How to Run Experiments: A Practical Guide to Research with Human Participants
Frank E. Ritter, Jong W. Kim, Jonathan Howard Morgan, Richard A. Carlson · 2012
Abstract and Preface There are few practical guides on how to prepare and run experiments with human participants in a laboratory setting. In our experience, we have found that students are taught how to design experiments, and how to analyze data in courses such as Design of Experiments and Statistics. On the other hand, the dearth of materials available to students preparing and running experiments has often led to a gap between theory and practice in this area, which is particularly acute outside of psychology departments. Consequently, labs frequently must not only impart these practical skills to students informally, but must also address misunderstandings arising from this divorce of theory and practice in their formal education. This guide presents advice that can help young experimenters and research assistants to run experiments effectively and more comfortably with human participants. In this book, our purpose is to provide hands-on knowledge about and actual procedures for experiments. We hope this book will help students of psychology, engineering, and the sciences to run studies with human participants in a laboratory setting. This will particularly help students (or instructors and researchers) who are not in large departments, or are running participants in departments that do