Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Best Practice Recommendations For Replicating Experiments In Public Administration, Richard M. Walker, Gene A. Brewer, M. Jin Lee, Nicolai Petrovsky, Arjen Van Witteloostuijn

Public Policy and Administration Faculty Publications

Replication is an important mechanism through which broad lessons for theory and practice can be drawn in the applied interdisciplinary social science field of public administration. We suggest a common replication framework for public administration that is illustrated by experimental work in the field. Drawing on knowledge from other disciplines, together with our experience in replicating several experiments on topics such as decision making, organizational rules, and government–citizen relationships, we provide an overview of the replication process. We then distill this knowledge into seven decision points that offer a clear set of best practices on how to design and implement …