Session Title
Session 2-1-C: Gamblers' Behavior
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation
Location
Park MGM, Las Vegas, NV
Start Date
24-5-2023 9:00 AM
End Date
24-5-2023 10:30 AM
Disciplines
Psychology
Abstract
Gambling researchers are increasingly adopting preregistration as a regular research practice. However, the benefits of this practice are only achieved when the preregistration is sufficiently detailed and researchers actually follow their pre-specified plans. We identified 53 preregistrations from the gambling field and scored their level of specificity (i.e., methodological detail in all aspects of the study plan: hypotheses, variables, design, analysis plan) and the authors’ adherence to their preregistered plan in the study manuscript. We found gambling preregistrations had low specificity levels when describing the study plan. However, a comparison with a sample of cross-disciplinary preregistrations (N = 52; Bakker et al., 2020) indicated that gambling preregistrations scored higher on 12 (of 29) items. Thirteen (65%) of the 20 associated published articles or preprints deviated from the protocol without declaring as much (the mean number of undeclared deviations per article was 2.25, SD = 2.34). Overall, while we found improvements in specificity and adherence over time (2017-2020), our findings suggest the purported benefits of preregistration—including increasing transparency and reducing researcher degrees of freedom—are not fully achieved by current practices. Using our findings, we provide 10 practical recommendations that can be used to support and refine preregistration practices.
Keywords
Gambling, open science, pre-registration, scientific reform, protocol, researcher degrees of freedom
Funding Sources
Funding for this project was provided by the Division on Addiction to the University of Sydney via a research contract between the Division on Addiction and GVC Holdings, PLC. GVC Holdings is a large international gambling and online gambling operator. GVC had no involvement with the development of our research questions or protocol or development of this preregistration.
Competing Interests
The author declares no conflicts of interest in relation to this study.
Included in
Evaluation of gambling study pre-registrations: specificity & adherence
Park MGM, Las Vegas, NV
Gambling researchers are increasingly adopting preregistration as a regular research practice. However, the benefits of this practice are only achieved when the preregistration is sufficiently detailed and researchers actually follow their pre-specified plans. We identified 53 preregistrations from the gambling field and scored their level of specificity (i.e., methodological detail in all aspects of the study plan: hypotheses, variables, design, analysis plan) and the authors’ adherence to their preregistered plan in the study manuscript. We found gambling preregistrations had low specificity levels when describing the study plan. However, a comparison with a sample of cross-disciplinary preregistrations (N = 52; Bakker et al., 2020) indicated that gambling preregistrations scored higher on 12 (of 29) items. Thirteen (65%) of the 20 associated published articles or preprints deviated from the protocol without declaring as much (the mean number of undeclared deviations per article was 2.25, SD = 2.34). Overall, while we found improvements in specificity and adherence over time (2017-2020), our findings suggest the purported benefits of preregistration—including increasing transparency and reducing researcher degrees of freedom—are not fully achieved by current practices. Using our findings, we provide 10 practical recommendations that can be used to support and refine preregistration practices.