NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH DESIGN

• Nonexperimental approaches are used in situations in which an experiment is not practical or desirable. They are also used whenever testing a hypothesis in an existing real-life situation is necessary or important.
• to study behaviors in natural settings (children playing or chimps parenting),

  to explore unique or rare occurrences (a case of multiple personality, a

  presidential election)

  to sample personal information (attitudes, opinions, preferences).
• Experimentation is a process undertaken to test a hypothesis that particular behavioral events will occur reliably in certain, specifiable situations.
• When we experiment, we systematically manipulate aspects of a setting to verify our predictions about observable behavior under specific conditions. Experimentation is not always possible.
• Three minimum requirements must be met:

  First, we must have procedures for manipulating the setting.

  Second, the predicted outcome must be observable.

  Third, we must be able to measure the outcome.
• Experimentation must be testable.
• Some hypotheses that cannot be tested now, however, may become testable in the future.
• Experimentation must also be objective.
• Experimentation should also be ethical.
• In a moral society, there are many experiments that should never be conducted because it would be unethical to do so.