The Uptake of Preregistration, and Its Impact on the Proportion of Supported Hypotheses, in Sports Science

BACKGROUND: The proportion of studies with results supporting their hypotheses has been implausibly high in sports science, suggesting the widespread presence of questionable research practices (QRPs). Preregistration is recommended to mitigate QRPs. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the uptake of preregistration in sports science journals, and its association with the proportion of supported hypotheses. The influence of journal quartile on these factors was also examined. Differences in hypothesis reporting between published manuscripts and original preregistrations were also explored. METHODS: A total of 2006 original research articles published from 19 journals in 2024 were included, of which 201 (10.0%) were preregistered, and 1205 provided a hypothesis (60.0%). Logistic regression analyses assessed whether preregistration frequency and the proportion of supported hypotheses varied across journal quartiles (i.e., quartile 1, 2, 3, and 4, as ranked by SCImago). RESULTS: (1) 5. 5978; P = 0.018), although the effect size was negligible (V = 0.07, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.01, 0.13). Quartile 3 and 4 journals had less preregistrations (odds ratio [OR] = 0.27, 95% CI = 0.17, 0.41) and supported hypotheses (OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.55, 0.97) than quartile 1 journals. Of 134 preregistered papers with a hypothesis, 93 (69.4%) either did not have a hypothesis in their original preregistration or presented a different hypothesis from what was reported in the preregistration. CONCLUSIONS: The uptake of preregistration in sports science is low, and its effectiveness is limited, possibly owing to researchers not adhering to preregistered research plans and adopting QRPs. PREREGISTRATION: This study was prospectively preregistered on the Open Science Framework https://osf.io/c8jfm/files/osfstorage ).