Study Design and Composer Strategy

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Study Design and Composer Strategy

The method used to study the effects of animation in this research is experimental. The specific design is the popular "Pretest-posttest control group experiment." This design looks like this:

Treatment Group                     M       T       M
Control Group                         M      ( )      M

In this diagram, the "M's" stand for measurements (all the same in this case), the "T" is a Treatment (sometimes called an "Intervention"), and the closed parentheses represent a null event (where nothing happens but needs to be specified to hold the time slot).

In this hypothetical study, subject/jurors in the Treatment Group are asked for their assessment of the guilt of the defendant. In a simulated jury trial, they are presented an animated depiction of the crime by the prosecution. Then, subject/jurors are again asked their assessment of the guilt of the defendant. This same process is carried out for the Control Group, with the important exception that the subject/jurors never view the computer animation of the crime.

Our strategy for creating this protocol will be to make all of the events for the Treatment Group including Support Events and put them in the Treatment Group. Then, we will duplicate this entire group and make it the control group by changing the name and by substituting a null event for the treatment event. This is a powerful time-saving feature of ProtoGenie.

For a popular reference on experimental designs, see Donald T. Campbell & Julian C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1963.