POP77034 Experimental Methods for Social Scientists
Hilary Term 2023
Dr Noah Buckley
Experimental design part 1 assignment
Devise and describe the basic setup of a social science experiment you would like to conduct. It
should be a new idea that would in some way inform our understanding of our social/political
world, broadly construed. It should be a feasible experiment, even if you won’t actually be
conducting the experiment.
Your experimental design should briefly outline the following elements:
1. What the topic is and why it is important to study with an experiment
a. Connect your experiment to theory about how the world works as much as
possible
2. Your research question
a. This should be precisely and succinctly stated. This is harder than you think!
3. Your measurement strategy
a. How will you measure the outcome of your experiment?
b. Will you need a manipulation check and how will you do that?
4. The population you will be studying
a. Why this population? How will you get access to this population?
b. How will you generate your sample from the population?
5. Basic power calculations (or guesses)
a. What sort of sample size do you think you will need? How big an effect do you
expect?
6. Ethical considerations—you must address this, even if your experiment has no ethical
risks
Due by 11:59pm on Sunday, March 26 to Blackboard.
This assignment should be around 400-800 words in length, double-spaced in 12pt font.