CHARLES RIVER ANALYTICS, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: SB162-003

Description

To better understand the world around them, social scientists develop models and theories of human behavior and interaction that they empirically test through a variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques. However, current methodological paradigms often introduce biases through sampling constraints and data analysis techniques that make the results of social science experiments hard to replicate, validate, and generalize. Augmenting existing approaches with tools that provide methodological guidance and deeper insights into the relationships between experimental design and outcomes across the research community can help mitigate some of these biases and lead to more reliable results. To address these requirements, we propose to design and demonstrate a Platform for Research Optimization and Creation of Experiments in Social Science (PROCESS). PROCESS is a community-driven platform that supports information sharing among social scientists, meta-analysis of empirical research, and workflows for adaptive experimental design.