field experiments

Question 1

What are the practical advantages of using this method?

Answer 1

• the environment is less artificial, more
  applicable to real life (ecologically valid)
• participants can behave in their normal
  way as they are in their usual environment
  (valid - reactions will be genuine)

Question 2

What are the practical disadvantages of using this method?

Answer 2

• unreliable as researchers cannot
  control variables which makes it difficult to
  be replicated by other researchers

Question 3

What are ethical advantages of this method?

Answer 3

• participants are less likely to feel
  distressed as they are in their usual
  environment

Question 4

What are the ethical disadvantages of this method?

Answer 4

• more difficult to gain informed consent
  without participants knowing that they are
  being studied (Rosenhan - consent wasn’t
  acquired from hospital staff)
• participants are more likely to be deceived

Question 5

What are the theoretical advantages of this method?

Answer 5

interpretivists prefer this method as they can create an authentic social scenario (freewill)

Question 6

What are the theoretical disadvantages of this method?

Answer 6

positivists dislike this method as is doesn’t meet the standards of good science, by carrying out scientific methods, researchers can gain an objective view of reality on a large scale