FINDING THE MISSING SCIENCE - THE FATE OF STUDIES SUBMITTED FOR REVIEW BY A HUMAN-SUBJECTS COMMITTEE

Publication bias, including prejudice against the null hypothesis, and other biasing filters may operate on researchers as well as journal e ditors and reviewers. A survey asked 33 psychology researchers to desc ribe the fate of 159 studies approved by their departmental human subj ects review committee. About two thirds of completed studies did not r esult in published summaries. About half of the unpublished studies fe ll out of the process for reasons other than methodological quality. A mong these, lack of interest and aims that did not include publication were cited more often than nonsignificant results as the reasons why publication was not pursued. However, significant findings were more l ikely than nonsignificant findings to be submitted for meeting present ation or publication. These results indicate attention needs to be pai d to improving how psychological scientists communicate, especially to the creation of prospective research registers.