After participating in the module, students will be able to conduct their own small-scale empirical research projects, starting with the planning and implementation of data collection as well as its transparent documentation, proper data preparation, and a very simple statistical data analysis.

In this seminar, data collection for a collaborative project will be planned and carried out, and the data will be analyzed using very simple statistical methods. The emphasis is on hands-on data collection and experiential learning. The instructors will give introductory sessions and provide practical guidance and background knowledge, from specifying the research question, to planning and conducting data collection and analysis, to presenting and discussing the results. The seminar is always based on current research projects, so that students actually participate in ongoing research.

In the current semester, a field experiment is being conducted in the Blechen Carré Cottbus and in cooperation with the Bergische Universität Wuppertal in a shopping center in Wuppertal. We play with the participants and investigate whether people like competition, how they perceive competition and how they behave in competition. In addition to the research on people and competition, we are investigating whether the results of our investigation can be replicated in different shopping centers (Cottbus versus Wuppertal).

You can find the complete module description here.