Methodological integrity assessment in the mobile paradigm literature: A lesson for understanding opportunistic use of researcher degrees of freedom in psychology

The mobile paradigm has played a fundamental role in memory development research. One key characteristic of the mobile paradigm literature is that across decades, researchers have faithfully followed a particular methodological protocol with its own unique definitions of learning and memory. To inve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 2024-03, Vol.95 (2), p.338-353
Main Authors: Sen, Umay, Gredebäck, Gustaf
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Freedoms
Learning
Memory
Morality
Paradigms
Psychological assessment
Psychology
Psykologi
Research methodology
Statistical analysis
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Summary:The mobile paradigm has played a fundamental role in memory development research. One key characteristic of the mobile paradigm literature is that across decades, researchers have faithfully followed a particular methodological protocol with its own unique definitions of learning and memory. To investigate the extent to which these methodological choices affected the results, the literature (77 publications and 505 statistical tests) was evaluated for four frequently encountered research biases. The results suggested that research using the paradigm was conducted with scientific rigor. However, methodological choices along with unique operational definitions of learning and memory accounted for more than half of the findings. Thus, the literature has been contaminated by methodological artifacts due to the opportunistic use of researcher degrees of freedom.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.13850