Takes place in the real social world, whereby the sociologist either creates a situation or adapts a real life situation to their search purpose - those involved are usually unaware of the research taking place
Advantages
Less Artificiality
Validity
Less Artificiality
Field experiments are set in real world situations
Validity
People are unaware of the experimental situation (No Hawthorne effect) and are usually in their usual social environment and will act normally
Disadvantages
Ethical issues
Less control over variables
Limited application
Ethical issues
Involves carrying out an experiments on people without their informed consent
Limited application
Field experiments can only be applied to a limited number of social situations
