Decision-Making Under Uncertainty in Research Synthesis: Designing for the Garden of Forking Paths
arXiv:1901.02957
Abstract
To make evidence-based recommendations to decision-makers, researchers conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses must navigate a garden of forking paths: a series of analytical decision-points, each of which has the potential to influence findings. To identify challenges and opportunities related to designing systems to help researchers manage uncertainty around which of multiple analyses is best, we interviewed 11 professional researchers who conduct research synthesis to inform decision-making within three organizations. We conducted a qualitative analysis identifying 480 analytical decisions made by researchers throughout the scientific process. We present descriptions of current practices in applied research synthesis and corresponding design challenges: making it more feasible for researchers to try and compare analyses, shifting researchers' attention from rationales for decisions to impacts on results, and supporting communication techniques that acknowledge decision-makers' aversions to uncertainty. We identify opportunities to design systems which help researchers explore, reason about, and communicate uncertainty in decision-making about possible analyses in research synthesis.
This paper will be published in Proceedings of CHI Conference on HumanFactors in Computing Systems Proceedings (CHI 2019). Expected DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300432 Updates posted on 01/14/2019 in order to clarify limitations of framing researcher decision-making as expected utility maximization