Research
What is the McDougall Faculty of Business Behavioural Lab?
The McDougall Faculty of Business (MFoB) Behavioural Lab is a centre for conducting robust, high-quality quantitative and/or qualitative research with a behavioural focus. This applies to many business domains, such as marketing, consumer behaviour, organizational behaviour, human resource management, leadership, strategy, behavioural accounting, and management information systems.
Main Elements
The MFoB Behavioural Lab supports faculty and/or student research projects in several ways:
Student Participation Research Pool: Students are encouraged to participate in research studies in exchange for bonus points towards their grade in one eligible business course. Participation in research is entirely voluntary. To enter the research pool, students can register on the MFoB Behavioural Lab website. They can create a profile, select their eligible course, sign up for available research studies, and keep track of accrued credits/points.
Online Research Software: The MFoB maintains a subscription with Qualtrics, a widely used online platform for academic survey research and experience management. This tool facilitates data collection by allowing researchers to create online surveys and/or experiments.
Designated space in McDougall Hall (MCDH): The Behavioural Lab offers a designated research space (MCDH 207), which creates a controlled environment for research participants to answer survey questionnaires, complete experiments, or engage in interviews.
Why is the MFoB Behavioural Lab Important?
Understanding how people think, feel, and behave as decision-makers, consumers, entrepreneurs, employees, managers, leaders, or team members is fundamental to business research. The MFoB Behavioural Lab supports researchers investigating the causes, consequences, and mechanisms of organizational, marketplace, and behavioural phenomena, resulting in contributions to theory and practice in various business domains.
The MFoB Behavioural Lab benefits business faculty members’ research programs. For researchers, the lab and research participation pool offer a convenient sample of student participants, making it an invaluable resource for quick and efficient data collection. Research conducted through behavioural labs can be published in top academic journals and provide valuable theoretical contributions and practical managerial insights.
The MFoB Behavioural Lab also benefits students. Participation in research broadens students’ understanding of the research process by allowing them to actively participate in it. In addition, in exchange for participation, students can earn bonus points (1-3 percentage points) towards their grade in one eligible business course open to the research pool.
How does the MFoB Behavioural Lab work?
All students enrolled in eligible business courses at UPEI can participate in research via the MFoB Behavioural Lab. Students may earn up to three (3) bonus research points (equivalent to 1-3 percentage points) to apply to their final grade in one eligible business class.
For more information, students can consult the Letter of Information and register on the MFoB Behavioural Lab website.
