Field Experiments

Question 1

Practical

Answer 1

Concise conclusions can be drawn from quantitative results

However not possible to control variables as closely

Question 2

Ethical

Answer 2

Usually no consent is obtained to avoid contaminating the results

Question 3

Reliability

Answer 3

All variables aren’t controlled

Question 4

Validity

Answer 4

Higher validity because they take place in normally occurring social settings however the Hawthorne effect may cause the subjects to act differently

Question 5

Theoretical

Answer 5

More susceptible to sample bias as participants are often not randomly allocated to experimental conditions

Question 6

Representativeness

Answer 6

Practically it is possible to do field experiments in large institutions

Question 7

Hawthorne effect

Answer 7

Respondents may act differently just because they know they are part of an experiment

Question 8

Example

Answer 8

Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968-
Aims was to measure the effect of high teacher expectation
Informed teachers that 20% of pupils were likely to ‘spurt’ when in reality they were random
Sputters had gained 12 IQ points