Hi there,
I am thinking through the equivalence of lab experiments and Pavlovia experiments. I would love to know what best practices for online experiment procedures have emerged in this community.
In our lab, we record responses with a keyboard. We place labels on the ‘slash’ and ‘z’ keys as a visual reminder of which key is yes and which is no. We also are sure to give sufficient practice (e.g., 30 lexical decision trials; 160 speeded recognition trials) to familiarize participants with our tasks. The practice task decisions are based on those found in published studies.
I did a brief literature review and did not find a validation study addressing issues like these. If I am overlooking something, please let me know. I’m certainly interested in published results, but I was more interest in the wisdom of the crowd.
I can imagine some solutions to problems of ensuring that everything is clear, participants are well trained, and the data are as clean as possible Some solutions I think are useful are: putting reminders on screen to keep fingers on certain keys, labeling on-screen which key is which response, increasing practice trials, asking participants to shut down all other browser tabs, remove distractions, and turn off Dropbox.
Are there any other ideas/solutions/procedural tweaks that have been particularly successful?
Thank you!
Zared