5. Specify your methods

By this time you have chosen a research question to study and have reviewed the research literature to determine what is already known about your question. In Task 4, you also specified, in general terms, which and how many experimental conditions you will have – that is your experimental design.

The experimental design specified a part of your method: the conditions in which you will observe the participants. When you analyze your data with the technique called Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), you have to know which factors are in the design, how many levels of each, and whether they are between- or within-subjects factors. So, the experimental design is also a plan for how you will do your statistical analyses after the data has been collected. This is no coincidence.

You’ve already thought about most of the components of your data collection method: the participants, the materials, the tasks. The next step in specifying your methods is to describe in more detail each of the following components of how you will collect data. This will help you put all of the information together in the same place to finish planning your experiment.

Here is an overview of the kinds of information that will have to provide. Later sections have more information about each component of your experiment.

1. Participants	Describe the participants. Who will participate? How many people will you need? What characteristics do they need to have? Why did you choose these?
2. Materials	Choose and describe all the materials. Why did you choose these? Where did you get them? a. Stimuli. What will they use for the task? Why these stimuli? b. Test materials. What will you test the participants with? Why these tests? c. Background questionnaire. What information will you get from each participant? Why?
3. Procedure	What will happen when during data collection and analysis? a. Tasks. What will the participants have to do? Why these tasks? b. Setting. Where will the participants be tested? Why these settings? c. Measurements. What will you be measuring? How will you be measuring it? Why? d. Analyses. How will you organize and analyze the data? You will also need to put together a Script with your instructions and actions during data collection.

Keep in mind that you are specifying your methods so that you know exactly what you will do at every step of your data collection and analysis. As with other plans, however, when they’re put into practice, reality has a way of forcing you to change them.

Homework:
Write up and submit the following items:

• a. A written Methods section with all three parts:
•   Participants, Materials, Procedure plus the appendices:
•      - Appendix A: Background questionnaire
•      - Appendix B: Consent form
•      - Appendix C: Stimuli
•      - Appendix D: Testing materials
• b. A full List of APA-formatted references for any research that you cited in your Methods section. For example, sources of your materials, experiments with similar techniques, standardized tests, etc. if you cited them.
• c. Your Data Collection Script [separate from your Methods section]

What you need to do:

• 5.1 Decide how to measure your sub-process
• 5.2 Plan how to work with your Participants
•      5.2a Define and find your participants
•      5.2b Choose a sample of the possible participants
•      5.2c Assign the participants to your experimental conditions
• 5.3 Develop your materials
• 5.4 Plan your procedures
• 5.5 Review your Methods
• 5.6 Write up your Methods

Remember to ask as many questions (using this web site!) as you need to understand everything clearly.

Read this topic next:

Decide how to measure your sub-process