Lifecycle Open Science in Action: Researcher Q&A with Jolana Samii

Research doesn't begin with a published paper—it starts with a question, a plan, and a process that sometimes remains invisible to others. At the Center for Open Science (COS), we use the term lifecycle open science (LOS) to describe an approach to making the record of your work visible: research with publicly accessible plans, outputs (such as data, materials, and code), and outcomes that are linked and findable across the research lifecycle.

Preregistration—the practice of documenting research plans before a study begins—is an important starting point for this connected research record. By making research intentions visible, it can make it easier to understand how a project developed, what changed along the way, and how the final outcomes relate to the initial study design. Different fields and methods may require different approaches, but the goal is the same: making the path from research question to published findings easier to understand and evaluate.
Jolana Samii is a PhD researcher at the University of Bristol, UK, where her research focuses on psychological and behavioral factors that influence health and wellbeing. Her research seeks to understand how individual differences, including attachment styles and social-emotional processes, relate to everyday health outcomes—particularly sleep. Samii’s study, Attachment, Sleep Hygiene, and Sleep Quality, conducted with collaborators Michael J. Banissy and Angela Rowe, investigates whether sleep hygiene mediates the relationship between adult attachment insecurity and sleep quality, and what that might mean for identifying behaviors that could improve sleep outcomes.

The project is a concrete illustration of lifecycle open science in practice: by using OSF to preregister the study and link their research record, with data shared on Figshare and findings shared as a preprint on PsyArXiv (a community-run preprint server hosted on OSF), Samii and her collaborators make it possible for others to trace the work from its original plan through to the reported outcomes.
COS spoke with Samii about the value of preregistration for planning and communicating research, how keeping plans, outputs, and outcomes linked and discoverable strengthens the research record, and what she and her collaborators see as the benefits of making research materials publicly accessible to other researchers and the broader scientific community.


Q: Can you share a brief overview of this study—what questions were you and your collaborators hoping to answer, and what motivated it?

A: Sleep plays a critical role in both physical and psychological health, yet many people experience poor sleep quality. Previous research has shown that attachment insecurity, particularly attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance, is associated with poorer sleep, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. We were interested in whether sleep hygiene, which refers to behaviours and habits that support healthy sleep, might help explain this association.
Our study examined whether sleep hygiene mediated the relationship between adult attachment insecurity and sleep quality. We found that individuals with higher attachment anxiety and avoidance tended to report poorer sleep hygiene and poorer sleep quality, and that sleep hygiene partially explained these relationships. We were motivated by both theoretical and practical considerations: understanding the pathways linking attachment and sleep may help identify modifiable behaviours that could improve sleep outcomes. We wish to expand beyond basic sleep therapy theories and include social contexts, such as relationships, that might influence sleep.


Q: What led you and your team to make your preregistration and study materials publicly available on OSF? Were there any challenges in doing so?

A: Transparency and reproducibility were important considerations throughout the project. We wanted to clearly document our hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans before examining the data, and OSF provided a straightforward platform to do that. Making our materials publicly available also helps other researchers understand exactly how the study was conducted and potentially build on our work.
One challenge is that preregistration requires careful planning upfront, which can take additional time during the design phase. Furthermore, additional comments from reviewers might become problematic once you have a preregistered study, at which point it may be impossible to comply with the reviewer's requests. There is also a balance between maintaining a clear distinction between confirmatory and exploratory analyses while still allowing flexibility to pursue unexpected findings. However, we found that the benefits of transparency and accountability outweighed these challenges.


Q: You preregistered this study before analyzing the data. How did having that documented plan help you communicate what was originally intended versus what you ultimately found?

A: Having a preregistered analysis plan created a clear record of our original hypotheses and intended analytical approach before we accessed the data. This made it easier to distinguish between confirmatory analyses that directly tested our preregistered predictions and any additional exploratory work that emerged later. While deviations from pre-registered analyses may occur, pre-registration helps with transparency and any deviations can be explained within the manuscript.

From a communication perspective, preregistration provides readers with greater clarity about which findings were anticipated and which generated new questions. It also strengthens confidence in the interpretation of results because the analytical decisions were documented in advance rather than being influenced by the observed outcomes.


Q: What do you see as the broader value of the practice of preregistration for how you plan and carry out your research?

A: Preregistration encourages researchers to think carefully about their hypotheses, study design, and analytical strategy before data collection and analysis begin. This often leads to stronger research planning and clearer decision-making throughout a project.
More broadly, preregistration contributes to research transparency by helping distinguish hypothesis-testing from hypothesis-generating work. I see it as a valuable tool for improving the credibility and interpretability of research findings while still leaving room for exploration and discovery when clearly labelled as such.


Q: Your project includes a preregistered study plan, research outputs including data hosted on Figshare, and a preprint. What do you see as the benefits of keeping these elements connected and publicly accessible throughout the research lifecycle?

A: Connecting these outputs creates a transparent record of the entire research process, from the initial research questions through to the final findings. Readers can trace how the study was planned, how the analyses were conducted, and how the conclusions were reached.
Keeping these materials publicly accessible also improves efficiency within the research community. Researchers do not need to rely solely on the published article; they can access supporting materials, examine the data, and better understand the methodological decisions that shaped the project. This can facilitate replication, secondary analyses, and future collaborations. Furthermore, preprints can help other researchers understand what topics are being studied in the field even before a manuscript is published, as publishing can be a long process, and this helps reduce overlaps and help identify further gaps in literature. 


Q: When all the elements of a study are linked and openly available like this, how do you think that affects other researchers' ability to trust, evaluate, or build on the work?

A: Openly linking study materials, preregistrations, data, and publications makes it easier for other researchers to evaluate the robustness of a study and understand exactly how it was conducted. Transparency allows others to scrutinize methods and analyses in greater detail, which can increase confidence in the findings.

It also lowers barriers for future research. When materials and data are available, researchers can more easily replicate findings, conduct meta-analyses, test alternative explanations, or extend the work into new populations and contexts. In this way, openness helps research become more cumulative and collaborative.


Q: What advice would you give to researchers who are just beginning their open science journey—particularly around preregistration and making their work findable and connected?

A: My advice is to start small and view open science as a gradual process rather than an all-or-nothing commitment. Preregistration is often a good place to begin because it encourages thoughtful study planning and helps establish transparent research practices early in a project.

It is also worth investing time in organizing materials and documentation so that they are understandable to others. Platforms such as OSF make it easier to connect preregistrations, data, code, preprints, and publications in one place, which increases the visibility and usefulness of your work. Even modest steps toward transparency can make a meaningful contribution to the reproducibility and accessibility of research.