Questionable Research Practices: A Principled Classification and Ranking Based on Survey Data

Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) are a highly diverse set of behaviours that eludes clear definition and demarcation. This study collects and organises definitions of QRPs given in surveys, and ranks them by frequency of reported engagement. We systematically retrieved surveys that asked researchers about their engagement with QRPs, and organised these survey definitions in two non-arbitrary classifications based, respectively, on the area of research affected by the QRP (e.g. authorship, data, analysis, etc…), and on the nature of the alteration of information entailed by the QRP (respectively, whether the QRP consisted in an omission, addition, or modification of information). Starting from this principled classification, we then created a list of non-overlapping QRP types that have been most commonly studied in surveys. We found that QRPs are more commonly reported when they pertain to the interpretation, analysis or citations, and when they involved the omission, rather than the addition or modification of information. Classified by type, the most commonly reported QRPs included “select analysis”, “select citation”, and “select covariates”; whilst the least commonly reported included “deny authorship”, and “FFP” (i.e. explicit fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, which are not QRPs but outright misconduct). Our QRP taxonomy and empirical results may find useful applications in research, training and policy-making.