Bestiary of Questionable Research Practices in Psychology

Questionable research practices (QRPs) pose a significant threat to the integrity and credibility of scientific research. However, historically, they remain ill-defined and a comprehensive list of QRPs is lacking. The article addresses this concern by defining, collecting, and categorizing QRPs using an expert consensus method. Collaborators of the study agreed on the following definition: “Questionable research practices (QRPs) are ways of producing, maintaining, sharing, analyzing, or interpreting data that are likely to produce misleading conclusions, typically in the interest of the researcher. QRPs are not normally considered to include research practices that are prohibited or proscribed in the researcher’s field (e.g., fraud, research misconduct). Neither do they include random/non-motivated researcher error (e.g., accidental data loss).” Drawing from both iterative discussions and existing literature, we collected, defined and categorized 40 QRPs. We also considered attributes such as potential harms, detectability, clues, and remedies for each QRP. The results suggest that QRPs are pervasive and versatile, and have the potential to undermine all stages of the scientific enterprise. This work contributes to the maintenance of research integrity, transparency, and reliability by raising awareness for and improving the understanding of QRPs.