Personal Protocol Document or Neurotypical Interaction Field Experiment
The capstone, in one of two routes: document the protocol you run, decline and need; or vary one parameter of the majority’s protocol on purpose and report what comes back.
Submission instructions: the hand-in process and whether uploads are available.
Decide what you’ll run. Or run one thing on purpose, and find out.
Choose one of the two routes below. Both carry the same weight.
Route A: Personal Protocol Document#
Your own specification: what you run, what you decline, and what you need from other people, with the cost of each written down.
What a strong document does. It is specific: “I return ‘how are you?’ with a token in corridors, and I don’t in the morning before 10am, because it costs me more than it buys then.” It records declines as choices with prices, not as failures. And it states needs the way week 10 taught: needs, not labels.
Keeping a subroutine is a choice too. If there is no affordable decline now, say so under what I decline. Compare one subroutine you kept with what you predict declining it would cost, and label that second figure as hypothetical. You do not have to perform a refusal to earn the mark; you do have to explain the choice. Keep observed costs separate from estimates in all three sections.
What you submit. A document in three sections, what I run, what I decline and what I need from others, drawing on at least three Field Journal entries. Length is whatever it needs; aim for 1500 to 2500 words.
Marked on: specificity (35%); costs recorded honestly for runs and declines alike (30%); needs stated as needs (20%); grounding in your journal (15%).
Route B: Neurotypical Interaction Field Experiment#
Vary one parameter of the majority’s protocol deliberately, record what comes back, and report it straight.
What a strong experiment does. It varies one parameter: a longer gap before replying, a direct request instead of a hint, not returning “how are you?”. It stays inside the range of ordinary behaviour. It records results that went against the hypothesis as carefully as results that supported it.
The ethics reflection is graded, not an appendix. State what you varied, on whom, and why it stayed inside the range of ordinary behaviour, using the four questions from week 12’s lab. The deadpan answer, that this is what the majority does to minority implementations continuously without calling it an experiment, is a real point. It isn’t sufficient on its own.
Answer the same four questions used in the lab:
- Is it ordinary? Explain why this variation fits these people and this setting. A script that is ordinary in one room may impose a cost in another.
- Who is it on? Say why this group is appropriate.
- What could it cost them? Name the possible cost and how you would notice.
- What stops it? Set a stopping point and say how you would repair.
Being noticed is neither a pass nor a failure by itself, and the task is not to avoid detection. A response or objection is information about cost and consent to continuing; stop the variation and repair if someone objects. There is no universal eye-contact minimum in this test.
What you submit. A report with hypothesis, method, results, discussion and ethics reflection, drawing on at least three Field Journal entries. Aim for 2000 to 3000 words.
Marked on: design and a single controlled parameter (25%); honest reporting, including against-hypothesis results (25%); discussion using the course’s terms (15%); ethics reflection (35%).
When it’s due#
Sunday 13 June 2027, 23:59 Canberra time: two weeks after teaching ends. Week 12’s lab is the clinic for both routes.
The spec
These are the checks a marker uses. Work through them before you submit.
- You have chosen one route and said which at the top of the submission.
- Personal Protocol Document: it has three sections, what I run, what I decline and what I need from others, with costs beside each item. If there is no affordable decline now, that section explains why and includes a clearly labelled hypothetical comparison.
- Field Experiment: it varies exactly one protocol parameter, reports what came back including results against your expectation, and includes an ethics reflection that answers the four questions from week 12’s lab.
- Either route cites at least three of your own Field Journal entries.
How it is marked
Marked as a whole against the route you chose, using the criteria set out in the brief. For the Field Experiment, the ethics reflection carries 35% of the mark and is judged on its own terms: a strong experiment with a thin reflection cannot reach the top band.