Reforms in Academic Publishing: Should Behavioral Disorders and Special Education Journals Embrace Them?

Abstract

Bias poses a significant threat to the validity of research findings as well as practices and policies based on research. Reforms to academic publishing have been proposed and implemented in other fields to address bias in research. In this paper I review some sources of bias in research, some proposed areas of reform in academic publishing (e.g., disclosure, open data and methods, preregistration, methodological guidelines for reviewers, registered reports, open review), and some potential problems associated with the reforms (e.g., limited empirical support, additional time and effort associated with implementation, placing journals at a competitive disadvantage, researchers relinquishing control of their data). I conclude with some thoughts to frame decisions on whether and how Behavioral Disorders and other special education journals might adopt reforms to academic publishing.