I received a lot of great feedback from my advisor on my experimental setup and all of the required documents for IRB submission. I feel we are making progress, but I am also realizing that there is more work and more revisions that need to be done. The suggested revisions fall into two categories: experimental design and the theories that we are testing/measuring. My advisor recommended that instead of the between-subject experiment design, we should consider a within-subject design. Given that this study has a small sample size of 20 subjects, this approach would help demonstrate that the difference is due to the two conditions rather than individual characteristics such as personality and communication style. Another suggested revision is to include other theories that I previously did not consider, such as TAM and UTAUT, the uncanny valley, and rapport building as one of the measurements.

Storytelling and research: I believe every research project is an attempt at investigative storytelling. Some research tells a more compelling story than others, and the best research papers take the reader on an adventure. From the introduction, which sets up the world, to the question or problem that we are trying to solve, the method represents the journey of the hero in finding the answer, and the conclusion is the hero discovering the answers. What has been occupying my mind the most this week is figuring out the story that I am trying to tell in this research. So, I am revisiting the research questions, the hypotheses I am testing, and the constructs I am measuring.