Beschreibung des Workshops
Experimental research designs ideally enable researchers to test hypotheses and, by this, alternative explanations against each other regarding an assumed causal relation between independent and dependent variables. The content of this seminar thus covers the principles as well as pitfalls of experimental designs that are carried out in behavioral laboratories, the ideal place to control for potential confounding context variables. Such designs are commonly used in (economic and social)psychological and behavioral economics research. What’s also covered in this course are quasi-experimental (or “natural”) designs (often applied in field-experiments) and multifactorial designs in surveys, which are more common in applied research.
Consequently, this course will impart knowledge about how to verify hypotheses, falsify and confirm such experimentally. We will discuss problems of a) proper manipulation by controlling adequately for potential sources of confounding effects, b) operationalization, and c) measurement, including social desirability, demand and experimenter effects. We will learn about one- and multifactorial designs plus interpreting main and interaction effects of such factors; plus about the pro and cons of between and within-subject designs. We will discuss the important questions of generalizability, (ecological) validity and replicability of experimental findings. And, of course, ethical problems of experimental designs and the respective caveats will find their prominent place in the schedule. We will apply this knowledge in short application projects, sketched during the workshop.
Topics are: Ethics and Experiments; Logical and Philosophical Foundations of Experimental Research; Human Participants in Laboratory Experiments; Common Problems and Solutions in Experiments; Hypotheses, Operationalizations, and Manipulation Checks; Multifactorial Experiments in Surveys; Experiments on Exchange Relations and Exchange Networks; Social Dilemma Experiments, Economic Games for Social Scientist. 

Organizational structure of the course: 

• This workshop is a blended learning course: participants are expected to work trough material during a self-learning phase before the workshop actually takes place. Participants receive topics individually (or as dyad) during an online kick-off meeting about one month in advance, based on the chapters of the following book: Murray Webster, Jr. and Jane Sell (Edt.) (2014). Laboratory Experiments in the Social Sciences. www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780124046818/laboratory-experiments-in-the-social-sciences
• Participants then are asked to become so familiar with their topic that they are able to give a short presentation on its most important aspects with regards to the task of designing an experiment, on the first day of the workshop.
• On the second day we will work on sketches of experimental designs, handcrafted for those research question you come up with, stemming from your own area of research. The idea here is to build first prototypes and share and discuss these with all participants (also as experts for their prepared topic). By this, we will enhance these designs further together, up to a point where they might serve as a pilot study in the lab or field.

Zielgruppe: 
Promovierende des PK NRW, die sich für ihre wirtschafts- und (sozial-)psychologischen und verhaltensökonomischen Forschung mit (Quasi-)Experimentellen und multifaktoriellen Designs zur Beantwortung ihrer Forschungsfrage auseinandersetzen wollen.  

Dauer des Workshops:

Kick-off-Meeting | 1,5 Std

Tag 1: 20.03.24, 09:00 bis 17:00 Uhr

Tag 2: 21.03.24, 09:00 bis 17:00 Uhr

Anmeldungen per email an uum@org.pknrw.de.