The study of psychology is facing a crisis. A lot of research doesn’t show the same results when the experiment is repeated, and it is critical we address this problem. But the Research Excellence Framework has led to a research culture which is suffocating attempts to stabilise psychology in particular, and science in general.
The Ref encourages universities to push for groundbreaking, novel, and exciting research in the form of 4* papers, but it does not reward the efforts of those who replicate studies. As universities gear up for the next Ref submission in 2021, many researchers will not even consider attempts to replicate results.
False information
The point of replicating a study is to test whether a statistically significant result will appear again if the experiment is repeated. Of course, a similar result may not appear – casting into question the validity of the results from the first experiment.