The controlled experiment in knowledge-acquisition research

This paper is based on a review of the literature about controlled experiments in research on knowledge acquisition. The review was carried out to help the author make decisions about the design of his own experiment comparing two knowledge-acquisition methods. The paper looks critically at six experiments reported in the literature, and proposes a framework within which such empirical work can be viewed. It concludes that some of the apparent difficulties can be resolved, and that controlled experiments can be a useful way of discovering the relationships at work in a knowledge-acquisition project.