PILOT STUDIES AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

• What are pilot studies?

  small sacle protypes of a study thta are carried out in advance of the full reseach to find out if there are any problems with

  • experimental design
  • instructuions for particpants
  • measuring instruments
• Independent groups


  differnt groups of particpants for each condition of IV, allocated using random allocation which reduces the invesitgator effects.
• strengths of independent groups

  + reduced demand characteristics and order effects as differnt particapnts less likely to guess aim and change behaviour

  +reduces borem and fatigue
• weakness of independent groups

  • particapnt vaibrle may acts as extraneous variables
  • more pts, $$ and time
• Repeated mesaures


  same group in both conditions of IV, data the comapred for each particpaint to see if there is a difference.
• strength of repeated measures

  • fewer pts required saves time and money, redueced particapnt vairble and individual difference
• weakness of repeated measure

  • order effect, particapnt vairble e.g boredom and guess aim

  + adressed through counter-balancing
• matched pairs

  pts matched on charatceristics relevant to study, one fo each apir goies into each condition
• strength of matched pairs

  redueced order effects and pts variables
• weakness of matched pairs

  • individual differences may still effect
  • more pts required