I'm a huge fan of pre-analysis plans/ registered reports and paying undergrad RAs $15/hr, but something I haven't been able to stop thinking about since this weekend's Twitter drama is how these policies will widen the gap between the have's and the have not's in academia. 1/n

Let's start with pre-reg/ pre-analysis because I think the equity issues are slightly less severe here than they are with paying undergrads. At my undergraduate institution, it was hard to plan analyses because you didn't know the kind of sample you'd get beforehand. 2/n

We relied heavily on our psych department subject pool which supplied samples that could range from n = 60 -200 depending on enrollment and which students opted into your study. Some analyses (e.g. SEM) take more power, power you don't know if you'll have beforehand. 3/n

Moreover, if you go the MTurk route, the more intricate your study, or the longer your measures, the fewer MTurkers you can afford because resources are finite for those of us outside R 1's and SLACs. 4/n

So, we did secondary analysis of our advisor's grad school advisor's data a lot. It was okay, but it came with its own challenges: 1) The data you had was the data you had, even if hypotheses were best tested with different data. 5/n

2) Some reports ask if data is original or if you'll be doing secondary analysis. I get the benefit of original data for the explicit purpose of testing your research ?, but this data is very expensive. By prioritizing it, we are further institutionalizing prestige bias. 6/n

So while pre-reg/ pre-analysis are good for science they can prevent scholars outside of resourced institutions from publishing their research *if* our institutions don't change along with them. (e.g. professional orgs have more specific grants for less-resourced scholars). 7/n

"BUT these faculty can just apply for more grant money." It isn't that simple, non R1 places value different aspects of the profession. At UNCA, teaching loads were heavy and teaching reviews were almost as important in tenure review as pubs. 8/n

Faculty at these schools don't have the time to spend writing big grants. With their teaching loads and other demands on their time, how are they supposed to compete for these grants with profs at R1's or SLACs who don't have these demands? 9/n

The grant point leads into the concern with paying undergrads $15/hr. To be clear I fully support the move and think it should be implemented across the board, but the way it stands now it won't be... 10/n

Paying RAs AT ALL requires lots of money. Money that isn't available outside of a select few places. In our psych department where I went to undergrad, RA work was fully on a volunteer basis, and many of us, myself included, juggled multiple off-campus jobs with RA work. 11/n

If the R1's start paying their RAs 15/hr the already wide gap between the time students at elite R1s can spend on preparing themselves for a research career vs. the time students at working-class regional universities can spend increases massively. 12/n

"Well, then faculty who can't pay just shouldn't have RA's." You literally can't endorse this view and claim to care about equity in science. 13/n

Regional state universities and HBCUs (the places faculty are most likely to lack the $$$$ to pay RAs) serve more historically underrepresented students (e.g. racial minorities, first-gen students, low-income students) than the places more likely to pay. 14/n

"Students at these schools should just apply for outside grant money and RA work then." Well yes, we can. And we did. But can you guess who tends to get external grants and RA work? Even those targeted towards underrepresented groups? 15/n

Typically not the kid at UNC Wilmington or NC A & T. So again, while more resourced peers, who are more likely to not need the money or work anyway get enriching experiences, the students at less resourced places work more hours at their restaurant jobs. 16/n

"Well, these students can just go manage a lab for a few years after graduation." Wanna take a wild guess at who tends to get lab manager gigs? The kid from Vandy who doesn't need to live on the lab manager salary or the kid from WCU who barbacks nights and weekends? 17/n

"But they could do a paid MA." Yeah... let's have students who are already likely to be underresourced take out more debt for a cash cow MA that may or may not help them actually get into a good Ph.D. program. 18/n

So, requiring 15/hr for RAs is a good thing. But if we implement it w/ our current institutional framework, we are going to widen already concerning disparities b/t the haves and have nots in academia. 19/n

I'm not saying we shouldn't implement these changes, they are both *great* for science and the morally right thing to do, but we need to think about how these changes could actually exacerbate existing disparities in academia and lead to pernicious unintended consequences. 20/n

With the adoption of these policies, we, collectively as academics need to think about what changes we could realistically implement along with them to soften the blow to the less-resourced among us. 21/n

To be clear, I didn't write this thread to bitch about going to a satellite school for undergrad, it was an amazing experience I feel I was very well trained and prepared for grad school. I also got "paid" in other ways (e.g. I got to work on my own ideas, I got coauthorship)22/n

But there are gaps driven by differences in $$$ resources b/t the power players in academia and everyone else, that will be exacerbated with the adoption of these two policies, both of which are good for science and should be adopted, that we need to collectively address. 23/23