Block C – Designing and Running Experiments

Block C walks you through the basic methodology of experimental research and also teaches you how to use an online tool to develop and run your experiments. The block lasts 4 days and is worth 2 ECTS.


Firstly, we will discuss basic principles of experiments and experimental games.


Second day is dedicated to internal and external validity of experiments, i.e. the certainity that the tested relationship is not influenced by unknown variables and the extent to which those findings can be applied to other situations.


On the third day we will take you through the process of pre-registration and show you how to write instructions for participants.


And on the last day of the block we will dive into working with Lioness Lab, a free web-based platform for interactive online experiments.


See more information below.

ECTS
2
Level
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Site
Face-to-Face & Online

Lecturers

Vojtěch Zíka

CEBEX
Czech Republic

Jan Hausfeld

Amsterdam School of Economics
Netherlands

Course details

Schedule


The block is scheduled on days 9–12 of the summer school and consists of 20 hours of lectures. Each lecture lasts 60 minutes. Morning lectures start at 9:00 and finish at 12:40. Afternoon lectures start at 14:00 and finish at 16:20. The break after each lecture lasts 30 minutes. All times are in Central European Summer Time (CEST).


Topics


Day 9 – Introduction to laboratory experiments and randomized control trials


- Life cycle of an experiment

- Basic principles of laboratory experiments and RCTs

- Basic experimental games


Day 10 – Validity


- Internal validity (selection of participants, sample size, confounds in treatment, the role of anonymity)

- External validity (stake sizes, WEIRD subject pools)


Day 11 – Instructions and pre-registration


- Writing the experimental instructions

- Pre-registration of an experimental study


Day 12 – Lioness Lab


- Introduction to Lioness Lab

- Preparing an experiment


ECTS requirements


To obtain 2 ECTS, you need to attend the lectures and take a final exam based on lectures and selected chapters of mandatory literature. The exam will be in the form of an online test and will take place after the end of the program.


Literature


- Field, A., & Hole, G. (2003). How to design and report experiments. Sage.

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