Developing a study: What to consider and basic steps

You will develop new study ideas in collaboration with Krista. Some projects will follow closely from previous project in the lab, either done by you or by another students. Other projects will be more distant. Consideration in developing a new study include a) the interest and importance of the research question, b) feasibility of the study including timeframe and the availability of participants (can be related to overlap with ongoing testing in the lab), c) whether the study can be supported by existing grants. Make sure to speak with Krista early in the development of new ideas - you will co-develop them together. The study development stage can take a surprising amount of time, even just to figure out what the research question or approach should be.

• Starting a Study (please see Server Location: IRL- Lab Documents- Study Set-up To Do List for a document that should be given out to all students involved in new projects)

• • Study Rationale: Each new study should have a document describing the study rationale which would include the research questions the study seeks to answer, relevant articles, and a description of the procedure

  • Design: Based on the study rationale you will need to create documents pertaining to the study design that would include a description of a given order and trial (which you will need to counterbalance), trial length (really important to note the onset of the target word), what kind of study it is (e.g., preferential looking paradigm), type of comparisons you want to make (e.g., within or between subject comparisons), population of interest, age of interest, etc. For all these design and procedural decisions including the rationale (e.g., references) for why this decision was made.