The course introduces the fundamentals of designing, executing and reporting on outcomes of HCI experiments. Lectures are conducted as interactive seminars where students read, analyse and discuss chosen scientific publications. This approach will ensure that students gain a practical understanding of the typical structure of experiments. Additionally, multiple theoretical aspects of scientific experiments will be shared during class sessions to complement the course's practical nature. Lastly, to show the students that experiments, and studies are not merely part of academia but have far-reaching applications to industry, real-world case studies will also be discussed as part of the class. 

By the end of the course, students should be able to read and understand academic text's purpose. Furthermore, students will be capable of proposing, executing and reporting on a scientific experiment for either internal or external peer reviews.

The students:

• Can evaluate experimental research studies. 
• Independently design experiments to test hypotheses 
• Independently conduct experiments with participants 
• Use statistics to interpret and report on results 

The students:

• Can identify open study areas from conducting literature reviews.
• Improve problem-solving skills by independently making decisions about the trajectory which a study must take.
• Can identify whether an experiment will follow a quantitative or qualitative approach  
• Can formulate research questions and identify hypotheses from the identified research question.
• Can independently plan and document the steps to follow in order to answer the research question.
• Use quantitative analysis to interpret experiment results OR use qualitative analysis to formulate further questions and hypotheses.

The students:

• Can ask questions and critique data in an academic manner.
• Can present results from their work succinctly and respond well to criticism and questions.

The students:

• Can appreciate that experiments and studies can be iterative and that results may not always play into the experiment owners' beliefs.

Recommended reading: 

• Andy Field and Graham Hole – How to design and report experiments, Sage 2010.

Supporting literature: 

• Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Heidi Feng and Harry Hochheiser – Research methods in Human Computer Interaction Cambridge 2017.
• Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction -  Helen Sharp, Yvonne Rodgers and Jenny Preece.

Registration for the module takes place in the first semester weeks via the learning management system Stud.IP. The students will receive detailed information on attendance, tasks and dates in the first course at the beginning of the semester as well as in the learning management system Stud.IP.