Course Catalogue

This interactive course introduces participants to the fundamental principles and applications of experimental research, with a focus on marketing and consumer studies. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on presentations, students will explore how experiments allow researchers to establish causal relationships, understand methodological choices, and implement rigorous designs in real-world contexts.
You will begin by focusing on the core principles of experimental research, contrasting lab, field, and online experiments, highlighting different design types, and discussing best practices to ensure internal validity. Then, you will apply these principles by preparing and presenting detailed analyses of specific experimental studies, including the design, procedure, and analytical plans.
The course encourages active participation and collaboration, ensuring that students not only learn experimental techniques conceptually but also practice designing and evaluating experiments relevant to their own research.

This course takes place on the following dates:
19th January - 9.30am-12.30pm.
26th January - 2pm-5pm.
2nd February - 2pm-3pm.
All times are CET. Please note that applications close on 17th January.

Intended learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:
- Design and implement a rigorous methodological plan for experimental research projects.
- Critically appraise methodological choices and execution in existing experimental studies.
- Explore and experiment with different methodological paradigms while adhering to ethical and rigorous research standards.

Schedule / Format
Session 1 – 3 hours: Experimental Research Core Principles
- Understanding how experiments establish causality
- Differences between lab, field, and online experiments
- Overview of main experimental designs
- Best practices to ensure internal validity

Session 2 – 3 hours: Student Presentations
- Students prepare a 5-minute oral presentation with slides
- Presentation covers research context, hypotheses, detailed design, procedure, and expected analyses
- Topics include sample size justification, manipulations, measures, sequence of tasks, pretests, exclusion rules, and planned analyses

Session 3 - 3 hours
Session led by Fabienne Krywuckzky.
Instructor biography
Sandra Laporte is Full Professor at Toulouse School of Management, specializing in Marketing. She leads the Marketing research group and coordinates the Marketing Track of the TSM Doctoral Programme. Awarded a Junior Chair by the Institut Universitaire de France in 2022, her research focuses on consumer interactions with technology, perceptions of AI, misinformation, and the psychological history of eating behaviors. Her work has appeared in leading journals including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and International Journal of Research in Marketing. Sandra is Associate Editor of Recherche et Applications en Marketing and serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Research in Marketing. She earned her doctorate at HEC Paris in 2010 and previously held faculty positions at HEC Montreal.