The last lab. No new protocol today: it’s a clinic for the capstone, with two tutors in the room.
Before the lab#
Bring your Field Journal. Its entries are the raw material for either route.
Run sheet#
Times below run from the 14:05 start; finish at 14:55.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 0:00–0:07 | Choose a route. Read back through your journal. A recurring subroutine could supply a parameter; recurring costs could guide a Personal Protocol Document. Tell a tutor your choice. |
| 0:07–0:27 | Experiment track: take turns reviewing both proposals against all four questions below; each author records their own answers. Document track: write one line under each heading, using at least two journal entries. If no decline is affordable, state that constraint. |
| 0:27–0:38 | Exchange feedback across routes where possible. If one route has no participants, swap with another person on your route and use the lecture’s worked example for the other. Everyone checks one experiment’s four answers and one document’s three headings. |
| 0:38–0:50 | Write a first paragraph. Use the final three minutes to record the next step and bring any unresolved ethics question to a tutor before running an experiment. |
The four ethics questions#
For any Field Experiment parameter:
- Is it ordinary here? Is this something people do in this setting, like a longer pause, a direct request instead of a hint, or not returning “how are you?”
- Who is it on? Strangers in a queue, classmates, friends? Why is that group appropriate?
- What could it cost them? Not “is it harmless”, but what, specifically, and how would you notice?
- What stops it? At what point do you stop varying and repair, and what is the repair?
Someone noticing the variation is information for questions 3 and 4, not an automatic failure or an instruction to hide it. Consider the people and the situation; there is no universal minimum amount of eye contact.
The deadpan answer to all four, that the majority does this to minority implementations continuously without calling it an experiment, is a real point. It counts for something in the reflection. It doesn’t answer any of the four questions.
What leaves the room#
A route, a first paragraph, and either an ethics review or three lines under three headings. The capstone is due Sunday 13 June, 23:59. Your last Field Journal entry is due this Sunday.