Page 17 - The Importance of Common Metrics for Advacing Social Science Theory and Research

The Importance of Common Metrics for Advancing Social Science Theory and Research: A Workshop Summary
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13034.html

INTRODUCTION 5

ABOUT THIS REPORT
This report is a summary of the 2 days of presentations and discus-
sions that took place during the workshop. The workshop participants
included the members of the committee that planned the workshop, along
with invited speakers and a number of other participants. A complete list
of participants is in Appendix A.

Report Limitations
It is important to be specific about the nature of this report, which
documents the information presented in the workshop presentations and
discussions. Its purpose is to lay out the key ideas that emerged from the
workshop and should be viewed as an initial step in examining the research
and applying it in specific policy circumstances. The report is confined to
the material presented by the workshop speakers and participants.
A separate volume is planned of the papers presented at the workshop.
Readers are directed to that compilation for a more nearly complete list
of references than is included in this report. The papers in the form they
were submitted for the workshop are available online at http://www7.
nationalacademies.org/dbasse/Workshop_on_Common_Metrics_Agenda.
html. Authors may have later versions.
Neither the workshop nor this summary is intended as a comprehensive
review of what is known about the topic, although it is a general reflection
of the field. The presentations and discussions were limited by the time
available for the workshop. A more comprehensive review and synthesis of
relevant research knowledge will have to await further development.
This report was prepared by a rapporteur and does not represent find-
ings or recommendations that can be attributed to the planning committee.
Also, the workshop was not designed to generate consensus conclusions or
recommendations but focused instead on the identification of ideas, themes,
and considerations that contribute to understanding the topic.

Structure and Organization

The organization of the report closely follows that of the 2-day work-
shop. Chapter 2 begins with an overview of measurement in the social sci-
ences, followed by presentations on the challenges involved in developing
common metrics and lessons from the economic sciences and the health
sciences. These presentations provided a sampling of past experience with
common measurements in both the policy domains and in terms of research
on some of the core concepts in a diversity of social science fields.
Chapter 3 takes up the issues involved in indicators used for policy

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