An official website of the United States government
The value of information (VoI) provides a rational metric to assess the impact of data in decision processes, including maintenance of engineering systems. According to the principle that “information never hurts”, VoI is guaranteed to be non-negative when a single agent aims at minimizing an expected cost. However, in other contexts such as non-cooperative games, where agents compete against each other, revealing a piece of information to all agents may have a negative impact to some of them, as the negative effect of the competitors being informed and adjusting their policies surpasses the direct VoI. Being aware of this, some agents prefer to avoid having certain information collected, when it must be shared with others, as the overall VoI is negative for them. A similar result may occur for managers of infrastructure assets following the prescriptions of codes and regulations. Modern codes require the probability of some failure events be below a threshold, so managers are forced to retrofit assets if that probability is too high. If the economic incentive of those agents disagrees with the code requirements, the VoI associated with tests or inspections may be negative. In this paper, we investigate under what circumstance this happens, and how severe the effects of this issue can be.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on January 1, 2026
Effects of long-term ecological research and cognitive biases on the evaluation of scientific information by public land managers in Oregon and Washington, USA
Natural resource managers (managers) value and use scientific information to inform their decision-making process in a variety of ways. The scientific information managers use depends on a variety of factors, including the source of the information and ease of access. Barriers, such as paywalls, insufficient capacity, and information overload play an important role in determining what scientific information managers have access and attend to. Additionally, characteristics of managers themselves also influence what scientific information they prioritize and implement. Specific factors likely play an important role in how managers evaluate the utility and strength of scientific information. We examine two potential factors, (1) the number of years of the study as an indicator of research quality, and (2) the cognitive bias to prefer confirming information. We surveyed public land managers in Oregon and Washington, USA and used a 2x2 experimental design to evaluate how time frame and agreement with prior beliefs influences the perceived usefulness of scientific information and the soundness of management prescriptions for three management issues: post-fire salvage logging, variable density thinning of mature growth stands, and translocation of native species as a climate adaptation behavior. We find in general respondents equally value the results of long-term and short-term studies but prefer information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs over information that challenges them. In open-ended responses about the soundness of action prescriptions, we found across all conditions respondents were resistant to adopting a management action because of the results of the example studies. Although previous research has examined the barriers and facilitators to getting managers access to scientific information, our study highlights the ways the mere provisioning of information does not guarantee its use, as managers evaluate information in light of their pre-existing values and beliefs. Scientists, science communicators, and boundary spanners should consider what characteristics managers use to evaluate the usefulness and applicability of information when designing studies and framing and communicating results.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2025755
- PAR ID:
- 10644575
- Publisher / Repository:
- E&S
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecology and Society
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1708-3087
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract Sociopolitical values are an important driver of climate change beliefs, attitudes, and policy preferences. People with “individualist‐hierarchical” values favor individual freedom, competition, and clearly defined social hierarchies, while “communitarian‐egalitarians” value interdependence and equality across gender, age, heritage, and ethnicity. In the US, individualist‐hierarchs generally perceive less risk from climate change and express lower support for actions to mitigate it than communitarian‐egalitarians. Exposure to scientific information does little to change these views. Here, we ask if a widely used experiential simulation,World Climate,can help overcome these barriers.World Climatecombines an engaging role‐play with an interactive computer model of the climate system. We examine pre‐ and post‐World Climatesurvey responses from 2,080 participants in the US and use a general linear mixed model approach to analyze interactions among participants' sociopolitical values and gains in climate change knowledge, affect, and intent to take action. As expected, prior to the simulation, participants holding individualist‐hierarchical values had lower levels of climate change knowledge, felt less urgency, and expressed lower intent to act than those holding communitarian‐egalitarian values. However, individualist‐hierarchs made significantly larger gains across all constructs, particularly urgency, than communitarian‐egalitarians. Participants' sociopolitical values also shifted: those with individualistic‐hierarchical values before the simulation showed a substantial, statistically significant shift toward a communitarian‐egalitarian worldview. Simulation‐based experiences likeWorld Climatemay help reduce polarization and build consensus towards science‐based climate action.more » « less
-
Abstract Interviewers’ postinterview evaluations of respondents’ performance (IEPs) are paradata, used to describe the quality of the data obtained from respondents. IEPs are driven by a combination of factors, including respondents’ and interviewers’ sociodemographic characteristics and what actually transpires during the interview. However, relatively few studies examine how IEPs are associated with features of the response process, including facets of the interviewer-respondent interaction and patterns of responding that index data quality. We examine whether features of the response process—various respondents’ behaviors and response quality indicators—are associated with IEPs in a survey with a diverse set of respondents focused on barriers and facilitators to participating in medical research. We also examine whether there are differences in IEPs across respondents’ and interviewers’ sociodemographic characteristics. Our results show that both respondents’ behaviors and response quality indicators predict IEPs, indicating that IEPs reflect what transpires in the interview. In addition, interviewers appear to approach the task of evaluating respondents with differing frameworks, as evidenced by the variation in IEPs attributable to interviewers and associations between IEPs and interviewers’ gender. Further, IEPs were associated with respondents’ education and ethnoracial identity, net of respondents’ behaviors, response quality indicators, and sociodemographic characteristics of respondents and interviewers. Future research should continue to build on studies that examine the correlates of IEPs to better inform whether, when, and how to use IEPs as paradata about the quality of the data obtained.more » « less
-
Background Effective implementation of technologies into clinical workflow is hampered by lack of integration into daily activities. Normalisation process theory (NPT) can be used to describe the kinds of ‘work’ necessary to implement and embed complex new practices. We determined the suitability of NPT to assess the facilitators, barriers and ‘work’ of implementation of two clinical decision support (CDS) tools across diverse care settings. Methods We conducted baseline and 6-month follow-up quantitative surveys of clinic leadership at two academic institutions’ primary care clinics randomised to the intervention arm of a larger study. The survey was adapted from the NPT toolkit, analysing four implementation domains: sense-making, participation, action, monitoring. Domains were summarised among completed responses (n=60) and examined by role, institution, and time. Results The median score for each NPT domain was the same across roles and institutions at baseline, and decreased at 6 months. At 6 months, clinic managers’ participation domain (p=0.003), and all domains for medical directors (p<0.003) declined. At 6 months, the action domain decreased among Utah respondents (p=0.03), and all domains decreased among Wisconsin respondents (p≤0.008). Conclusions This study employed NPT to longitudinally assess the implementation barriers of new CDS. The consistency of results across participant roles suggests similarities in the work each role took on during implementation. The decline in engagement over time suggests the need for more frequent contact to maintain momentum. Using NPT to evaluate this implementation provides insight into domains which can be addressed with participants to improve success of new electronic health record technologies. Trial registration number NCT02534987 .more » « less
-
Addressing the challenges of wildland fire requires that fire science be relevant to management and integrated into management decisions. Co-production is often touted as a process that can increase the utility of science for management, by involving scientists and managers in knowledge creation and problem solving. Despite the documented benefits of co-production, these efforts face a number of institutional barriers. Further research is needed on how to institutionalise support and incentivise co-production. To better understand how research organisations enable and constrain co-production, this study examined seven co-produced wildland fire projects associated with the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), through in-depth interviews with scientists, managers and community members. Results provide insights into how organisational structures and cultures influence the co-production of fire science. Research organisations like RMRS may be able to institutionalise co-production by adjusting the way they incentivise and evaluate researchers, increasing investment in science delivery and scientific personnel overall, and supplying long-term funding to support time-intensive collaborations. These sorts of structural changes could help transform the culture of fire science so that co-production is valued alongside more conventional scientific activities and products.more » « less
