ArticleeLife2024
Replication of null results: Absence of evidence or evidence of absence?
Article in eLife, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mental Toughness and 2K Rowing Performance in Division II Female Collegiate Athletes: A Longitudinal Analysis Using Mixed-Effects Modeling.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Reframing welders' parkinsonism: from the "idiopathic" label to biological causation and legal recognition.Annals of occupational and environmental medicine · 2026Review
- A pilot self-coach alignment audit in NCAA collegiate rowers: field feasibility, null findings, and design-sensitivity analysis for future self-verification research.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Translational Lifestyle Medicine Approaches to Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Syndrome.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- A scoping review on metrics to quantify reproducibility: a multitude of questions leads to a multitude of metrics.Royal Society open science · 2025Review
- Assessing the replicability of RCTs in RWE emulations.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
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Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In several large-scale replication projects, statistically non-significant results in both the original and the replication study have been interpreted as a 'replication success.' Here, we discuss the logical problems with this approach: Non-significance in both studies does not ensure that the studies provide evidence for the absence of an effect and 'replication success' can virtually always be achieved if the sample sizes are small enough. In addition, the relevant error rates are not controlled. We show how methods, such as equivalence testing and Bayes factors, can be used to adequately quantify the evidence for the absence of an effect and how they can be applied in the replication setting. Using data from the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, the Experimental Philosophy Replicability Project, and the Reproducibility Project: Psychology we illustrate that many original and replication studies with 'null results' are in fact inconclusive. We conclude that it is important to also replicate studies with statistically non-significant results, but that they should be designed, analyzed, and interpreted appropriately.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.