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We Need to Talk about Mechanical Turk: What 22,989 Hypothesis Tests Tell Us about Publication Bias and p-Hacking in Online Experiments

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  • Brodeur, Abel
  • Cook, Nikolai
  • Heyes, Anthony

Abstract

Amazon Mechanical Turk is a very widely-used tool in business and economics research, but how trustworthy are results from well-published studies that use it? Analyzing the universe of hypotheses tested on the platform and published in leading journals between 2010 and 2020 we find evidence of widespread p-hacking, publication bias and over-reliance on results from plausibly under-powered studies. Even ignoring questions arising from the characteristics and behaviors of study recruits, the conduct of the research community itself erode substantially the credibility of these studies' conclusions. The extent of the problems vary across the business, economics, management and marketing research fields (with marketing especially afflicted). The problems are not getting better over time and are much more prevalent than in a comparison set of non-online experiments. We explore correlates of increased credibility.

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  • Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Heyes, Anthony, 2022. "We Need to Talk about Mechanical Turk: What 22,989 Hypothesis Tests Tell Us about Publication Bias and p-Hacking in Online Experiments," MetaArXiv a9vhr, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:metaar:a9vhr
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/a9vhr
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    3. Tobias Thomas & Dominik Straub & Fabian Tatai & Megan Shene & Tümer Tosik & Kristian Kersting & Constantin A. Rothkopf, 2024. "Modelling dataset bias in machine-learned theories of economic decision-making," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 8(4), pages 679-691, April.

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    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C40 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - General
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General

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