Collaborative Research: Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS)

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) is a platform for conducting survey experiments fielded on probability-based samples of United States adults. TESS capitalizes on the 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 collection 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 broader impacts of TESS are wide-ranging. TESS has allowed a wide variety of scholars to undertake survey experiments that because of cost to single researchers would not be possible. It has also allowed for these scholar's work to be improved by a rigorous review process and mentoring where needed. In addition, all the data collected under the TESS framework is made available on a timely basis in a single archive. The current iteration of TESS also includes running experiments on M-TURK as well as probability-based samples in Europe. Using M-TURK will allow scholars to examine the usefulness of that data collection system as compared to the probability-based samples currently used. It will allow investigators to examine for biases in the data collection processes in the former, which while inexpensive may be severely flawed for some purposes. Examining the results of probability-based analysis in Europe as compared to the United States will allow investigators to study how robust results derived from United States data are. This is especially true of experiments dealing with non-political cases.