experimental Methods Flashcards
What are the disadvantages of a lab experiment ?
Lacks eco logical validity
it is an artificial set up and one of which participants are unlikely to encounter in everyday life . This means we can’t generalise the findings to other situations outside of the lab
demand characteristics;
partcipants may try to work out what the aim of the study is and act accordingly l. This can affect the validity of a study. Participants may change their behaviour to plesse the researcher or to go against them . “Please you and screw you effect “
What are the advantages of a lab experiment ?
There is a high control over variables.
So more extraneous variables can be controlled this means that the IV is causing the change in the DV
replicability - because of the high control In experiments , this means that the study should be easily repeated to see if other researchers then achieve the same results too
What is a lab experiment ?
Environment - lab
Independent variable - manipulated
What are the disadvantages of a quasi experiment ?
Lacks ecological validity as its a lab experiment
may have a bias sample as participants can’t be randomly allocated to different groups
What are the advantages of a quasi experiment ?
High control
What is a quasi experiment ?
IV can’t be determined by anyone it is already pre determined eg gender and age
Lab environment
What are the 4 experimental methods ?
Natural
Field
Lab
Quasi
What are the disadvantages of a natural experiment
Loss of control
Ethical issues
What are the advantages of a natural experiment
Reduces demand characteristics as it is not a lab experiment so participants are unlikely to know that they’re being studied .
High ecological validity- natural environment so can be applied to real life settings
What is a natural experiment ?
Environment : natural
Independent variable : not manipulated
What are disadvantages of field experiments ?
Loss of control as it is a natural environment .
Confounding and extraneous variables can easily influence results.
ethical issues - deception lack of fully informed consent etc
What are advantages of a field experiment ?
Higher ecological validity : It is a natural environment so It is less artificial and so validity will be higher and we should be able to generalise the findings to real life situations .
reduces demand characteristics - participants are unaware they are taking part as its a natural environment so they shouldn’t work out what is going on to influence the validity of the experiment
What is a field experiment ?
Environment : natural
Independent variable manipulated
What are the advantages of a lab experiment ?
There is a high control over variables. So more extraneous variables can be controlled this means that the IV is causing the change in the DV
replicability - because of the high control In experiments , this means that the study should be easily repeated to see if other researchers then achieve the same results too
What are the advantages of a field experiment ?
Higher ecological validity : It is a natural environment so It is less artificial and so validity will be higher and we should be able to generalise the findings to real life situations .
reduces demand characteristics - participants are unaware they are taking part as its a natural environment so they shouldn’t work out what is going on to influence the validity of the experiment
