Whose open science are we talking about? From open science in psychology to open science in applied linguistics

Abstract

“An extremely timely, thoughtful, and well-informed discussion in applied linguistics and beyond concerning open science. The essay seeks to engage with a broad audience and to dispel some of the persisting myths around open science and would be read fruitfully by many in the field”.

Open science: Considerations and issues for TESOL research

“…Finally, we reflect on potential (mis)conceptions of OS in TESOL, and rather than calling for a universal standard for OS practices in our field, we encourage individual scholars to consider employing contextually appropriate OS practices in their work. Overall, we agree with Liu's (2023) observation that the rich interdisciplinarity and methodological diversity within the TESOL QUARTERLY field of TESOL in particular and applied linguistics overall has great potential to support "an inclusive understanding of open science" (p. 6).…”

“…Clearly one size does not fit all, and there are risks to any new initiatives for transparency in TESOL-related research. One is setting the bar for transparency too high that it alienates researchers and limits engagement in such practices (see Chiware & Skelly, 2023;Liu, 2023;Steinhardt, Mauermeister, & Schmidt, 2023). Another is setting the bar so low that it does not have a meaningful impact.…”

“…While this is largely a good thing, given the scope of the field and remarkably different situations in which English teaching and learning takes place, it also means that everyone will not always see eye-to-eye. Open Science, as the name suggests, is rooted in a largely post-positive scientific epistemology oriented primarily toward quantitative research methods (see Liu, 2023 for an extended discussion of this issue). Ipso facto, OS might not seem to be a good fit for or particularly important to, say, a researcher with a constructivist orientation to knowledge who largely employs ethnographic methods.…”

Diamond is a scientist’s best friend

“…However, the field has also witnessed many more developments that either promote open science or are enabled by open science. For example, the field has seen the development and blossoming of IRIS, a field-specific repository for sharing research instruments, analysis scripts, datasets and postprints (https://iris-database.org/); there have been calls for more replication (Porte, 2012;McManus, 2021), for data sharing (Bolibaugh et al, 2021), and for sharing of scripts and procedures in supplementary files (In'nami et al, 2022); preregistration and registered report possibilities/practices have emerged ; platforms have been launched that increase accessibility of scientific research for wider audiences, such as OASIS , TESOLgraphics (Chong, 2020) and the TBLT Language Learning Task Bank (Gurzynski-Weiss & IATBLT, 2020); there have been pledges to publish post-prints (Al-Hoori & Hiver, 2023); special issues and volumes have appeared (e.g., Plonsky, in press); and an AILA research network on open science has been established (Liu, 2023).…”

“…Marsden and Morgan-Short (2023) point out that these deals are closed primarily between institutions and publishers in wealthy regions of the world, thus contributing to the inequality of the system, and current APC rates are insurmountable for many scholars who are not covered by such an agreement. This is certainly true for many scholars who work in the global south (Chiware & Skelly, 2022;2023), although we must acknowledge that many publishers have solidarity schemes in place to allow global south scholars to publish open access for free. Unfortunately, such schemes are not sufficiently inclusive, as Brazilian scholars can testify to (Kowaltowski et al, 2022), and they may well only exist to enable perpetuation of the current, highly profitable system.…”