Virtual Special Issue: Best Practices in Experimental Research

The Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS) is at the forefront of advancing applied experimental research.  To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the journal, this virtual special issue highlights some of the cutting-edge work on best practices that has appeared in JEPS. 

These articles inform best practices that span the full research process. Experimenters draw inferences through design rather than analysis.  Thus, the special issue begins with articles that focus on constructing treatments (Searles and Mattes; Huddleston) and delivering treatments, including issues of pre-treatment (Linos and Twist) and non-compliance (Harden, Sokhey, and Runge). Given the popularity of online labor pools, we include one article on recruiting crowd-sourced participants for survey experiments (Anderson and Lau).

Of course, no experimental design is complete without valid measures of outcome variables. Thus, the special issue includes two articles on measurement that touch on challenges in distinguishing between related constructs (Rhodes-Purdy, Navarre, and Utych) and addressing sensitive topics (Nanes and Haim). 

The defining strength of experimentation is the ability to identify causal effects.  Yet researchers often want to generalize the existence of causal relationships across units or research settings.  Articles in this special issue address generalizing to populations (Franco, Malhotra, Simonovitz, and Zigerell), across political contexts (Petyon, Huber, and Coppock), and across experimental modes (Doherty and Adler).

Taken together, the articles in this collection exemplify the journal’s contribution to empirical political science research.  We hope readers will enjoy revisiting these important—and extremely useful—publications.

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Did you know that all articles accepted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Political Science since 02 May 2023 are ‘open access’; published with a Creative Commons licence and freely available to read online (see the journal's Open Access Options page for available licence options)?

The costs of open access publication will be covered through agreements between the publisher and the author’s institution, payment of APCs by funding bodies, or else waived entirely, ensuring every author can publish and enjoy the benefits of OA. 

Please see the journal’s Open Access Options page for instructions on how to request an APC waiver.  See this FAQ for more information.