Preregistration: 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.

As an international effort toward increasing psychology’s commitment to creating a stronger culture and practice of preregistration, a multi-society Preregistration Task Force* was formed, following the 2018 meeting of the German Psychological Society in Frankfurt, Germany. The Task Force created a detailed preregistration template that benefited from the APA JARS Quantitative Research guidelines, as well as a comprehensive review of many other preregistration templates.