Researcher degrees of freedom

Definition: refers to the flexibility often inherent in the scientific process, from hypothesis generation, designing and conducting a research study to processing the data and analyzing as well as interpreting and reporting results. Due to a lack of precisely defined theories and/or empirical evidence, multiple decisions are often equally justifiable. The term is sometimes used to refer to the opportunistic (ab-)use of this flexibility aiming to achieve desired results —e.g., when in- or excluding certain data— albeit the fact that technically the term is not inherently value-laden.