When social scientists administer surveys and questionnaires, they cannot always count on the scrupulous cooperation of their respondents: It’s human nature to get distracted when faced with a form. So how can researchers sort through what may be unreliable data to identify statistically significant answers to their questions? That’s where Shiyao “Sean” Liu comes in. “I have designed a tool for reducing measurement errors when respondents don’t pay serious attention to online questions,” says Liu, a sixth-year PhD candidate in political science. Through statistical methods he has devised, Liu can…
