Hi everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I got the reviews for my first paper. The editor has asked for a replication which, essentially, means that I will be spending half of my 2nd year running the same experiment I run last year. Since it will be an exact replication of my first experiment it won't be adding anything new to my thesis.

I had another experiment ready to go but it will be pushed back as a result of the editor's decision.

I'm scared that I won't have enough experiments to write up a thesis in 1,5 years from now and I'm starting to panic. I was wondering how many chapters/experiments should be included in a thesis? I understand that this is a very subject-specific question and that there aren't any hard-and-fast rules when it comes to thesis contents..

I'm a bit overwhelmed and, quite frankly, scared that I won't finish in 3 years. My funding runs out at the end of my 3rd year and I can't afford sticking around for a fourth year :(

Best,

ZR

Many thanks for the advice. My supervisors see the problem with repeating the same experiment but they don't appear to be stressed about it... It's not a matter of being fast at testing - I'm working with special populations so recruiting is a nightmare.. Getting them to come to the lab once is a struggle, let alone 2 or 3 times!

ZR

Replication is a key part of a reliable scientific study, so try not to see it as not adding anything to your thesis, rather it's making your thesis stronger.

I think this is an unreasonable decision- should just reject if applying such onerous conditions.

There is an ethical issue in terms of recruiting additional people, when the research question has already been answered.

If it was me, I would either:
- Retract from the journal and submit elsewhere,
- Return with a covering letter explaining the implications of additional recruitment and add this as a limitation.

Hi everyone,

Yes, it must be dependent on the field. Having run studies involving people and gone through the whole recruitment nightmare, there is no way I would entertain the idea of doing a replication. In my field, theories become reinforced by other people running similar studies using other groups of people and looking for overall trends.

Hi everyone,

I'm doing Psychology/Neurosciences - We had this reproducibility crisis in 2015 and journals are more careful about what they are publishing now.

I'm in Psychology too, but with a much bigger focus on qualitative work and stuff that you wouldn't expect to be replicable in any straightforward way. Funnily enough, and not that it helps you with this particular journal, I was reading something only the other day about how the replicability crisis was based on flawed research and there should have been no crisis!