Web tools for cognitive anthropology

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0244104BERNARDThis project will make it possible for anthropological researchers to collect data, over the Internet, using the Educara Survey system. The system includes methods from cognitive science including the collection of free lists, pile sorts, paired comparisons, triad tests, and frame substitutions. With the new system created in this project people will interact, online, from anywhere in the world, with a set of cards that they see laid out on the screen, and move the cards, with a mouse, into piles, just as they would in a face-to-face pile sort task. The system being developed in this research also builds Internet-based surveys. For example, a researcher gives the system a list of items for a pile sort and the system builds a pile sort module. People who are logged onto the Internet see a screen with the pile sort items arranged randomly and move the cards into piles, just as they would in a face-to- face pile sort. The system records the information and produces data that can be read by standard programs for analysis. Broader ImpactsTypically, research done with the tools in the new system is done with a small number of respondents. With the Internet-based tools, scholars across the social sciences (including basic researchers in anthropology, sociology, and social psychology, as well as applied researchers in marketing, nursing, and education) will be able to use the new system for studies with respondents around the world. The system will also make teaching and practicing these methods much easier. With computer-based instruction, it will be possible to teach the full range of qualitative and quantitative research methods to students anywhere in the world.