Applied Experimental Research

This course will be unusual in the sense that it will involve very little lecturing. Instead, we will focus squarely on students’ development of their own research ideas, interests, questions, theories, and hypotheses. We will begin by considering William J. McGuire’s post-Popperian philosophy of science and his perspectivist method of planning and implementing programmatic research in the social and behavioral sciences. The focus of this method is on creative hypothesis generation and theory building rather than on hypothesis testing and theory disconfirmation per se.

Specifically, students will complete a series of written exercises designed to clarify the conceptual foundations of their own research programs and, in the process, develop multiple hypotheses concerning nonobvious empirical relationships among independent, dependent, mediating, and moderating variables that are of genuine theoretical interest. Students will be asked to present their hypotheses to the rest of the class, and we will engage in group discussion and constructive evaluation.

We will discuss the major advantages of developing experimental programs of research in the social and behavioral sciences, such as leveraging the method of strong inference, and the four stages of experimentation, namely: (l) setting the stage for the experiment, (2) constructing the independent variable, (3) measuring the dependent variable, and (4) planning the post-experimental follow-up. We will work on developing meaningful operationalizations of variables, including manipulations as well as measurement strategies, and we will seek to avoid and overcome common methodological problems or “impurities,” which can introduce interpretational (and rhetorical) threats and ambiguities. Students will be asked to present their experimental designs to the rest of the class, and we will engage in group discussion and constructive evaluation.

Based on feedback at several stages, students will work to refine their hypotheses, research designs, and experimental procedures, with the eventual long-term goal of independently conducting sophisticated, theory-driven programs of research on interesting ideas of their own choosing.

Note from the Academic Convenors to prospective participants: by registering to this course, you certify that you possess the prerequisite knowledge that is requested to be able to follow this course. The instructor will not teach again these prerequisite items. If you doubt whether you possess that knowledge to a sufficient extent, we suggest you contact the instructor before you proceed to your registration.

All students are expected to have completed ECPR’s “Introduction to Experimental Research in the Social Sciences” which is offered during the first week of the 2018 “ECPR Summer School in Methods and Techniques” or to have obtained equivalent knowledge elsewhere. In addition, it is assumed that students will have already conducted their own empirical research programs (typically in the context of a Ph.D. program in the social sciences) and have ongoing plans to conduct research that lends itself to experimental methods. Students will be asked to present their own ideas for research and to engage in theory building, hypothesis generation, and the design of careful, sophisticated experiments for investigating those hypotheses. This is only possible if workshop participants are actively pursuing empirical research programs in the social and behavioral sciences.