Field Experiments And Laboratory Experiment On Education

Question 1

Features of field experiments

Answer 1

Takes place in a subjects natural surrounding and those involved are not aware they they are subjects.

Question 2

What did the Rosenhan experiment do in 1973

Answer 2

Experiment where researchers presented themself in different mental hospitals claiming to hear voices and were diagnosed as schizophrenia

Question 3

What happened after the researchers were admitted to the different mental hospitals during the Rosenhan experiment 1973

Answer 3

When in hospital the researchers claimed to not hear voices and acted normally. The hospital staff treated all as if they were ill and none was found. Suggesting that the label of schizophrenia led to staff to treat them rather than the behaviour of the patients.

Question 4

Evaluation of the Rosenhan experiment in 1973

Answer 4

Shows the value of the field experiment and that they are more natural as they don’t involve lab experiments. However it is harder to have control over variables and harder to identify the causes.

Question 5

The comparative method

Answer 5

Carried in the mind of the sociologist and is designed to discover the cause and effect relationships. This works by identifying 2 groups with alike aspects except from one variable then comparing the 2 groups to see if one difference has any effect.

Question 6

Durkheim study of suicide

Answer 6

Suggested that low levels of integration of individuals in social groups caused high rates of suicide.

Question 7

Durkheim suicide experiment.

Answer 7

Argued that Protestants have a higher suicide rate than Catholicism because they have lower rates of integration. Official statistics supported Durkheim’s prediction.

Question 8

Evaluation of Durkheim suicide study

Answer 8

This method has three advantages
-Avoids artificiality
-Used to study past events
-Poses no ethical problems such as harming subjects.

Question 9

What issues do sociologists experiment in education

Answer 9

• teacher expectations
• classroom interaction
• labelling
• pupils’ self concept
• self fullfilling prophecy

Question 10

Study to investigate teacher expectations.

Answer 10

Study the nature and impact of teacher expectations. Many claim that teachers expectations of different groups have important effects leading to issues such as self fullfilling prophecy

Question 11

Harvey and slatin experiment of teacher expectations. (1976)

Answer 11

Examined whether teachers had preconceived ideas about pupils of different social classes

Question 12

What did Harvey and slatin do in the experiment.

Answer 12

Used 96 teacher samples who were shown 18 photos of children from different social backgrounds. The control variable was that the photos were divided into age, gender and ethnicity. The teachers were asked to rate the photos based on parents attitude to education and performance.

Question 13

Evaluation of the Harvey and slatin experiment on teacher expectations.

Answer 13

Found that working class pupils were less favourable. The teachers based their ratings on the similarities they perceived between children. The study indicates that teachers label children based on social class.

Question 14

The charkin et al experiment in 1975.

Answer 14

Used a sample on 48 pupils in university who each taught a 10 year old boy. One third were told the boy was intelligent, the other third was told nothing and the last third was told we were poorly motivated.

Question 15

Evaluation of charkin et al experiment

Answer 15

Found that those with a high expectancy on the boy made more contact and gave out more encouraging body language than the low expectancy group.

Question 16

The Mason (1973) experiment

Answer 16

Looked at whether positive or negative expectations had a greater effect on

Question 17

What did the mason experiment consist of

Answer 17

Teachers were given a positive and negative and neutral report on students. The teachers observed a video of the pupils taking a test watching for errors. Asked to predict the pupils end of year attainment.

Question 18

Evaluation of the mason 1973 experiment.

Answer 18

Found that negative reports had a much greater impact

Question 19

Ethical problems of laboratory experiments on teacher expectations.

Answer 19

Some experiments use real people including children that raised concern, this sis because vulnerability groups have limited ability to understand what is happening.

Question 20

Narrow focus of laboratory experiments in teacher expectations.

Answer 20

Experiments only examines one specific aspect of teacher expectations such as body language. This is useful because it allows the researcher to exams variables more thoroughly.

Question 21

Practical problems on laboratory experiments on teacher expectations.

Answer 21

More problems as schools are complex and there are many variables which are difficult to control and identify.

Question 22

Field experiments on teacher expectations.

Answer 22

Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1968 illustrates the difficulty of using field experiments to study teacher expectations.

Question 23

What was the Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment of 1968

Answer 23

Carried out research In a California primary school. Pupils to take an in test and told the teachers that this had enabled the researchers to identify the 20% of pupils who were likely to have a spurt in the next year. However the pupils were chosen at random.

Question 24

What was the aims of the Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment.

Answer 24

To plant the minds of the teacher a particular set of expectations about their pupils and to secondly see if this had any effect on pupils performance.

Question 25

Rosenthal and Jacobson evaluation

Answer 25

The spurters were selected at random and the researchers wanted to see if teachers expectations had any influence. 8 months later the pupils retested and the spurters points went up by 4 points better than the average.

Question 26

Ethical problems of field experiments on teachers expectations.

Answer 26

Children have more rights these days and the legal duty of care that schools have mean that this experiment is less likely to happen now.

Question 27

Reliability of field experiments on teachers expectations

Answer 27

The study was designed to be easily repeated, however all schools are different making it impossible to create an exact replica.

Question 28

Validity of field experiment on teacher expectations.

Answer 28

Rosenthal and Jacobson claimed that teachers expectations were passed on through differences in the way they interact with peoples. However, the researcher did not carry out any observation on classroom interaction, so they do not have data to support this claim.

Question 29

Broader focus on field experiments of teacher expectations.

Answer 29

Rosenthal and Jacobson looked at the whole labelling process from teacher expectations through the effect in pupils rather than examining every element. They said it was also longitudinal which allowed them to identify trends over time.