Over the past several years, the social sciences have been taking some pretty large hits. And in 2011, a psychologist at the University of Virginia wanted to investigate if these issues were widespread or focused on one area.

It has taken a few years, but the results are in.

The researchers say, “A large portion of replications produced weaker evidence for the original findings,” in a new survey, which has been published this week in the journal Science.

The researchers have called this study “The Reproducibility Project: Psychology,” and has been headed up by researcher Brian Nosek, who is a social psychologist at the University of Virginia.

Nosek comments that the latest results are actually not all that surprising or alarming—they remind that this is just the way science works.

Nosek also notes, “Any temptation to interpret these results as a defeat for psychology, or science more generally, must contend with the fact that this project demonstrates science behaving as it should,” in an interview with The Washington Post.

And Nosek is disappointed by the results. He recently also said, “There is no doubt that I would have loved for the effects to be more reproducible. I am disappointed, in the sense that I think we can do better.”

In addition, the UV psychology professor tells, “For years there has been concern about the reproducibility of scientific findings, but little direct, systematic evidence. This project is the first of its kind and adds substantial evidence that the concerns are real and addressable.”

Finally, team member Anup Gampa comments, “With this project we established an initial estimate of the rate of reproducibility in psychology, and identified some evidence of possible influences on reproducibility. This sets the stage for new research to examine how to improve reproducibility.”