Assignment #9: Final Experiment Sign-off
Before you can start inviting subjects to participate in your experiment, you need to have your complete protocol approved. This is to be done by Friday, April 18 which would give you about a week to run your experiments. But you are free to get your experiment approved as soon as you are ready.
Your complete protocol description should include all of the following materials.
1) Experiment design: This is an iteration on Assignment #8.
a) Your research question
b) The conditions/groups of your experiment (IVs)
c) Is it between or within groups
d) What data will you collect (DVs). If these are behavioral measures, describe the method that will be used to log the data, what software will be used, what machine will store the data. If these are observational measures, describe the data that will be used for observation (video? audio? something else?) and the protocol that will be used to tag the data. If these are questionnaire data, list the exact wording of the question that you plan to use.
e) What methods will be used for data analysis?
f) What are your hypotheses about your DVs?
2) Instructions to Subjects:
Write a script of what the experimenter (you) will say to each subject before the study begins. It is important that you explain the study in the same way to every subject. This helps to remove any bias that you might introduce between conditions.
If there are multiple parts to your study (for example a within groups study). Your script should include a description of how each section will be introduced, etc.
3) Informed Consent:
Include a copy of the informed consent document that will be collected from each participant.
4) Solicitation:
Provide a description of how you will solicit participation in the study. For example, the text of an email that you will send. List particular mailing lists that you have in mind for solicitation.
5) Questionnaires/Structured Interviews:
If your dependent variables include questionnaire data or structured interview responses, please include the exact document that you will use to solicit this information.
6) Physical description:
Describe the physical details of your experiment. Where will it be located? How will the hardware and any peripheral devices be situated?
7) Demo:
Before signing-off on your experiment, I’d like to see a demonstration. When you submit these materials, also indicate some times that you are available to demo your experimental setup.
Final Experiment Sign-off
anytime before Friday April 18, 2008.
