ADDRESSING ISSUES WITH EXPERIMENTS

• Standardisation:

  • All procedures are kept the same
  • Changes in data can be attributed to the IV
  • Results can be successfully replicated 
• Single Blind Procedure:

  • Participants are unaware of the experimental conditions
  • Researcher / Experimenter is aware
• Random allocation of participants:

  • Decreases systematic error, individual differences are less likely to affect the results
• Control Group:

  • Used for comparisons with experimental groups 
  • Participants receive no intervention at all or some established intervention 
• Counterbalancing: 

  • Reduces order effects in repeated measures
  • Participant sample divided in half, complete the 2 conditions in 1 order and the other in the reverse order
• Double Blind Procedure: 

  • Both the participants and the experimenters are unaware of the experimental conditions (avoids bias)
• Randomisation: 

  • Controlling effects of extraneous / confounding variables 
  • Used to pick participants, allocate them to tasks to reduce the investigator’s influence on the study