Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A 1,000-specification curve of a wage-effect estimate across choices of controls, sample restrictions, and functional forms.
- Is an instance
A specification curve in a developmental psychology paper showing effect-size variation across 64 plausible models.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A single sensitivity analysis varying one covariate.
- Not an instance
A pre-registered single model.
Editorial commentary
Specification curves operationalise transparency about researcher degrees of freedom. The accompanying inferential test (joint significance across the curve) addresses whether the observed distribution of estimates is consistent with the null hypothesis. They are closely related to, and often produced as part of, multiverse analyses.
References
- Simonsohn, Simmons, Nelson, 'Specification curve analysis' (Nature Human Behaviour, 2020).
Also known as
specification curve analysis · SCA
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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