Survey Experiments and Pre-Analysis Planning

About

This course offers an applied introduction to survey experiments in the social sciences, built around a clear throughline: you arrive with a preliminary research question and leave with a complete Pre-Analysis Plan (PAP) ready for registration and fielding. Sessions are structured around the OSF pre-registration framework, so methodological content is immediately put to work on your own projects.

Key topics include open science and the replication crisis; the logic of causal inference; experimental design options (vignette, conjoint, between- and within-subjects designs); validity and generalisability; ethics; measurement; and survey flow. The course also covers how to specify an analysis plan without running analyses.

Teaching combines short lectures with hands-on PAP development and, during online sessions, structured peer feedback on your designs. By the end of the course, you will have the skills and a concrete output to move forward with your own experimental research.

Course leader

Emma Hoes is a political scientist at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich (UZH). Her research focuses on how digital technologies shape the information ecosystem, with expertise in the design and implementation of survey and field experiments. Her experimental work has appeared in journals including PNAS and Nature Human Behaviour. She is also the lead developer of VIRENA, a platform for controlled experimentation in realistic social media environments.

Target group

Social science researchers

Course aim

To provide an applied introduction to survey experiments in the social sciences, equipping participants with the skills to design rigorous experimental studies and develop a complete, pre-registered Pre-Analysis Plan (PAP) for their own research.

Fee info