About this resource

    Type of resources
    Reading
    Education level(s)
    College / Upper Division (Undergraduates), Graduate / Professional, Career / Technical, Adult Education
    Primary user(s)
    Student, Teacher, Librarian
    Subject area(s)
    Applied Science, Arts and Humanities, Business and Communication, Career and Technical Education, Education, English Language Arts, History, Law, Life Science, Math & Statistics, Physical Science, Social Science
    Language(s)
    English
    Cluster
    Pre-analysis Planning
    Last updated
    9 November 2026
    Reading

    Preregistration, Replication, and Nonexperimental Studies

    By Susan Goldin-Meadow

    Open this resource

    Level College / Upper Division (Undergraduates), Graduate / Professional, Career / Technical, Adult Education · For Student, Teacher, Librarian · Language English

    Abstract

    In last month’s column, I worried about whether encouraging us to preregister our hypotheses and analysis plan before running studies would stifle discovery. I came to the conclusion that it needn’t — but that we need to guard against letting the practice run away with itself. In this column, I take up a second concern about preregistration: That it seems to apply only to certain types of studies, and thus runs the risk of marginalizing studies for which preregistration is less fitting.

    Keywords Preregistration · Longitudinal Research