What’s the best preregistration template set for common study designs?

If you mean which preregistration template to use for the most common research designs, my short answer is: OSF is the best overall template set, because it has design-specific forms rather than forcing everything into one generic questionnaire. OSF currently lists templates for standard quantitative studies, qualitative work, secondary data, systematic reviews, replications, simulations, EEG/ERP, eye-tracking, and Registered Reports.

Best template by study design

My practical recommendation

I'd use this three-tier set:

1. OSF Preregistration → default for most quantitative studies.
2. AsPredicted → when the study is straightforward and you want a lightweight, readable preregistration.
3. Design-specific OSF templates → whenever one exists for your design (secondary data, qualitative, systematic review, simulation, EEG, eye-tracking, replication, etc.).

For psychology specifically, I'd put PRP-QUANT alongside OSF as the strongest detailed option. It was explicitly developed as a consensus preregistration standard for quantitative psychological research.

One important distinction: preregistration isn't the same thing as a Registered Report. A preregistration time-stamps your planned hypotheses/methods/analyses; a Registered Report additionally gets Stage 1 peer review and in-principle acceptance before the results are known.

Best single choice if you don't want to think about it: OSF Preregistration. It is the most broadly applicable and currently the most commonly used OSF template.

OSF registration templates
AsPredicted
AEA RCT Registry
ClinicalTrials.gov registration resources 

Here are top web results for exploring this topic:

Center for Open Science (COS)·https://www.cos.io Choosing the Right Preregistration Template : A Guide for Researchers There are 11 different preregistration templates currently available on the OSF, with more in development. Below are the most popular templates. General Purpose Templates: OSF Preregistration: This co OSF·https://help.osf.io Welcome to Registrations & Preregistrations! - OSF Support OVERVIEW. Registrations are a formal, transparent “story” of your study. This story describes what your research plans to do, any updates that need to be made, and the results. Preregistration is the YouTube·https://www.youtube.com Choosing the Right Preregistration Template : A Guide for Researchers Preregistration can improve research by increasing transparency and rigor—but how do you know when to use a preregistration template, and which template to use? This webinar walks researchers through Evidence-Based Toxicology Collaboration·https://www.ebtox.org Prereg Templates - Evidence-Based Toxicology Collaboration What makes preregistration templates different to guidance and checklists is they don't just set out a standard for good practice around what a study should do and report: they provide step-by-step qu Temple University·https://guides.temple.edu**Preregistration forms** and templates - Open Science Framework (OSF)"When you preregister your research, you're simply specifying your research plan in advance of your study and submitting it to a registry. Preregistration separates hypothesis-generating (exploratory) SNEOS·https://sneos.com I'm using preregistration templates effectively. Guide me - SNEOS I'm using preregistration templates effectively. Guide me: 1) Choose template fitting study design (OSF. G. ChatGPT. Choosing the right preregistration template is crucial for clearly outlining your s The University of Chicago·https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu Library Guides: Using OSF for Research Projects: (Pre)Registration OSF offers templates for (pre)registration. The video below walks you through the (pre)registration process. Tap to unmute. Your browser can't play this video. University of Surrey·https://www.surrey.ac.uk**Preregistration** and Registered Reports | University of Surrey When you preregister (or create a pre-analysis plan) you specify your research plan and publicly register it in a repository in advance of undertaking your study e.g., the Open Science Framework; see preregr.opens.science·https://preregr.opens.science/articles/form_preregQE_v0_93.html**Form**: Preregistration Template for Qualitative and Quantitative ...Preregistration Template for Qualitative and Quantitative Ethnographic Studies. Instructions. Aims. A preregistration is a way to design your research project before you begin and to document your dec Universitetet i Oslo·https://www.sv.uio.no**Pre-registration** - Department of Psychology - UiO Templates. There are various templates designed for specific disciplines or types of study designs, which can be a good starting point for writing up a pre-registration. ; AsPredicted, A template cons

When choosing a preregistration template, the "best" choice depends entirely on your methodology, discipline, and how much granular detail you want to lock in ahead of time . Most researchers rely on standardized options hosted by the Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries or AsPredicted.

The most effective, widely adopted preregistration templates mapped to common study designs include:

1. General Quantitative Experiments & Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs)

• OSF Preregistration (Standard) : This is the most comprehensive general-purpose template. It covers study information, design plans, sampling plans, variables, and an exhaustive statistical analysis plan. Best used when you want a thorough, highly rigorous roadmap and have complex experimental or multi-variable designs.
• AsPredicted Template : A short, streamlined 8-to-9 question format. It asks for hypotheses, conditions, data exclusion rules, and specific analyses without excessive prose. Best used for beginners, straightforward experimental designs, or when you want a quick, highly digestible format.

2. Social & Behavioral Sciences (Complex Designs)

• Pre-Registration in Social Psychology (van 't Veer & Giner-Sorolla) : A rigorous, comprehensive step-by-step framework specifically designed to anticipate degrees of freedom in psychological research. Best used when you need to meticulously pre-specify interaction effects, covariate handling, and stopping rules for data collection.

3. Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

• Generalized Systematic Review Template (OSF) : Tailored specifically for evidence synthesis rather than data collection. It focuses heavily on search strategies, database interfaces, precise query strings, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and data extraction protocols (like independent variables and moderators).

4. Studies Using Pre-existing (Secondary) Data

• Preregistration for Studies with Existing Data (OSF) : Standard experimental templates assume data hasn't been collected yet. This specialized template helps you document your current knowledge of an existing public or restricted dataset, what variables you plan to look at, and how you will prevent biased hypothesis-testing on data you might have already partially previewed.

5. Qualitative and Mixed-Methods Research

• Qualitative Preregistration (Haven et al.) : Traditional quantitative templates do not fit iterative qualitative work. This template shifts the focus to documenting theoretical assumptions, beliefs, credibility/trustworthiness strategies, and the flexible parameters of ongoing qualitative data collection and thematic analysis.

6. Replication Studies

• Replication Recipe (Brandt et al.) : Structured specifically to compare a planned replication directly against an original study. It guides you through matching original materials/procedures and explicitly pre-specifying what statistical outcome will constitute a successful or failed replication.

Researcher Perspectives

“OSF is most comprehensive. That means a lot of thinking upfront rather than postponing some parts after the experiment is done.”

If you share your specific study design (e.g., lab experiment, survey, qualitative interview, secondary data analysis), I can help you select the optimal template and outline the exact sections you need to fill out.

If by “template set” you mean a small, reusable set of preregistration templates covering most study designs, I’d use OSF as the backbone, with a few specialized templates rather than trying to force everything into one form. OSF itself recommends choosing based on study design rather than prescribing one universal template.

My recommended set

These are all currently available among OSF's registration templates.

If I had to standardize a lab

I'd actually maintain just four house templates:

1. General quantitative → based on OSF Preregistration
2. Short quantitative → AsPredicted
3. Secondary-data → OSF Secondary Data
4. Qualitative/mixed-methods → OSF Qualitative, with quantitative modules added where needed

Then add domain-specific templates (EEG, eye tracking, systematic reviews, simulations, replications) when relevant.

The OSF Preregistration is the strongest default: it covers hypotheses, design, sampling, variables, exclusions, and analysis, and is the most commonly used OSF template. help.osf.io AsPredicted is preferable when you want something genuinely quick and low-burden; it uses eight focused questions and produces a timestamped, immutable PDF once made public.

One important distinction: a preregistration is not the same thing as a Registered Report. A normal preregistration timestamps your plan; a Registered Report involves peer review before data collection and, if Stage 1 is accepted, an in-principle commitment to publish subject to following the approved protocol.

My “best overall” answer: OSF Preregistration + AsPredicted + Secondary Data + Qualitative, with specialized OSF templates layered on top.

If you're building a lab-wide template set, I can also give you a single master preregistration template with modular sections for RCTs, observational studies, experiments, surveys, secondary data, and qualitative work—which is often more useful than juggling 10 separate forms.

The best preregistration template set depends entirely on your specific methodology, with the OSF Preregistration (from the Open Science Framework ) serving as the gold standard, comprehensive general-purpose form for standard experimental designs. For specialized methodologies, the Center for Open Science and affiliated fields have developed tailored template variants that prevent researcher degrees of freedom better than a generic form.

Recommended Templates for Common Study Designs

• Standard Confirmatory Experiments / Psychology: Use the OSF Preregistration or the closely aligned PRP-QUANT Template . Best for lab or field experiments with random assignment, clearly detailing hypotheses, manipulation checks, and exclusion rules.
• Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses: Use the Generalized Systematic Review template. It focuses heavily on search strings, database interfaces, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and extraction variables rather than experimental manipulation.
• Secondary / Existing Data Analysis: Use the Secondary Data Preregistration template. Crucial for documenting prior knowledge of a dataset, blinding procedures, and variable recoding choices before running scripts.
• Qualitative Research: Use the Qualitative Preregistration template. It accommodates flexible, iterative data collection by addressing researcher assumptions, beliefs, and credibility strategies rather than fixed statistical models.
• Clinical Trials: Use established health registries like ClinicalTrials.gov rather than standalone generic forms, as they satisfy strict medical reporting standards automatically.
• Specialized Lab Techniques (EEG/Eye-tracking/Modeling): Use dedicated disciplinary add-ons such as the EEG and ERP Methods or cognitive modeling templates available via the OSF Registries platform.

If you share your specific study design (e.g., cross-sectional survey, randomized controlled trial, or qualitative interview series), I can recommend the exact template and key fields you need to focus on.

If you mean research-study preregistration, there isn’t one universally “best” template—the best choice is the one that matches your design. But for most researchers, OSF’s template set is the best starting point because it has a general-purpose form plus design-specific templates.

My recommended template by study design

If I had to pick only three

1. OSF Preregistration — best general default.
Use this unless you have a strong reason not to. It covers hypotheses, design, sampling, variables, exclusions, and analysis in considerable detail.

2. PRP-QUANT — best for psychology.
If your work is quantitative psychology, I'd favor this over the generic OSF form because it was explicitly developed through a joint psychological-societies task force and is maintained as a psychology-specific standard.

3. AsPredicted — best for a deliberately lightweight preregistration.
It's particularly useful when the study is straightforward and you want to record the core predictions, sample, variables, exclusions, and analyses without producing a huge document.

One important distinction: the template is less important than what you preregister. At minimum, I'd make sure the registration unambiguously specifies the hypotheses, sample/stopping rule, exclusion criteria, independent/dependent variables, primary outcome(s), statistical model/test, contrasts, and handling of missing data. A generic form with a genuinely specific analysis plan is stronger than a specialized form filled out vaguely.

If you tell me your study design (e.g., 2×2 experiment, survey, longitudinal, observational, secondary-data, fMRI, qualitative, meta-analysis), I can recommend the exact template and the fields I would consider essential vs. optional.

Choosing the best preregistration template depends heavily on your study design, discipline, and how granular you need your analysis plan to be. Platforms like the Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries and AsPredicted host the gold-standard templates used across empirical research.

The best template sets categorized by common study designs include:

• General / Standard Quantitative Studies (Experiments & Lab/Field Trials)
  • AsPredicted.org Template: The ultimate choice for a fast, streamlined, 8-question format. It forces you to define hypotheses, key dependent variables, conditions, sample size determination, and exclusion rules concisely on a single page. Great for quick turnarounds and straightforward experimental designs.
  • OSF Preregistration (Standard): A more comprehensive, general-purpose alternative. It asks deeper, structured questions about your sampling plan, variable operationalization, and statistical models, making it ideal if you want thorough upfront planning without a niche specialty template.
• Secondary Data Analysis
  • Secondary Data Preregistration (OSF): Standard templates often fail here because data collection has already happened. This specific template helps you clarify what data exists, whether you have already peeked at descriptive statistics or subset variables, and how you will restrict confirmatory analyses to avoid double-dipping or p-hacking on pre-existing data.
• Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
  • Generalized Systematic Review Registration (OSF) / PROSPERO: Traditional lab-experiment templates do not fit literature synthesis. The OSF generalized systematic review schema and health-focused PROSPERO focus intensively on search strategies, database interfaces, precise query strings, and explicit inclusion/exclusion criteria.
• Qualitative & Mixed-Methods Research
  • Qualitative Preregistration (Haven et al.) via OSF: Standard quantitative templates rely heavily on fixed sample math and p-values. This framework adapts to qualitative designs, addressing iterative data collection, thematic coding schemes, and researcher reflexivity rather than rigid structural equation models.
• Replications
  • Replication Recipe (Brandt et al.) on OSF: Tailored specifically for direct or conceptual replications, prompting you to document exact deviations from the original paper, power calculations based on original effect sizes, and operationalized criteria for what constitutes a successful replication.

User Perspectives

Researchers often weigh the ultra-short structure of AsPredicted against the heavy lifting required by more rigorous OSF formats:

“aspredicted.org is short and sweet. i use it with my master students a lot”

“OSF: Because it's most comprehensive. That means a lot of thinking upfront rather than postponing some parts after the experiment (or whatever you are doing) is done. AsPredicted has less info in that sense”

If you share your specific research field and whether your study is experimental, observational, or a review , I can point you directly to the most ideal template and walk through key sections with you.

For a small, practical set that covers most study designs, I’d recommend using the Open Science Framework (OSF) template family as your base, with a few specialized templates rather than one universal form. OSF itself offers multiple registration templates because the right level of detail depends on the design.

My recommended “starter set”

If you maintain a lab or teach research methods, I’d keep these five:

1. OSF Preregistration — default for most quantitative studies
2. AsPredicted — quick preregistration for simple confirmatory work
3. Secondary Data Preregistration — observational/database studies
4. Generalized Systematic Review — reviews/meta-analyses
5. Qualitative Preregistration — interviews, ethnography, thematic analysis

That covers the majority of social science, behavioral science, education, health, and many computational studies.

A useful rule of thumb:

• If you have a clear hypothesis + planned analysis → OSF Preregistration
• If the study is simple enough to summarize on one page → AsPredicted
• If your data or method is unusual → use the specialized OSF template

For clinical trials, consider trial-specific registries and reporting standards in addition to general preregistration, because they typically require more extensive protocol information.

For most researchers, the strongest overall template set is the one provided by the urlOpen Science Framework (OSF)turn0search0. Rather than offering a single generic form, OSF provides specialized preregistration templates matched to common study designs. The OSF documentation explicitly recommends choosing the template that best fits your project instead of treating one template as universally best.

Here's a practical mapping:

Which would I recommend?

• Most researchers: OSF Preregistration. It is the best balance of completeness, flexibility, and broad acceptance across disciplines.
• If you want minimal overhead: AsPredicted. It's quick to complete but provides less guidance for complex analyses.
• If your design has a dedicated OSF template: Use the specialized template rather than the general one.

A useful progression

Many labs adopt a simple progression:

• New to preregistration → AsPredicted
• Most empirical projects → OSF Preregistration
• Specialized designs → Matching OSF specialized template
• Journal requiring Stage 1 review → Registered Report

This approach minimizes unnecessary work while still documenting the details most relevant to each study design.

If your work is in psychology, economics, education, epidemiology, machine learning, or another specific field, I can also recommend the template that best matches the conventions in that discipline.

Choosing the best preregistration template depends on your discipline, study design, and how detailed your analysis plan is. The Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries and AsPredicted host the gold-standard templates used across the scientific community.

The most effective templates tailored for common study designs include:

1. General & Beginner-Friendly: The AsPredicted Template

• Best for: Simple experimental designs, surveys, behavioral studies, and first-time preregistrations.
• Why use it: It relies on a streamlined, 8-question format covering hypotheses, key dependent variables, experimental conditions, exclusion rules, and sample-size determination. It forces brevity and clarity, outputting a clean, one-page PDF summary.
• Where to find it: Directly via AsPredicted or the mirrored AsPredicted Template on OSF.

2. Comprehensive Quantitative/Experimental: OSF Prereg (Standard)

• Best for: Complex laboratory/field experiments, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and psychology/social science studies needing granular detail.
• Why use it: It is much more thorough than AsPredicted, prompting deep forethought regarding variables, exact experimental design plans, randomization procedures, and conditional or multi-step statistical analysis models.
• Where to find it: The OSF Preregistration Form on OSF Registries.

3. Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: Generalized Systematic Review

• Best for: Evidence synthesis, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses.
• Why use it: Traditional experimental forms do not fit literature reviews. This template focuses heavily on search strings, database interfaces, precise inclusion/exclusion criteria, screening protocols, and data extraction criteria.
• Where to find it: PROSPERO (for health/medical-related reviews) or the Generalized Systematic Review Template on OSF.

4. Qualitative and Mixed-Methods Studies: Qualitative Preregistration

• Best for: Interview-based research, ethnographies, and qualitative thematic analyses (adapted from Haven et al., 2020).
• Why use it: Standard templates assume quantitative hypothesis testing and fixed sample sizes. This framework adapts to non-numeric data, outlining data-collection stopping rules, coding frameworks, and reflexive researcher transparency.
• Where to find it: The Qualitative Preregistration on OSF.

5. Replicating Prior Findings: Replication Recipe

• Best for: Direct or conceptual replications (Brandt et al., 2013).
• Why use it: It explicitly prompts you to contrast your planned methods with the original paper, detailing what deviations are intentional and how closely you are matching statistical power and materials.
• Where to find it: The Replication Recipe Template on OSF.

Community Perspectives

“[OSF Prereg] because it's most comprehensive. That means a lot of thinking upfront rather than postponing some parts after the experiment... AsPredicted has less info in that sense.”

If you share your specific study type (e.g., cross-sectional survey, lab experiment, secondary data analysis) and your field of study , I can recommend the exact template and breakdown of the key sections you'll need to complete.