Data sharing in psychology: a survey on barriers and preconditions

Despite its potential to accelerate academic progress in psychological science, public data sharing remains relatively uncommon. In order to discover the perceived barriers to public data sharing and possible measures for lowering them, we conducted a survey with responses from 600 authors of articles in psychology. The results confirmed that data are shared only infrequently. Perceived barriers included that (1) sharing is not a common practice in the field; (2) sharing is preferred upon request; (3) sharing requires extra work; and (4) sharing requires new skills. In order to overcome these barriers, our survey suggests that strong encouragement from institutions, journals, and funders is particularly effective, combined with the development of educational material that demonstrates where and how data can be shared effectively