Experiments

• What are experiments?

  • Main means of conducting research in natural sciences
• Types of experiments:

  • Lab
  • Field
• What are extraneous variables?

  They are the other variables involved in the research being controlled
• Lab Experiment

  • Takes place in a controlled environment
  • All variables are able to control the variables that might control a participants behaviour
  • They manipulate the IV and measure the changes in the behaviour (DV)
  • Extraneous variables are also being controlled - a cause and effect relationship between the IV and the DV
• Field Experiments

  • Take place in the participants natural environment often without their own knowledge (Real world settings)
  • Still manipulate the IV and the DV but other variables cannot be controlled (extraneous variables), so there is no cause and effect relationship to be found
  • Only make assumptions on behaviour
• Lab Experiments

  Practical

  • Time consuming
  • Expensive
  • cannot study the past, you only get 'snapshots of the present'

  Theoretical

  • Hawthorne effect (affect the low in validity)
  • Positivist - quantitative data
  • high in reliability
  • low in representativeness

  Ethical

  • Informed consent (any of the ethical issues)
• Field Experiments

  Theoretical

  • High in validity
  • low in reliability
  • Favoured by interpretivists
  • Reduced chance of the Hawthorne effect

  Ethical

  • Informed consent (any of the ethical issues)
  • Psychological harm
• Comparative method

  The researcher collects data from different social groups in society.

  Compares one group with the other to see what one society has and the other one doesn't as a way to explain what the causes are.

  
  

  (Neither lab or field)