Replication crisis

High school (ages 12+)
Thinking & Learning

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/replication-crisis

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. How tall is Replication crisis?Early 2010s
2. What is the prominent affected disciplines?Psychology and medicine, with significant implications for other natural and social sciences
3. What is the central tenet of scientific method challenged?Reproducibility and replicability of empirical results
4. Why is it a problem for science?If experiments can’t be replicated, it makes scientists doubt the findings and the theories built on them, which can weaken the whole knowledge base.
5. How did the replication crisis become known in the 2010s?In the early 2010s, many studies in psychology and medicine were re‑examined and many were not reproduced, making the problem widely recognized.

Replication Crisis: A widespread concern in scientific fields regarding the inability of researchers to reproduce previously published findings.
Reproducibility: The ability of a researcher to achieve the same results by re-analyzing the original data set.
Replication: The ability of a researcher to achieve the same results by repeating an experiment with new, independent data.