In registered reports (RRs), initial peer review and in-principle acceptance occur before knowing the research outcomes. This combats publication bias and distinguishes planned from unplanned research. How RRs could improve the credibility of research findings is straightforward, but there is little empirical evidence. Also, there could be unintended costs such as reducing novelty. Here, 353 researchers peer reviewed a pair of papers from 29 published RRs from psychology and neuroscience and 57 non-RR comparison papers. RRs numerically outperformed comparison papers on all 19 criteria (mean difference 0.46, scale range −4 to +4) with effects ranging from RRs being statistically indistinguishable from comparison papers in novelty (0.13, 95% credible interval [−0.24, 0.49]) and creativity (0.22, [−0.14, 0.58]) to sizeable improvements in rigour of methodology (0.99, [0.62, 1.35]) and analysis (0.97, [0.60, 1.34]) and overall paper quality (0.66, [0.30, 1.02]). RRs could improve research quality while reducing publication bias and ultimately improve the credibility of the published literature.

在注册报告 (RR) 中，最初的同行评审和原则上的接受发生在了解研究结果之前。这与发表偏见作斗争，并将计划内的研究与计划外的研究区分开来。RRs 如何提高研究结果的可信度很简单，但几乎没有经验证据。此外，可能会产生意想不到的成本，例如减少新颖性。在这里，353 名研究人员对来自心理学和神经科学的 29 篇已发表的 RR 和 57 篇非 RR 比较论文中的两篇论文进行了同行评审。RR 在所有 19 项标准（平均差 0.46，尺度范围 -4 到 +4）上的数值均优于比较论文，其影响范围从 RR 在统计上与新颖性比较论文无法区分（0.13, 95% 可信区间 [-0.24, 0.49]）和创造力 (0.22, [−0.14, 0. 58]）在方法学（0.99，[0.62，1.35]）和分析（0.97，[0.60，1.34]）和整体论文质量（0.66，[0.30，1.02]）的严谨性方面有了相当大的改进。RR 可以提高研究质量，同时减少发表偏倚，最终提高已发表文献的可信度。