Adapting Open Science and Pre-registration to Longitudinal Research

Abstract

Open science practices, such as pre-registration and data sharing, increase transparency and may improve the replicability of developmental science. However, developmental science has lagged behind other fields in implementing open science practices. This lag may arise from unique challenges and considerations of longitudinal research. In this paper, preliminary guidelines are provided for adapting open science practices to longitudinal research to facilitate researchers' use of these practices. The guidelines propose a serial and modular approach to registration that includes an initial pre-registration of the methods and focal hypotheses of the longitudinal study, along with subsequent pre- or co-registered questions, hypotheses, and analysis plans associated with specific papers. Researchers are encouraged to share their research materials and relevant data with associated papers, and to report sufficient information for replicability. In addition, there should be careful consideration about requirements regarding the timing of data sharing, to avoid disincentivizing longitudinal research.

Keywords: Open science; development; longitudinal; pre-registration; replication; reproducibility.

Figure B.1:

Different approaches to operationalizing target recognition speed. A) Average proportion of looks to the target across time by grade. B) A logistic curve can be fit to the data, and the slope and/or crossover parameters can index target fixation speed. C) A threshold of looking can be set, and the time when this threshold is exceeded can be used to index target fixation speed. D) A region of time can be set during which the area under the curve can index speed of target looking.