Experimental materials for: Testing the Usability of the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template

Currently, no standard procedure is available for creating preregistrations. Thus, a task force, consisting of members of prominent psychological societies and institutions, was formed to create a consensus template for quantitative research in psychology, the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.4463 ; Preregistration Task Force, 2020 ) . This new preregistration template will be tested with the usability study described in this preregistration. The descriptive insights into the usability of the template are the main objective for this study. Furthermore, the intention to use the template in the future will be tested by implementing the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. Based on this theory, it is expected that the behavioral intention to use the template is influenced by performance expectancy (moderated by gender and age), effort expectancy (moderated by gender, age, and experience), and social influence (moderated by gender, age, experience, and voluntariness of use). Participants will be recruited by contacting members of the divisions of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the British Psychological Society (BPS). Furthermore, the study will be advertised on social media and via other psychology mailing lists. Only psychological researchers will be included. The study will be conducted as an online questionnaire. Participants will see the whole template and will be asked to give an overall evaluation. Furthermore, they will be requested to fill out a subset of template items and web probing questions, as well as a questionnaire measuring the variables of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology.

The Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template provides researchers with a comprehensive list of elements to consider when planning a psychological study. We assessed its usability and researchers’ intention to use it. We conducted a usability test (study 1) and surveyed researchers who submitted or reviewed a preregistration created with the template (study 2, authors: N = 19, reviewers: N = 29) regarding their impression of the template. For the usability test, we recruited participants via the mailing lists of the German Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association, and the British Psychological Society, and social media. Participants answered selected template and web probing items and provided an overall rating (N = 88). Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), we expected that the intention to use the template is influenced by performance expectancy (moderated by age), effort expectancy (moderated by age and experience), and social influence (moderated by age, experience, and voluntariness, N = 60). The results suggest that the PRP-QUANT Template is suitable for different research areas within psychology, is evaluated as effective, and perceived positively. Performance expectancy and all predictors combined significantly predicted researchers’ intention to use the template.

Dataset for: Spitzer, L., Bosnjak, M., & Mueller, S. (in preparation). Testing the Usability of the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template.

Code for: Spitzer, L., Bosnjak, M., & Mueller, S. (in preparation). Testing the Usability of the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template.