Wednesday, April 10 | Noon to 1 p.m. | Ruffner G006
A New Framework for Evidence-Based Decision-Making
Given the central role of replication in the accumulation of scientific knowledge, researchers try to replicate seemingly well-established findings. Mounting evidence, however, suggests that results from many studies are fragile and hard to replicate.
The so-called "replication crisis" has important implications for evidence-based decision-making in the health and social sciences. At the same time, there is intense debate about what constitutes a successful replication and why certain types of replication rates are so low. A crucial set of questions for evidence-based decision-making involve questions about external validity and replicability. We need to understand the contexts and conditions under which interventions produce similar outcomes.
Join us for a talk with Vivian Wong, a research methodologist in the Curry School of Education, who will discuss ways to address these challenges, introduce a novel framework that provides a clear definition of replication, and highlights the conditions under which results are likely to replicate (Wong & Steiner, 2018). Wong will present replication as a prospective research design, and argue that replication designs are feasible, desirable, and relevant in real world settings that are important for evidence-based decision-making.