Lecture Series
META-REP is a DFG-funded priority programme taking a meta-scientific perspective on replicability in disciplines dealing with human behaviour (e.g., psychology, sociology, economics). Our focus is on replicability assessment, reasons for (non-)replicability and on ways to improve reproducibility of empirical results. Please find more details on the projects here.
This seminar series is intended to broaden the perspective on replicability related topics. Invited speakers will present a framework, method, theoretical concept, or perspective on replication research. Presenters are deliberately chosen for a novel, inspiring and sometimes unusual or non-mainstream perspective on the matter. The format will leave sufficient room for questions and discussions.
All seminar sessions will be broadcasted via Zoom. Some sessions will be hybrid (at LMU Munich + Zoom). The seminar is organised by the META-REP coordination project (Mario Gollwitzer, Johannes Ziegler).
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Programme
Past Presentations
| April 17th 2024 | 4 pm CEST (UTC +2) | Zoom |
| Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb Assistant Professor of Marketing, Erasmus University Rotterdam |
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| Exposing Omitted Moderators: Why we should embrace more variation in the empirical social science. We replicated a survey of established paradigms from the behavioral science in a series of five preregistered studies across one in-person and 10 online panels, with over 11,000 respondents in total. We find substantial heterogeneity across settings and paradigms, apply techniques for modeling the heterogeneity, and introduce a framework that measures typically omitted moderators. The framework’s factors (Fluid Intelligence, Attentiveness, Crystallized Intelligence, and Experience) affect the effectiveness of many text-based interventions, producing different observed effect sizes and explaining variations across samples. Moderators are associated with effect sizes through two paths, with the intensity of the manipulation and with the effect of the manipulation directly. Our results have consequences for application of behavioral science in policy, for the theoretical understanding of the interventions’ effects, as well as meta-scientific approaches more generally. |
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| January 17th 2024 | 4 pm CET (UTC +1) | Zoom |
| Abel Brodeur Associate Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa |
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| Mass Reproducibility and Replicability: How Credible Are Empirical Results in the Social Sciences? Trust in science is paramount for garnering public support for policy implementation. To ensure this trust, scientific research must adhere to transparent processes and yield robust findings. The present project – under the umbrella of the Institute for Replication – pushes the boundaries of understanding research reliability by mass reproducing and replicating claims from leading social science outlets. In this presentation, Abel Brodeur will provide an overview of the project and provide preliminary results from the first 110 robustness reproductions and replications. |
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| December 6th 2023 | 4 pm CET (UTC +1) | hybrid: LMU room E216 (Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, München) & Zoom |
| Chris Donkin Professor of Computational Modeling in Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |
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| What makes formal modelling work? There are a few purported reasons for why formal models improve the quality of the theories they implement. For example, building a model can make both the assumptions and the implications/predictions of a theory explicit and clear. While such features are important and necessary, they are not sufficient for theoretical progress. Rather, building and testing formal models leads to better theories because the process of doing so helps hold the theory accountable to data and to what else is known. Most important, and where we see the most benefit in comparison to other methods of theory testing and developement, is that many of the 'institutional norms' of modelling help us when changes to the theory are made. |
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| November 8th 2023 | 5 pm CET (UTC +1) | Zoom |
| Berna Devezer Associate Professor of Marketing, Department of Business at the University of Idaho |
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| Theoretical Insights on Replication: A Miracle or a Crutch? Replication experiments purport to independently validate claims from previous research or provide some diagnostic evidence about their reliability. In practice, this value of replication experiments is often taken for granted. Our research shows that in replications, practice often does not live up to theory. Most replication experiments have a design different from the original rendering their results uninterpretable. These results can be driven by the true data generating mechanism, issues present in the original experiment, discrepancies between the original and the replication experiment new issues introduced in the replication experiment, or combinations of any of these factors. The answers we are looking for with regard to the true state of nature require a rigorous and meticulous investigative process of eliminating errors and singling out elementary or pure cases. In this talk, I will provide an overview of our theoretical approaches and results to date, building up toward a discussion of why most experiments are not replication-ready and what it would take for replication results to be clearly interpretable. I will chart an alternative path, where replication experiments play a critical yet a much more limited role in the scientific process than many scientists appear to envision today. |
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| October 18th 2023 | 4 pm CEST (UTC +2) | Zoom |
| Mary Elizabeth Sutherland Senior Editor at Nature |
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| Publishing Meta-Science and Replication Research in Nature and the Nature Portfolio Nature and the Nature portfolio are committed to ensuring that the work we publish is replicable. To this end, we are interested in learning from researchers in meta-science about actions we can take to promote reproducible research as well as publishing research in meta-science and replicability generally. In this talk, I will introduce myself, the senior editor who handles papers in the behavioral, social and cognitive sciences for Nature, explain our interest in these topics and how we evaluate papers. The overarching goal of the talk is to help you understand the editorial process and navigate the submission process. It should therefore be quite informal, with a lot of time for questions and discussion. |
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