Field Experiments

• Key Features of Field Experiments:

  They take place in participant's natural surroundings rather than in an artificial lab. Those involved are unaware that they are involved within the study which then avoids the Hawthorne Effect. The researcher isolates and manipulates one or more of the variables in the situation to see what effect it has on the subjects. E.g. Rosenthal and Jacobson manipulated teachers' expectations about pupils by providing misleading information about their abilities to establish the effect it had on children's achievement.
• Types of Field Experiments: Actor Tests and Correspondence Tests

  For example, to test the hypothesis that there is racial discrimination in employment, Brown and Gay sent a White and a Black actor for interviews to the same job post to see which was offered the job. The actors were different ethnicities, but all other factors were the same. In a correspondence test, Wood et al sent closely matching job applications to vacancies from three applicants of different ethnicities.
• Actor Tests and Correspondence Tests: Value

  They are more natural and valid as they avoid the artificiality of laboratory conditions. However, a lack of control is the consequence of the naturalism, as the more natural a situation is, the less control the researchers have over variables that may be in operation. Meaning researchers cannot be certain they have identified the true cause. While it may have been racism in employment that led to the White actor receiving more job offers, it isn't certain as Brown and Gay couldn't control all elements of the situation.
• Actor Tests and Correspondence Tests: Ethics

  Field experiments are seen as unethical as they involve carrying out a study on participants who aren't aware or given consent. However, it could be argued that in the case of Brown and Gay, although the researchers did deceive their participants (the employers), no harm was done and something of value was learned from the findings.
• The Comparative Method:

  Only carried out in the mind of the sociologist; it is a 'thought experiment' and sometimes referred to as a 'natural experiment'. It doesn't involve the researcher actually experimenting on real subjects; instead, the researcher relies on re-analysing secondary data that has already been collected. It avoids artificiality, it can be used to study past events, and it avoids the ethical issues of harming or deceiving the subjects.
• The Comparative Method: Design

  Identify two groups that are alike in all major aspects expect for one variable which we are interested in. Then compare the two groups to see if the once difference has any effect. An example of this method is Durkheim's study of suicide which relied on analysing official statistics. Finding that Protestants (with a higher level of education) had higher suicide rates than Catholics (who had lower levels of education).
• The Comparative Method: AO3

  It gives the researcher even less control over the variables than field experiments, meaning there is even less certainty whether a thought experiment has actually discovered something. Links to the Marxist idea of official statistics being used with an ideological function to sustain capitalism, meaning the official statistics the studies rely on are distorted.