FAQ - Experimental Research
Do I have to participate in each experiment to which I am invited?
No, you will receive an invitation and then for each experiment you can decide whether you have the time and if you want to participate. This commitment is binding.
What happens if I do not show up for an experiment?
For the experiments, it is extremely important to have a certain number of participants, otherwise the experiment can not take place or it is only partially comparable. If you are not able to take part, please sign off 24 hours before the start of the experiment: xpertise@hochschule-rhein-waal.de
If you do not appear without excuse, we reserve to exclude you from future experiments.
What do I get for participating in an experiment?
In addition to an insight into the modern laboratory landscape of our faculty and interesting insights about your behavior in decision-making situations, you get a monetary payment directly after the experiment. This depends on how successful your strategy in the experiment was and on the duration of the experiment.
Should I bring something for participation?
Generally, you do not need to bring anything to the experiments. In the experiments, no previous experience is also usually required.
What can I imagine under an experiment?
We develop different ideas and theories about human behavior in different situations. In order to verify this, we conduct experiments in which we ask participants to situations or tasks and analyze the behavior here. The evaluations provide us with information about whether we were right with our predictions or not. These experiments can be designed quite differently, it can be expected tasks in groups, Individual, in meeting rooms, in cabins and on computers. In any case, these tasks are easy to handle and do not require knowledge of the themes or assigned tasks.
What happens during an experiment?
You will be wecomed and registered at the counter of our laboratory floor. After all participants of an experiment have arrived, the test persons are given detailed instructions and an overview of what’s to come–previous knowledge and expertise are not required to participate, of course you can also ask questions. You will then be led to the laboratories, often the seats will be drawn to pretend here an influence of the choice of seating on the behavior. Thereafter, the experiment begins, if not announced in advance, there are no breaks in between. After the experiment, you will get the payout at the counter.
Can I participate more than once in an experiment?
Some experiments will be done by us not just once to see if the behavior is the same in other groups with other participants, can be observed at other times, etc.. We say that multiple sessions of the same experiment take place. You can register within an experiment for just one session, for one appointment.
What happens to my data?
Your personal data of the participants database are not saved together with the data from the experiment. In some cases it may be that you need to fill in a questionnaire for the experiment. This serves to differ results according to gender, age and other characteristics. But we are not able to deduce from these data to you as person
Why do I have to specify the database in personal information such as age?
The database serves as a pool of potential participants in experiments. The details are important for us if we, for example, want to invite only people of a certain age, a program, etc., or specific language skills are important or people with glasses e.g. can not participate. These data are not used for the experiment, they are stored in a different system which can only accessed by the laboratory manager.
Do you work with chemicals in the laboratories ?
No, at our faculty we have only laboratories where we conduct experiments about behaviour. Information about the labs are available on the website of the faculty.
Do you have any further questions, send us an email: