On Soft Data and Test Evaluation

摘要

The test and evaluation of complex socio-technical systems is difficult. This is especially so when those involved in the testing and evaluation of such systems tend to associate closely with the physical sciences. The social or behavioral sciences have developed methods to address such problems and have shown that these methods are capable of providing rigorous results. A discussion of the worth of qualitative data and an overview of the social science methods likely to be appropriate for evaluating complex systems involving humans is provided. A brief overview of an instance where qualitative data analysis methods proved useful in the evaluation of a military command and control system is discussed in order to illustrate the merit of social science methods for T&E.