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I am trying to find additional research about a certain topic. I have found one study that is specifically about this topic, and the results are very interesting. I would like to find out if any additional studies have attempted to reproduce the results.

I have tried searching online using several ID numbers found on the nih.gov site where I am viewing the original study. There are very few search results, and the search results seem to all be referencing this same original study.

I have tried emailing the author of the original study as well. To my surprise, I actually received a response, but it was short, contained merely a list of some links to "more information" about the topic (these websites were just general information), and did not respond to my question about additional studies. (To be fair, this author is an active professional, so I understand that they may not have time to email with me. I have not attempted to reply asking my question again.)

Perhaps I am not finding additional studies because there have not been any. It may also be that I am not using the correct tools/resources.

Is there an established way to find if a particular study has been replicated?

This question is intended to be generic enough that it is relevant for any study. However, for my particular topic, I have managed to find one study that repeated the original in another country. I am currently looking for more.

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  • Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 16:31
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    Look at any article that cites the study.
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 20:45
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    @JonCuster How do I find these articles? Also, is this a recommendation to check other citations within the article? So far, what I've read that refers to the original study refers only to the original, and not others that have attempted to replicate it.
    – elmer007
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 20:48
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    Your friendly local research librarians can help you, either directly or by showing you how to use various search engines (Web of Science and the like).
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 21:51
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    No way around it, this is a difficult issue, and there's no truly reliable way to solve the problem. But we can approximate searches by things like "Web of Science". Beware, many things are not indexed on WoS...
    – paul garrett
    Commented Aug 13, 2022 at 0:13

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Whoever tried to reproduce the study and published about their attempt would surely cite the original paper, as commented by @Jon Custer. So looking through papers that cite the original could be a start. I found that "Cited by" in Google Scholar has good lists of citations for a paper, including preprints. However, there would be a delay before publications appear. Also, some reproduction attempts, especially failures, might never be published.

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  • That's a good point about some attempts not being published. I agree that looking through papers that cite the research would be good, but that's kind of begging the question. I'm trying to find those very papers; however using the "Cited by" in Google Scholar is a good tip, and I'm going to give it a whirl soon to see what it can turn up.
    – elmer007
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 14:35
  • It boggles the mind how Academia has encouraged NOT publishing replication studies with a null result. Madness.
    – strawberries
    Commented Jul 14, 2023 at 21:42
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It is not a general way to check if any study has been replicated, but the journal ReScience X publishes replications of experimental studies and its sister journal ReScience C publishes replications of computational studies.
These could be a place to check for possible replications.

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