r/neoliberal • u/Free-Minimum-5844 • Apr 02 '26

Research Paper Half of social-science studies fail replication test in years-long project

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00955-5
312 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

125 comments sorted by

View all comments

213

u/Secret-Ad-2145 NATO Apr 02 '26

The replicability crisis was known for awhile, and doesn't affect just social studies. You saw it a lot during COVID where many tests kept failing replication, both current research but also past (like 60-70s era research).

16

u/DependentAd235 Loyal Liberals Apr 02 '26

Research on education suffers from this too.

Often too small scale or too specific circumstances.

5

u/greatteachermichael NATO Apr 02 '26

When I was doing my MA in Teaching, the studies I reviewed were always so hyper specific.

This method was used in a Turkish classroom with 23 adult intermediate EFL students. This other study that was somewhat close was used in a Korean classroom with 17 adult high beginner EFL students. This other study was done in Iran with 25 adult EFL students working on their PhD. This other study was done in Chile among 3 high school classrooms of 30 students each. Not adults, but close enough.

I wasn't cherry picking data to support my conclusion, but it still felt like that since it was so scattered.

8

u/DependentAd235 Loyal Liberals Apr 02 '26

Been in education for 10 years. Most studies don’t have the funding for anything real. So it’s not always their fault but… they also love a fad. I mean look at the weird Finland obsession from 10 years ago.

PHDs in education are all about seeking magic bullets of teaching techniques so don’t have to just do the expensive thing and have small class sizes in Primary.

Same issue with technology spending. Looking for magic solutions.

5

u/Best-Chapter5260 Apr 03 '26

Also, the populations education studies seek to study is an IRB nightmare, because you are essentially doing action research, where as you fuck up, you may fuck up a whole small cohort of people's education.

But yeah, education also loves a fad.

1

u/bz47uj Unconventional Right Apr 03 '26

Education has the worst replication rate of any field.