field

• Field experiments take place in real life settings and are very common types of experiments.

  • Field experiments means they have a real life scenario for the respondent to act in
• The advantages of a field experiment over a lab experiment is that:

  • They have greater external validity as they occur in natural settings
  • Possible to have a larger scale setting
• The disadvantages of a field experiment is that:

  • It is not possible to control variables as closely
  • The Hawthorne effect may reduce the validity of an experiment as respondents may act differently knowing they are part of an experiment.
• Some practical problems with field experiments are:

  • May not be able to easily access a natural environment for research
• Some ethical problems with field experiments are:

  • Not often possible to inform participants that the experiment takes place
  • Lack of informed consent and deception
  • Participants may experience harm
• Some theoretical problems with field experiments are:

  • External validity as similar to real life
  • May not be representative
  • Not very reliable as may struggle to repeat it.
• Field Experiment = Rosenthal and Jacobson's 1968 Pygmalion in the Classroom

  • Aim was to measure the effect of high teacher expectations
  • Gave the students an IQ test and randomly selected people who would ' spurt '
  • Higher teacher expectations were responsible for difference in achievement
• Limitations of Pygmalion in the classroom:

  • Cant rule out the role of extraneous variables so it could have been other factors
  • Reliability is a problem as the exact conditions can't be repeated
  • Ethical problems of harming students
  • Deception / lack of informed consent
• Field Experiment = Jane and Elliot's Brown and Blue eyes experiment

  • Divide her class into students with blue and brown eyes to learn about racism and discrimination
  • Told the blue eye children that they were superior, smarter and more well behaved giving them privilege's
  • She then reversed the roles and gave them a test, the superior group got a better score ( self fulfilling prophecy )
• Limitations of the Brown and Blue eyes experiment was:

  • May experience harm and be ' seriously damaged '
  • Would not be ethical and allowed today