From A-to-Z: Executing experimental methods with a focus on discrete choice experiments

Day 1:

• Introduction to experimental methods and discrete choice experiments (Session 1 & 2)
• Theoretical roots & experimental set-up decisions (Session 3)
• Hands on: Questionnaire design and survey setup (Session 4)

Day 2:

• Design properties and design generation techniques (Session 5)
• Estimation I: Basic techniques using Maximum Likelihood (Session 6)
• Estimation II: Advanced techniques using hierarchical bayes (Session 7)
• Hands on: Design generation & estimation (Session 8)
• Excurse: My two cents on publication strategy

Day 3:

• Test for validity, interpretation and counterfactual simulations (Session 9)
• Advanced topics (Session 10)
• Hands on: Completion of study-preparations (Session 11)
• Presentation: Defense of planned study (Session 12)

Relevance of the course

Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs, aka. Choice-Based Conjoint, Best-Worst Scaling (Case 1) and MaxDiff) are essential evidence-based research tool to better understand and predict individual and group decisions made by managers, organizations, and consumers. DCEs are suited to empirically study frequently asked research questions from many disciplines, such as, e.g., consumers’ trade-off between product characteristics and price in Marketing; households’ trade-off between interest rates and risk in Household Finance; and app-users’ trade-off between capabilities and privacy concerns in Information Systems. This PhD course will enable researchers to set up and apply their own discrete choice experiment to their research questions.

Even though this course has a particular focus on preference measurement using discrete choice experiments, most of its studied and applied contents are generalizable to other experimental methods.

Software

During the course, you will apply the following software:

• DISE (http://www.dise-online.net/demo.aspx) for setting up the questionnaire
• XML Spy for setting up the questionnaire
• JMP for design generation
• Excel for estimation
• R for estimation

Prior experience with some of the software mentioned above is certainly helpful, but not a pre-condition. I developed this course such that also participants with no prior experience with any of the software can also follow.

Preparations

Before the course, please prepare the following:

• Carefully select the topic of your own study. I highly recommend choosing a topic that fits with your own doctoral research.
• Work through the manual of how to set-up a questionnaire using the survey platform DISE (http://www.dise-online.net/demo.aspx). You can access the manual as PDF: http://www.dise-online.com/userupload/dise-manual-en.pdf
• Register for an account and create a test-survey on the sandbox-server:
• If you are not in the WHU network: http://www.dise.sandbox.whu.edu/dise-online
• If you are in the WHU network: http://192.168.160.5/dise-online (both are the same server)

The test-survey, should contain at least three pages, 1 radiobutton, 1 textbox, and 1 choice-set. Test your survey, whether everything works properly and access the results.

About 2 weeks, before the course starts, I will provide a guidance on selecting a topic for your study.

This course will be of interest to researchers from any discipline (e.g., Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Finance, and Information Systems) with no or limited experience in the application of experiments and DCEs in particular. It will enable participants to:

• Identify suitable experimental methods
• Gain a thorough understanding of the steps required for the planning and execution of experiments
• Gain hands-on experience on each step of setting up a discrete choice experiments
• Understand the theoretical basis
• Learn about design generation techniques, study set-up, and interpretation of results
• Ability to critically reflect methodological issues

Jordan Louviere, David Hensher, Joffre Swait (2000), Stated choice methods: Analysis and application.Kenneth Train (2008), Discrete choice methods using simulations, second edition.Additional reading material will be provided in class

60% lectures, 40% exercises (it is necessary to bring your laptop to the lecture!)

Beside attendance in this course, you must demonstrate your ability to conduct your own discretechoice experiment (either alone or in groups of two people) on the topic of your choice. I encourage you to carefully select the topic of your study by aligning it with your own doctoral research.

We will cover the most challenging parts – namely the careful planning of the study set-up andsurvey creation – together in class. The hands-on sessions at the end of the day ensure that you know how to apply the contents, which we discussed throughout the day. You also must present,defend and discuss your prototypical study at the end of the third day.

The submission type is the PowerPoint-Presentation containing your study background, its experimental set-up, and its first results, ideally at the end of the third day.