I plan to carry out a survey research that will model a certain variable with other pre-specified variables. As this is not an intervention study, I am not obliged to register the study to such a database as clinicaltrials.gov. However, I plan to do that in order to increase transparency of my research. Particularly, I would like to make all the tested variables prospectively revealed in order to make the statistical modelling more valid.
Do you consider my plan correct? Would you give me any further tips on how to increase transparency of my study?
I am note sure if you can register a survey in clinical trials database. However, you can still make your research transparent in the following ways.
Thank you, Heiko and Ahtisham,
I checked that this is possible to register observational study in clinicaltrials.gov as well, there is such an option.
Asking my question I mean to reveal my research hypotheses, data analysis plan, missing data management, etc. before the first participant is recruited. This is to make my assumptions transparent, not to bias reporting of the results, particularly the statistics...
Michal S. Karbownik. As a first step, I wonder whether you are interested in making your research transparent (i.e., that others can see exactly what you did), or more visible (e.g., more easily accessed by others)?
If it really is an issue of transparency, I think it's important to let others know exactly what you did in your research, e.g., by being completely "honest" about your analyses. Perhaps you tried out different ways of analysing your data and obtained different results depending on specific analyses.
One thing that comes to mind is the extent to which you "cleaned" your data, and why. Related to that, were there outliers in your data, and what did you do with those outliers? Did you get different results depending on what you did with any outliers? - That kind of thing.
You might also consider providing full information about response and retention rates to your survey and consider whether your final sample might, in any way, have influenced the results you obtained.
I hope that's helpful . . .
Consider registering under the Open Science Framework (www.osf.io). Maybe in addition to the clinical trials site.
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