New study checklist

This is a To Do Checklist for setting up studies. It should be used as a guide for the decisions you will make as you plan your study and for what must be documented about your study in a study binder. You will discuss each step of this list with Krista, down to the smallest detail, before you actually implement your study. More details on many of these steps are provided in other sections below.

Hypothesis & organization

• Determine question/hypothesis and state it clearly. Consider the background of the work: the impact of the work, future questions it could lead to, its relationship to other questions being asked in the lab, etc.

• Determine who you might collaborate with inside and outside the lab, and consider where responsibilities (and eventually authorship) might lie. In other words, identify your team members and their roles.

• Prepare a study timeline to complete all aspects included in this checklist, in consideration of academic & external deadlines.

• Add your study to the lab Trello under "studies under development"

Procedure

• Decide on type of procedure: eye tracking, habituation, anticipatory eye movements, preferential looking, etc.

• Decide on population of participants: age, language background (monolingual, bilingual, and required exposure to each language), etc.

• Select a reasonable target sample size.

• Specify details of procedure: ISI, trial length, nature of auditory and visual stimuli, pre- and post-test, window of analysis, etc.

• Determine the hardware and software necessary for running your procedure. Become familiar with their setup (including wiring, troubleshooting) and use. Include all details about your setup in your binder (see below).

• Determine the questionnaires that you will need for your study. These could include

• Demographics questionnaire (mandatory for all babies)

• Bilingualism questionnaire

• Language mixing questionnaire

• English CDI vocabulary checklist (must specify which of the 2 versions)

• French CDI vocabulary checklist (must specify which of the 2 versions)

• Study-specific questions (e.g. do babies know all the stimuli used in your study)

• Agree upon all details with Krista, and create written documentation for the reasoning behind your decisions (include in Binder). This could include formal explanation as well as printouts of e-mails, etc.

Ethics

• Check with staff or Krista that all aspects of your study fall within current ethics approvals.

• If not, draft and submit ethics amendments in collaboration with staff and Krista.

• Include copy of Ethics approval for your study in your binder (see below).

• Coordinate with the Psychology Department Participant Pool if testing adults, http://psychology.concordia.ca/researchandcentres/participantpool/

Stimuli

• Finalize all aspects of planned stimuli. Create a list of necessary visual and auditory stimuli.

• If needed record auditory stimuli. This may require locating a “voice actor” with specific characteristics. Typically, we use a female native speaker with pleasant infant-directed speech. Make sure to prepare a script for actor that does not reveal experimental hypotheses.

• Edit auditory stimuli to suit needs (use Praat or Audacity). Be sure to consider all of the variables that need to be controlled (pitch, duration, naturalness, etc.). There may be other lab members available to help you with this.

• Locate or create visual stimuli (use GIMP). The images that you need may already be available in the lab stimulus bank. There may be other lab members available to help you to make new stimuli.

• If necessary, combine auditory and visual stimuli into videos (use Lightworks). Determine based on the software you’re using the type of movie files and codecs that are best.

• Document nature of stimuli and include this in your binder (and how to make them if it is a useful/new procedure).

• Have Krista listen to and/or watch and approve ALL stimuli. It’s a good idea to do this one piece at a time (approve visual, auditory, and then combined video stimuli)

Training, equipment, & pilot testing

• Make sure that you have the proper training on all procedures and questionnaires (particularly the bilingualism questionnaire).

• Ensure that you are familiar with and trained on all equipment (computers, eye trackers, cameras, sound meter, etc.), and are prepared to troubleshoot should something go wrong.

• Setup all aspects of study on experimental computer in the room you will be using and ensure that all aspects of technology are running smoothly.

Study Binder (see also documentation specifically about study binders)

• Set up binder: label the outside in an informative way including your name, the year, the study name and ages. Make relevant sections as needed.

• Write protocol for greeting and explaining study to parents (put in binder).

• Write protocol for running study and saving results (put in binder).

• Explain your experimental design and stimuli.

• Include documentation for hardware and software and their settings required to run experiment.

• You know that your binder is complete if anyone can later look into the binder and get all the information they need to run a baby at a moment’s notice, or to replicate your exact study and justify all aspects of it in 10 years.

Coordination with lab staff

• Name your study with a short, unique, and transparent code to be used in the database and on visit packages. Communicate study name to staff.

• Notify staff of needs for babies in terms of numbers, ages, language background, etc.

• It may be necessary for you to coordinate recruitment of babies for testing.

• Notify staff of the questionnaires necessary for your study.

• Notify staff of your schedule for testing babies. Make sure to keep your schedule updated on the Google Calendar.

• Keep staff updated as your study progresses, and your needs for babies change.

Running participants (see also documentation specifically about running participants)

• Be in the lab to set up no less than 30 minutes prior to time for study.

• Ensure that a an assistant will be there for each testing session. There should always be two lab members present to act as back-up to each other while you are testing a baby.

• Treat parents/babies like gold.

Post-processing

• Ensure important study files are appropriately backed up. Check with lab staff.

• Organize all study materials into lab digital archive. Include all stimuli, data files, SPSS files, videos, complete participant lists, etc.

• Burn a DVD of relevant files and put in study binder.

• Discuss data processing & analysis with Krista.

• Determine coding details and discuss with Krista

• If applicable, compress movies once coded. Ensure all files are stored and archived properly.

Analysis & dissemination

• Organize and run analyses.

• Discuss results & interpretation with Krista.

• Write blurb for newsletter.

• Write summary of study for binder.

• Prepare paper/thesis, get feedback.

• Consider conference presentations and publication in journals. Discuss authorship with Krista. See also APA guidelines http://www.apa.org/research/responsible/publication/index.aspx

Congratulations on a carefully conducted study!!