Pre-registration makes a study less susceptible to bias, helps plan the research and provides an opportunity for peer feedback on the approach.

When working on qualitative research, the preregistration of research protocols is recommended to ensure transparency, reproducibility and quality of the study [1]. A preregistration of research protocols means that the researcher describes the research plan which will be undertaken and the type of analysis that are intended to be performed, before starting the study. This includes basic information such as study aims, type of data collection, tools used in the study and analysis approach. The pre-registration of the research protocol also means that the analysis can not be adjusted to fit the collected data, thus avoiding potential sources of unintentional (or intentional) bias, and improving transparency and reproducibility.

A preregistration helps to plan the study details and getting early input on the research, thus potentially enhancing the quality of the research conducted.

The preregistration should be using standardised forms and registered before starting the research.

Here there are some examples of generic preregistration forms that are applicable across different disciplines, as suggested by Huebner et al. (2021):

This material is derived from the CCG review of good enough practices, released under a CC-BY 4.0 license