Abstract
In recent years, open science and metascience have made advances by reducing publication bias, applying large team science, and addressing reproducibility. Although both approaches are increasingly being incorporated into many scientific fields, it is unclear to what extent they are appreciated by the public. We evaluate the public’s perception of scientific findings by exposing more than 7,500 participants from seven countries that vary in general trust in science. In this randomized experiment, participants are exposed to versions of a similar scientific result pointing toward the same conclusion: participants read about a small classical single-team study, a large sample size study, or a many-labs (many-teams) study with 21 research teams working independently. We find that in aggregate, the public considers both the many-labs and the large-sample study more credible, generalizable and relevant for society than the single-team study. Importantly, they see the involvement of many research teams and having many study participants as key advantages. Moreover, we find no statistically significant differences in perceptions of the many-labs study and the large-ample study. We also find similar results within some countries and null results within other countries, emphasizing the importance of studying these questions in different contexts. These findings underscore the importance of novel metascience and large-sample studies to improve the credibility of scientific research in the general population. It also underscores the increasing importance of communicating the benefits and findings of metascience and large-sample projects to the public.