The Gap Between Open Access and Open Science in Education Research. A Repository-Based Analysis of Data, Code, and Materials Sharing in Open-Access Papers
Open Science practices are increasingly promoted in educational research by funding agencies, scientific associations, and researchers. However, only a small proportion of published articles provide links to research data or other materials and fully adhere to Open Science principles. This article investigates the prevalence of repository links to OSF and GitHub in articles published in Frontiers in Education (Frontiers Media SA), Education Sciences (MDPI), Cogent Education (Taylor & Francis), International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education (IJETHE; Springer), AERA Open (AERA and Sage Publishing), Sage Open (Sage Publishing), and Frontline Learning Research (EARLI). Using the OpenAlex database, we identified and downloaded 15,953 open-access articles. Of these, only 223 contained a functional repository link that was related to the article, corresponding to 1.4% of the downloaded corpus. Among the articles with repository links, most employed a quantitative research design (75.3%), followed by mixed-methods designs (12.1%) and qualitative designs (4.9%). Review articles accounted for 3.1% of the sample, while conceptual articles, including didactic and instructional contributions, represented 2.7%. Methodological articles constituted the smallest category, comprising 1.8% of the included articles. We discuss these findings in relation to current Open Science practices in educational research.
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