The importance of standardised approaches for experimental research

In a globalised scientific community, it is common that different researchers work on similar topics, especially if these topics are novel or of broad societal interest. In the context of experimental research, this often goes along with each researcher or team of researchers using their own specific methods, including the definitions of the relevant constructs, their operationalisation, and the experimental paradigms. This variability in approaches is advantageous when the aim is to establish the generalisability of robust phenomena. However, in earlier stages of the knowledge generation process, it may be preferrable to use standardised approaches, meaning that different researchers use the same experimental paradigms and operationalisations of dependent and independent variables. Such a standardised approach does not only provide a basis for easy comparability of results, but also enables researchers to identify core phenomena, that is, robust patterns that arise across studies. Knowledge of such core phenomena is relevant because they define what theoretical approaches must be able to explain. I will demonstrate the usefulness of standardised approaches to experimental research in the context of laboratory research on advice taking. peerReviewed publishedVersion