SBIR Phase I:An Online Platform for Social Science Research with Human Subjects

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will provide a platform for performing online research in the social and behavioral sciences and will connect researchers with a large and population of participants across the globe. Most social science research is currently limited by the difficulty of recruiting large or diverse populations of human subjects within a limited geographical area and the difficulty of scheduling time for researchers and participants to meet in the laboratory. This application will allow many researchers to move their studies out of the laboratory and online, potentially reducing the time and money spent on recruiting and managing subjects. This project will also address whether the data obtained through this platform are suitably reliable for research purposes, as well as investigating whether a participant population of sufficient size and diversity can be attracted to and retained to make the application useful for social scientists. If research results are favorable, the company anticipates that a substantial portion of social science research will move from the laboratory online. This project, if successful, will have broad impacts in the areas of social science research by increasing the speed of performing studies -- potentially by orders of magnitude -- and the geographical diversity of the populations surveyed. Right now these fields often struggle to find sufficient numbers of subjects for their studies, and many social scientists draw their subject primarily from college populations, leading to concerns about the generalizability of their results. Because of the potential savings in time and resources, this tool has enormous value to social science researchers and research institutions. Fields of research such as psychology, linguistics, sociology, and economics provide insight into human minds and individual and social behavior, as well as having important applications to areas of widespread concern including education, health and economic growth.