HCI: Research Design Activity
The hypothetical study I designed related to smart phones and driving safety is testing the safety of GPS on the phone vs. GPS on the car console. Since the cellphone GPS has more built-in distractions than the car GPS, this study wants to evaluate how participants drive while using car or cellphone GPS. The hypothesis for this study is that participants using GPS on their phone will make more mistakes while driving than those who use the built-in car GPS. To test this, participants will be randomly assigned to either the phone or car GPS group. The participants will then try to navigate a certain route in a driving simulator using the GPS. The phone group will have notifications appear randomly while they are driving. The driving simulator will measure mistakes such as speeding, missing stop signs, and making wrong turns. The independent variable is the type of GPS used and the dependent variable is number of driving mistakes. Scores from each group will be compared to see which group made more mistakes while driving.
Nice design. The interesting thing would be that if there’s an effect, why is there an effect? And do you have the DV data that you need to explain that effect?