After you have selected participants, the next steps are to conduct your tests and collect the data. Prior to doing any testing, however, there are a few important concerns that need to be addressed. First, you need to be sure that your testing procedures are ethical. Generally, you will need to gain permission to conduct any type of testing with human participants by submitting the details of your experiment to your school's Institutional Review Board, sometimes referred to as the 'Human Subjects Committee.'
After you have gained approval from your academic institution's IRB, you will need to present informed consent forms to each of your participants. This form offers information on the study, the data that will be gathered, and how the results will be used. The form also gives participants the option to withdraw from the study at any point in time.
Once this step has been completed, you can begin administering your testing procedures and collecting the data.
