scholarly journals Lab-in-the-field experiments: perspectives from research on gender

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lata Gangadharan ◽  
Tarun Jain ◽  
Pushkar Maitra ◽  
Joe Vecci
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Diverse Population ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Gender And Leadership ◽  
Lab Experiments ◽  
Randomised Control Trials

AbstractThis paper highlights the contributions made by lab-in-the-field experiments, which are also known as artefactual, framed and extra-lab experiments. We present a curated sample of lab-in-the-field experiments and discuss how they can be conducted on their own or combined with conventional laboratory experiments, natural experiments, randomised control trials and surveys to provide unique insights into the behaviour of a diverse population. Using our recent research on gender and leadership, we demonstrate how lab-in-the-field experiments have offered new perspectives about gender differences in decision-making. Finally, we outline the ethical and implementational challenges researchers may face while conducting these experiments and share some of the strategies we employed to address them.

8. Experimental Research

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
External Validity ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
The Common ◽  
Internal And External Validity

This chapter explores the principles of experimental research design as well as the issues and problems associated with different aspects of the approach. In particular, it considers the issue of internal and external validity, the common obstacles associated with experimental research, and what can be done to try and avoid or minimize them. The chapter first describes the five steps involved in the classic version of the experimental design before discussing three types of experimental design: laboratory experiments, field experiments, and natural experiments. It also examines the ethical issues that arise from experimental research and concludes by highlighting some of the advantages of experimental research.

Gender differences in follower behavior: An experimental study of reactions to ambitious decision makers

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Larimer ◽  
Rebecca J. Hannagan
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Study ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Male Behavior ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Actual Decision

This study investigates whether observers react negatively to overly ambitious leaders, focusing on whether women are more sensitive than men in their perceptions of the traits of decision makers and whether men and women behave differently as a result of such perceptions. Results from two laboratory experiments show how participants react to ambitious decision makers in simple bargaining scenarios. The results indicate that observers tend to equate ambition for decision-making authority with self-interested, unfair, male behavior. Moreover, observers tend to be less satisfied with a decision made by an ambitious decision maker compared to the same decision made by an unambitious decision maker. That is, people generally dislike ambitious decision makers independent of the actual decision that is made. Further, there are important differences in male and female expectations of what decision makers will do that, when combined with perceptions of decision-maker gender, have more nuanced implications for outcome satisfaction and our understanding of “follower behavior.”

scholarly journals Conducting large, repeated, multi-game economic experiments using mobile platforms

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0250668
Author(s):  
Zhi Li ◽  
Po-Hsuan Lin ◽  
Si-Yuan Kong ◽  
Dongwu Wang ◽  
John Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Economics ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Live Streaming ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Mobile Platforms ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Specific Order

We demonstrate the possibility of conducting synchronous, repeated, multi-game economic decision-making experiments with hundreds of subjects in-person or remotely with live streaming using entirely mobile platforms. Our experiment provides important proof-of-concept that such experiments are not only possible, but yield recognizable results as well as new insights, blurring the line between laboratory and field experiments. Specifically, our findings from 8 different experimental economics games and tasks replicate existing results from traditional laboratory experiments despite the fact that subjects play those games/task in a specific order and regardless of whether the experiment was conducted in person or remotely. We further leverage our large subject population to study the effect of large (N = 100) versus small (N = 10) group sizes on behavior in three of the scalable games that we study. While our results are largely consistent with existing findings for small groups, increases in group size are shown to matter for the robustness of those findings.

8. Experimental Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-230
Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
External Validity ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
The Common ◽  
Internal And External Validity

This chapter explores the principles of experimental research design as well as the issues and problems associated with different aspects of the approach. In particular, it considers the issue of internal and external validity, the common obstacles associated with experimental research, and what can be done to try and avoid or minimize them. The chapter first describes the five steps involved in the classic version of the experimental design before discussing three types of experimental design: laboratory experiments, field experiments, and natural experiments. It also examines the ethical issues that arise from experimental research and concludes by highlighting some of the advantages of experimental research.

scholarly journals Two Strands of Field Experiments in Economics: A Historical-Methodological Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-77
Author(s):  
Michiru Nagatsu ◽  
Judith Favereau
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Policy Science ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
Lab Experiments ◽  
Methodological Strategy

While the history and methodology of laboratory experiments in economics have been extensively studied by philosophers, those of field experiments have not attracted much attention until recently. What is the historical context in which field experiments have been advocated? And what are the methodological rationales for conducting experiments in the field as opposed to in the lab? This article addresses these questions by combining historical and methodological perspectives. In terms of history, we show that the movement toward field experiments in economics has two distinct roots. One is the general orientation of medical and social sciences to evidence-based policy evaluation, which gave rise to randomized field experiments in economics (e.g., behavioral public policy, poverty alleviation policy). The other is an awareness of several methodological limitations of lab experiments in economics, which required practitioners to get out of the lab and into the field. In these senses, the movement is a consequence of influences from both outside and inside economics: the general evidence-based trend in policy science and an internal methodological development of experimental economics. In terms of methodology, we show that these two roots resulted in two somewhat different notions of “external validity” as methodological rationales of field experiment. Finally, we suggest that analysis of experiments as exhibits highlights a methodological strategy in which both strands complement each other.

Laboratory Versus Field Experiments in Political Decision Making Research

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Laboratory Results ◽  
The Many ◽  
Political Decision Making

It can be difficult for political scientists and economists to know when to use laboratory experiments in their research programs. There are longstanding concerns in economics and political science about the external invalidity of laboratory results. Making matters worse, a number of prominent academics recommend using field experiments instead of laboratory experiments to learn about human behavior because field experiments do not have the same external invalidity problems that plague laboratory experiments. The criticisms of laboratory experiments as externally invalid, however, overlook the many advantages of laboratory experiments that derive from their external invalidity. Laboratory experiments are preferable to field experiments at examining hypothetical scenarios (e.g., When automated vehicles dominate the roadways, what principles do people want their automobiles to rely on?), at minimizing erroneous causal inferences (e.g., Did a treatment produce the reaction researchers are studying?), and at replicating and extending previous studies. Rather than being a technique that should be abandoned in favor of field experiments, political scientists and economists should embrace laboratory experiments when testing theoretically important but empirically unusual scenarios, tracing experimental processes, and reproducing and building on prior experiments.

Concentration of Impurities during Melting of Snow Made from Secondary Sewage Effluent

1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Zapf-Gilje ◽  
S. O. Russell ◽  
D. S. Mavinic
Keyword(s):  
Potassium Chloride ◽  
Chloride Solution ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Sewage Effluent ◽  
Potassium Chloride Solution ◽  
Laboratory Results ◽  
Solution Field ◽  
Concentration Of Impurities

When snow is made from sewage effluent, the impurities become concentrated in the early melt leaving the later runoff relatively pure. This could provide a low cost method of separating nutrients from secondary sewage effluent. Laboratory experiments showed that the degree of concentration was largely independent of the number of melt freeze cycles or initial concentration of impurity in the snow. The first 20% of melt removed with it 65% of the phosphorus and 90% of the nitrogen from snow made from sewage effluent; and over 90% of potassium chloride from snow made from potassium chloride solution. Field experiments with a salt solution confirmed the laboratory results.

scholarly journals Interactions Between Chill-Hours and Degree-Days Affect Carpogenic Germination in Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi

2001 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Scherm ◽  
A. T. Savelle ◽  
P. L. Pusey
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Degree Days ◽  
Carpogenic Germination ◽  
Conditioning Period ◽  
Low Degree ◽  
Heating Degree Days ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship of cumulative chill-hours (hours with a mean temperature <7.2°C) and heating degree-days (base 7.2°C) to carpogenic germination of pseudosclerotia of Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi, which causes mummy berry disease of blueberry, was investigated. In two laboratory experiments, pseudosclerotia collected from rabbiteye blueberry in Georgia were conditioned at 5 to 6°C for 26 to 1,378 h prior to placement in conditions favorable for germination and apothecium development. The number of chill-hours accumulated during the conditioning period affected the subsequent proportion of pseudosclerotia that germinated and produced apothecia, with the greatest incidence of carpogenic germination occurring after intermediate levels of chilling (≈700 chill-hours). The minimum chilling requirement for germination and apothecium production was considerably lower than that reported previously for pseudo-sclerotia from highbush blueberry in northern production regions. The rate of carpogenic germination was strongly affected by interactions between the accumulation of chill-hours and degree-days during the conditioning and germination periods; pseudosclerotia exposed to prolonged chilling periods, once transferred to suitable conditions, germinated and produced apothecia more rapidly (after fewer degree-days had accumulated) than those exposed to shorter chilling periods. Thus, pseudosclerotia of M. vaccinii-corymbosi are adapted to germinate carpogenically following cold winters (high chill-hours, low degree-days) as well as warm winters (low chill-hours, high degree-days). Results were validated in a combined field-laboratory experiment in which pseudosclerotia that had received various levels of natural chilling were allowed to germinate in controlled conditions in the laboratory, and in two field experiments in which pseudosclerotia were exposed to natural chilling and germination conditions. A simple model describing the timing of apothecium emergence in relation to cumulative chill-hours and degree-days was developed based on the experiments. The model should be useful for better timing of field scouting programs for apothecia to aid in management of primary infection by M. vaccinii-corymbosi.

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