Do Your (Qualitative) Homework

Melissa Michelson, Menlo Collegefor Lessons Learned the Hard Way in The Experimental Political Scientist, Spring 2021 True research requires staying open to the possibility of learning from our data and our mistakes. Over the past two decades I have conducted hundreds of get-out-the-vote and persuasion experiments, most in cooperation with community organizations. Some of those … Read more

Exit Poll Experiments in Local Elections

Cheryl Boudreau, UC Davisfor Lessons Learned the Hard Way in The Experimental Political Scientist, Spring 2021 At the beginning of my career, my research primarily used laboratory experiments with college undergraduates to study the effects of political information on decision making.  I was eager to examine the effects of information on actual voters in a … Read more

You Cannot Have Too Many Checks

Kevin Arceneaux, Temple Universityfor Lessons Learned the Hard Way in The Experimental Political Scientist, Spring 2021 When I inaugurated the Behavioral Foundations Lab with its initial study a few years back, I had learned a lot from talking to other researchers with labs. Their recurring advice was, “have a lab protocol.” So, I developed one … Read more

Subject Surprises

James N. Druckman, Northwestern Universityfor Lessons Learned the Hard Way in The Experimental Political Scientist, Spring 2021 My first experience implementing an experiment involved asking subjects to make strategic decisions in what was akin to an economic game. I presented the instructions and asked if anyone had questions. No one did. They then proceed to … Read more