EAGER/Collaborative Research: Demonstrating the Importance of Research Setting Representativeness in Systems Engineering and Design Research

这项早期概念探索性研究补助金(EIGER)支持对决定研究环境是否充分代表现实世界系统工程和设计情况的因素的基础研究。设计复杂的工程系统，如关键基础设施、资本密集型项目和国防系统，涉及到由数百到数千人组成的大型设计团队，时间跨度长达数十年。这个项目解决了使用更简单、更短的持续时间和更受控制的研究环境来理解这种复杂工程系统的设计的根本问题。本项目的研究目标是探索建立和验证研究背景代表性的标准，以评估一个研究背景的结果是否可以推广到其他研究背景，以及推广到其他研究背景的程度。如果成功，这项工作将通过评估研究环境在多大程度上以及在哪些方面代表真正的研究环境，通过严格的方法学基础实现更有效的知识聚合，从而改变社区的研究。这个基础将通过改进不同方法论视角的研究结果的有效性评估，丰富系统工程和设计社区内的经验性和理论驱动型研究。作为该项目的一个重要组成部分，成果将通过在社区专题会议上的演讲和讲习班向不同受众传播。传播和社区建设活动将促进围绕需要共享标准和共识的持续对话，以便从不同的研究环境和方法方法中获得各种知识。这项高风险、高回报工作的核心智力贡献是确定研究背景代表性的维度，了解它们如何影响研究研究的设计和执行，并展示一种产生关于代表性的洞察力的方法。两项试点研究将探索航天器设计过程的不同维度的代表性。第一个试点研究将把真实的航天器设计过程与并行设计环境进行比较，其中一个较小的团队在较短的时间范围内工作。第二个试点研究将比较一个完全抽象的函数优化游戏和一个更具代表性的游戏，后者在优化问题中模拟航天器的背景和技术依赖性。试点研究将证明研究研究背景代表性对设计师行为的影响的可行性。研究背景的代表性可能无法很好地描述，这是该项目的一个主要风险因素。然而，潜在的回报同样很高。如果成功，该项目的结果有望为多方法、多尺度的研究提供基础，使研究人员能够通过不同的研究方法解读、评估和建立彼此的S成果。这将改变研究界，并使新的发现远远超过目前的研究能力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) grant supports fundamental research into the factors that determine whether a research setting is sufficiently representative of real-world systems engineering and design situations. Designing complex engineering systems such as critical infrastructure, capital-intensive projects, and national defense systems involves large design teams consisting of hundreds to thousands of individuals over timescales reaching into decades. This project addresses the fundamental issue of understanding the design of such complex engineering systems using simpler, shorter-duration, and more controlled research settings. The research objective of this project is to explore the creation and validation of standards for research setting representativeness to assess whether and the extent to which findings from one research setting can be extend to others. If successful, this work will transform research in the community by enabling more efficient knowledge aggregation through a rigorous methodological foundation for assessing how well, and in what dimensions, research settings represent their real counterparts. This foundation will enrich empirical and theory-driven research within the systems engineering and design community by improving validity assessment of research outcomes across diverse methodological perspectives. As a crucial component of this project, results will be disseminated to diverse audience through presentations and workshops at community-specific conferences. Dissemination and community-building activities will foster an ongoing conversation around the need for shared standards and consensus for the kinds of knowledge to be gained from diverse research settings and methodological approaches. The core intellectual contributions of this high-risk high-reward work are to identify dimensions of research setting representativeness, understand how they impact design and execution of research studies, and demonstrate a methodology to generate insights regarding representativeness. Two pilot studies will probe varying dimensions of representativeness for a spacecraft design process. The first pilot study will compare the real spacecraft design process to a concurrent design environment with a smaller team working on a shorter timescale. The second pilot study will compare a fully abstracted function optimization game to a more representative game that models the context and technical dependencies of a spacecraft in the optimization problem. The pilot studies will demonstrate the viability of studying the effects of research setting representativeness on designer behaviors. The potential exists that research setting representativeness is impractical to characterize well, which is a principal risk factor for this project. However, the potential reward is equally high. If successful, results from this project are expected to provide the foundation of multi-method, multi-scale research, allowing researchers to interpret, evaluate, and build on each other?s results across different research methodologies. This would transform the research community and enable new discoveries that far exceed current research capabilities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.