MALKA214 Eksperimentelle design og funksjonell analyse Emneplan

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Technologies play a distinctive role in everyday lives. Human - technology relations are complex as they influence product/service usability and generate new practices on an individual, organizational and societal level. The process of introduction of new technologies is not necessarily linear starting with scientific invention or design conception and ending with reception of a particular product/service on the market. This iterative process is characterized by ethical, sustainability, and material engineering challenges, but above all, by the imprint on human behavior in the way that technologies augment or prohibit human actions. This course explores complexity in human - technology relations and how design can be strategically used to merge the above mentioned factors for commercialization of emerging technologies.

On successful completion of the course, the student has the following learning outcomes classified as knowledge, skills and competence:

Knowledge

The student can

• describe and discuss reliability
• describe and discuss the term generality
• describe and discuss validity, threats to inference, and different types of validity
• explain the role of replications in experiments
• discuss variability related to single subject designs and group-designs
• describe and discuss advantages and disadvantages of various experimental designs
• explain repeated measurements and when to conduct such measurements
• describe fundamental elements of inferential statistics, including hypothesis testing
• describe and discuss experimental methods for conducting reinforcer assessment and the functional analysis of behavior
• describe the basic principles for hypothesis testing using the binominal and normal distributions
• describe central concepts of network theory and the contribution of social network analysis to the study of behavior

Skills

The student can

• design simple experiments
• run and interpret common statistical tests
• interpret graphical displays of behavioral data and to present data in graphical form
• discuss ethical considerations in functional and statistical analyses

Competence

The student can

• analyze data in a behavior change project

Campus-based lectures, discussions and exercises are the main teaching methods. Students read selected texts in advance for each day of class, and everyone is expected to participate in class through questions and through joining in discussion. Feedback is used on written assignments is used. Students must have download and installed SPSS on their computers before the course starts.

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student has achieved in-depth knowledge of:

• using key concepts in philosophy of technology and design science methodology to implement emerging technologies.
• reviewing technologies from the perspective of wellbeing, and sustainable practices
• anticipating and assessing technological impact on human actions
• discerning key social and behavioral issues while designing technologies

Skills

The student is capable of:

• independently contributing to multidisciplinary design projects within the area of technology and design
• linking various fields of technology to promote innovation
• demonstrating human-technology relations by building prototypes
• applying design science principles in a technology related project
• linking theory and methods attained in the course with technology and design

General competence

The student can:

• evaluate the ethical challenges around use of technologies and propose ethical solutions
• plan and conduct design processes which include technological implementation and human factors in new design contexts.
• propose holistic answers on achieving sustainable technological practices.

Combination of lectures, workshops and teamwork. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) approaches can be used in this course.

Combination of theory and practice (activities related to topic-matter).

The course includes presentations by student groups.

Authorized materials: Norwegian-English dictionary

Grade scale A-F.

The evaluation is based on two parts, each contributing 50 % of the final grade:

1) Written assignment produced individually or in groups (maximum 3 students per group), The text should include description of the designed product/service and discuss ethical views about design of the chosen technology

2) Group work presentations of self-initiated work based on the curriculum

Both examination 1. and 2. must be passed in the same study year in order to pass the course

Part 1) The exam result can be appealed.

Part 2) The exam result cannot be appealed.