Abstract
<p>A growing body of methodological literature suggests that simulation studies are affected by issues similar to those underlying the replication crisis in empirical research, including inadequate reporting practices and the exploitation of researcher degrees of freedom (RDF). Open Science practices originally developed for empirical research have therefore been proposed as potential remedies. In this paper, we propose a template for transparently documenting the entire life-cycle of a simulation study. It is structured in three parts: (1) a Statement of Intent that can be used to specify and preregister hypotheses and core design choices early in the process; (2) a Piloting Documentation that records all explored simulation settings, including any choices not selected for the final study; and (3) a Final Documentation that supports honest reporting and reproducibility of the published results. Together, these components aim to improve the planning, documentation, and reporting of simulation studies. We motivate the template by discussing parallels and differences between empirical and simulation research. We argue that while exploitable RDF in empirical studies arise primarily during data analysis, simulation study RDF appear primarily during the design and piloting stages. Documenting all explored conditions therefore helps to make decisions in simulation research more transparent.</p>