Running Behavioral Experiments With Human Participants: A Practical Guide provides a concrete, practical roadmap for the implementation of experiments and controlled observation using human participants. Covering both conceptual and practical issues critical to implementing an experiment, the book is organized to follow the standard process in experiment-based research, covering such issues as potential ethical problems, risks to validity, experimental setup, running a study, and concluding a study.

The detailed guidance on each step of an experiment is ideal for those in both universities and industry who have had little or no previous practical training in research methodology. The book provides example scenarios to help readers organize how they run experimental studies and anticipate problems, and example forms that can serve as effective initial “recipes.” Examples and forms are drawn from areas such as cognitive psychology, human factors, human-computer interaction, and human-robotic interaction.

Potential Ethical Problems

Potential ethical problems

Ethical issues arise when the individuals in a situation have different interests and perspectives. Your interests as a researcher may at times differ from those of your subjects, colleagues, project sponsors, or the broader scientific community, or general public. People are often surprised when ethical concerns arise in the course of scientific research, because they see their own intentions and interests as good. Despite good intentions, however, ethical issues can become ethical problems if they are not considered in the planning and conduct of an experiment. This chapter is concerned with understanding and handling potential ethical concerns.

It is certainly helpful to understand “official” ethical guidelines such as those published by the American Psychological Association (http://www.apa.org) or those guidelines you will ...

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