Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS): Proposal for Renewed Support, 2012-2015

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) is a platform for conducting social science survey experiments fielded on probability-based samples of United States adults. TESS was established in 2001 and capitalizes on economies of scale to enable scholars from across the social sciences, on a competitive basis, to conduct ground-breaking research on issues of broad theoretical and practical importance. The intellectual merit of TESS is closely connected to its successes in enabling social scientists to collect original population-based experimental data in a timely manner; promoting better understanding of fundamental social, political and economic questions; maximizing financial efficiency by pooling expenses for otherwise separate studies; and offering mentoring and educational resources. The new initiatives extend educational aspects of TESS, broaden TESS' population of proposers, enable TESS to contribute to assessing the value of probability sampling for experimental inference, and enhance the review process to ensure the highest quality studies. The broader impacts of TESS are wide-ranging. Since its inception, TESS has provided more than 400 social, behavioral, and economic researchers with the opportunity to conduct original experiments, testing a broad range of innovative hypotheses. Proposals are solicited on a continuous basis, undergo rigorous peer review, and involve Internet-based data collection with a representative national sample. The project provides an enormous gain in efficiency since costs of sampling, data collection, and data management are distributed across studies. To date, TESS has conducted over 270 population-based experiments, across disciplines including sociology, psychology, political science, communication, economics, judgment and decision making, law, public health, communication, psychiatry, and others. By providing a common platform for population based experiments, TESS efficiently enables innovative scholars to identify causal dynamics that advance knowledge on topics such as investment behavior, judicial legitimacy, voting turnout, trust, and many more. TESS also facilitates methodological advances to topics such as the effects of web-tracking on survey response and the optimal ways to measure sensitive attitudes. TESS promotes teaching, training, and learning at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students regularly submit proposals, many of which are funded. Even when not funded, however, students receive detailed feedback on their research at the critical design stage. TESS broadens the participation of underrepresented groups, both as investigators and research participants. At the heart of TESS' mission is the democratization of access to high quality, original experimental data, thereby putting the power of population-based experiments in the hands of researchers from all backgrounds, all academic institutions, and all career stages. And because the TESS data collection platform involves a representative sample, the results of TESS projects reflect the broad diversity of the United States.