Online field experiments

ABSTRACT

Changes in information communication technology across the Asian region have altered our field substantively and methodologically. The rapid growth of digitized communications allows us to find new purchase in examining questions fundamental to our understanding of communication theories, norms, and practices across Asia. While methods such as text mining and user analytics are increasingly popular among computational scholars, here, we focus on online field experiments, an approach to studying communication that has the potential to overcome many existing obstacles to social scientific inquiry but one that has been used relatively rarely in Asia. In this paper, we discuss what online field experiments are and how they differ from traditional experiments as well as online lab and survey experiments. We show how researchers can go about designing and implementing online field experiments, focusing on issues where online field experiments differ from their traditional counterparts – legal and ethical considerations, construct validity, randomization and spillover, and statistical analyses. Finally we discuss how online field experiments can advance our understanding of communication in Asia by helping researchers to gain insight and make causal inferences on attitudes, behaviors, and interactions that were previously unobservable ?.     

肖克奎拉奥朝圣之旅——秘鲁神秘的印加遗迹

在秘鲁安第斯山脉的崇山峻岭中有一座神秘的古城。西班牙人在长达300年的殖民统治期间对它一无所知,秘鲁独立后的100年间也无人涉足。400多年的时光,只有翱翔的山鹰得以一睹古城的雄姿,它就是马丘比丘印加遗址。作为马丘比丘的"姐妹城",肖克奎拉奥可谓是寂寂无名,但却有着马丘比丘无可比拟的孤独与安静。本文作者向我们介绍了在肖克奎拉奥的徒步探险经历,巨石垒筑的残垣断壁正向我们讲述着当年的故事.我们还会感受到怀古的幽思、逝去的光华,以及领略这座古城记载着的印加人无与伦比的智慧。     

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While a number of scholars have discussed the pervasiveness of the conceptualization of students as customers, to date there has been limited reliable research examining the extent to which students actually view themselves as customers. Using a survey that was administered to a census of entering first-year students at a large public research university (59.8% response rate), this study shows that students do not agree with many of the educational beliefs and planned behaviors associated with a customer orientation. Results of exploratory factor analysis suggested only 28.9% of respondents expressed a customer orientation. These results show that contrary to what has become common sense in postsecondary education, most students at this public university do not express a customer orientation towards their education. Such findings should make scholars and practitioners rethink some of their embedded assumptions with regards to the goals, motivations, and general educational orientations of today's college students.     

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