Lab-like Findings of Non-Lab Experiments: a Methodological Proposal and Validation

Like commerce and administrative work, based on physical interaction, also academic work had to be suspended or was at least troubled by serious difficulties caused by social distancing imposed to limit the spread of Covid-19. In particular, experimental game playing was fully hit by the recent pandemic. Although there has been a rise in internet experiments, corresponding data are problematic in various aspects related to experimental control and participants’ interaction. Are there chances to continue research via web-lab experiments but with lab-like findings? We present here a novel methodology to collect lab-like data online allowing for control of experimental subjects and with findings consistent with earlier laboratory research. Our protocol is based on an architecture of connected platforms allowing to preserve the main features of the physical lab. We present the results of an experiment run online following our protocol in Luiss CESARE Lab during the pandemic to discuss the validation of our methodology.