many research objects in the humanities does not present an obstacle to this. We also explain why replication is desirable and urgently needed in the humanities. Finally, we give various practical guidelines for how replication in the humanities could be carried out, such as focusing on the replication of cornerstone studies or a random selection of published research in a sub-discipline, and opting, if possible, for a conceptual replication, so that triangulation becomes possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Rik Peels & Lex Bouter, 2018. "The possibility and desirability of replication in the humanities," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-4, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0149-x
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0149-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-018-0149-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-018-0149-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcus R. Munafò & George Davey Smith, 2018. "Robust research needs many lines of evidence," Nature, Nature, vol. 553(7689), pages 399-401, January.
    2. Nosek, Brian A. & Ebersole, Charles R. & DeHaven, Alexander Carl & Mellor, David Thomas, 2018. "The Preregistration Revolution," OSF Preprints 2dxu5, Center for Open Science.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bart Penders & J. Britt Holbrook & Sarah de Rijcke, 2019. "Rinse and Repeat: Understanding the Value of Replication across Different Ways of Knowing," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Naoyuki Hayashi & Kazuhiro Kezuka, 2020. "The influence of occupation on the longevity of Japanese traditional artists," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-6, December.
    3. Quan-Hoang Vuong & Manh-Tung Ho & Hong-Kong T. Nguyen & Thu-Trang Vuong & Trung Tran & Khanh-Linh Hoang & Thi-Hanh Vu & Phuong-Hanh Hoang & Minh-Hoang Nguyen & Manh-Toan Ho & Viet-Phuong La, 2020. "On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: folktales as a cultural transmitter," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-13, December.
    4. Rosie Hastings & Krishma Labib & Iris Lechner & Lex Bouter & Guy Widdershoven & Natalie Evans, 2023. "Guidance on research integrity provided by pan-European discipline-specific learned societies: A scoping review," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 318-335.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brinkerink, Jasper & De Massis, Alfredo & Kellermanns, Franz, 2022. "One finding is no finding: Toward a replication culture in family business research," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    2. Vigren, Andreas & Pyddoke, Roger, 2020. "The impact on bus ridership of passenger incentive contracts in public transport," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 144-159.
    3. Jasper Brinkerink, 2023. "When Shooting for the Stars Becomes Aiming for Asterisks: P-Hacking in Family Business Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(2), pages 304-343, March.
    4. Colin F. Camerer & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Teck-Hua Ho & Jürgen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Gideon Nave & Brian A. Nosek & Thomas Pfeiffer & Adam Altmejd & Nick Buttrick , 2018. "Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(9), pages 637-644, September.
    5. Nathalie Percie du Sert & Viki Hurst & Amrita Ahluwalia & Sabina Alam & Marc T Avey & Monya Baker & William J Browne & Alejandra Clark & Innes C Cuthill & Ulrich Dirnagl & Michael Emerson & Paul Garne, 2020. "The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-12, July.
    6. Reed, W. Robert, 2019. "Takeaways from the special issue on The Practice of Replication," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-11.
    7. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.
    8. Shuaijun Guo & Xiaoming Yu & Orkan Okan, 2020. "Moving Health Literacy Research and Practice towards a Vision of Equity, Precision and Transparency," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-14, October.
    9. Rubin, Mark, 2020. "Does preregistration improve the credibility of research findings?," MetaArXiv vgr89, Center for Open Science.
    10. Ivan Berlin, 2022. "Potential Bias in Assessing the Tobacco/Nicotine—COVID-19 Association—How to Improve Our Level of Understanding," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-6, October.
    11. Dominika Ehrenbergerova & Josef Bajzik & Tomas Havranek, 2023. "When Does Monetary Policy Sway House Prices? A Meta-Analysis," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(2), pages 538-573, June.
    12. Christopher Allen & David M A Mehler, 2019. "Open science challenges, benefits and tips in early career and beyond," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(5), pages 1-14, May.
    13. Vineis, Paolo & Delpierre, Cyrille & Castagné, Raphaële & Fiorito, Giovanni & McCrory, Cathal & Kivimaki, Mika & Stringhini, Silvia & Carmeli, Cristian & Kelly-Irving, Michelle, 2020. "Health inequalities: Embodied evidence across biological layers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    14. Wallander, Steven & Paul, Laura A. & Ferraro, Paul J. & Messer, Kent D. & Iovanna, Richard, 2023. "Informational nudges in conservation auctions: A field experiment with U.S. farmers," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    15. Marjan Bakker & Coosje L S Veldkamp & Marcel A L M van Assen & Elise A V Crompvoets & How Hwee Ong & Brian A Nosek & Courtney K Soderberg & David Mellor & Jelte M Wicherts, 2020. "Ensuring the quality and specificity of preregistrations," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(12), pages 1-18, December.
    16. Mattia Prosperi & Jiang Bian & Iain E. Buchan & James S. Koopman & Matthew Sperrin & Mo Wang, 2019. "Raiders of the lost HARK: a reproducible inference framework for big data science," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, December.
    17. Felix Holzmeister & Magnus Johannesson & Robert Böhm & Anna Dreber & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler, 2023. "Heterogeneity in effect size estimates: Empirical evidence and practical implications," Working Papers 2023-17, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    18. Chris H. J. Hartgerink & Marino Van Zelst, 2018. "“As-You-Go” Instead of “After-the-Fact”: A Network Approach to Scholarly Communication and Evaluation," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-10, April.
    19. Daniel Homocianu & Octavian Dospinescu & Napoleon-Alexandru Sireteanu, 2022. "Exploring the Influences of Job Satisfaction for Europeans Aged 50 + from Ex-communist vs. Non-communist Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 235-279, January.
    20. Alexander Ugarov, 2023. "Peer Prediction for Peer Review: Designing a Marketplace for Ideas," Papers 2303.16855, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0149-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.