Quantitative: Field Experiments and the Comparative Method (Primary) Flashcards
What are the main concepts of field experiments?
- Wants to find the cause, like lab experiments, but aims to overcome unnaturalness and lack of validity of lab experiments.
- Takes place in the subject’s natural surroundings.
- Those involved don’t know they are the subjects of an experiment.
- The researcher isolates and manipulates one or more of the variables to see the effect on subjects of the experiment.
What are the 2 types of field experiments?
- Actor tests.
- Correspondence tests.
What was Brown and Gay’s (1985) study on racial discrimination in employment?
- They sent a white actor and a black actor for interviews for the same posts. Subjects were matched in every other way than ethnicity.
- Wood et al (2010) had a similar study, sending applications to over 1000 jobs apparently from 3 applicants of different ethnicities.
What is an evaluation of field experiments?
(positive and negative)
(positive)
- More natural and valid for real life.
- Avoids artificiality of lab experiments.
(negative)
- More natural and realistic situation = less control over variables. Can’t be certain the true cause has been found.
- Unethical → carries out experiments on subjects without knowledge or consent.
What is the comparative method?
- Carried out only in the mind of the sociologist.
- A thought experiment.
- Researchers don’t experiment with real people.
- Re-analyses secondary data.
- Still designed to discover cause and effect relationships.
How is the comparative method used?
- Identify 2 groups that are alike except for one variable they are interested in.
- Compare the 2 groups to see if this one difference has any effect.
What is an evaluation of the comparative method?
(positive and negative)
(positive)
- Avoids artificiality.
- Used to study past events.
- Avoids ethical problems of harming or deceiving subjects.
(negative)
- It gives the researcher even less control over variables than field experiments do, so we can be even less certain whether a thought experiment has really discovered something.
Methods in Context links…
How does Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) show teacher expectations in their study through field experiments?
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968):
- Pupils given IQ tests.
- Teachers then told that these identified 20% of pupils who were likely to ‘spurt’.
- (Pupils were actually chosen at random).
- Teacher expectations were the independent variable.
- Pupils retested 8 months later, then after a further year.
- 1st 8 months → average of 8 IQ points. ‘Spurters’ → average 12 IQ points.
- Greatest improvement was found in the youngest children. However, after 12 months, it only seemed to have an effect on 10-11 year olds.
What are ethical issues?
(using the R+J experiment)
Using the Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment, the following issues can be identified:
- ‘Spurters’ benefited from the study, the other 80% did not.
- They could have been held back academically due to teacher expectation down to lack of attention and encouragement.
- A such experiment is unlikely to be carried out today where children have more rights and schools duty of care.
Are field experiments high or low in reliability?
- The R+J study wasn’t replicable due to so many possible variables it could not be exactly repeated.
= not reliable because not replicable.
Are field experiments high or low in validity?
- R+J’s study claimed teachers’ expectations were passed on through differences in the way they interacted with pupils.
- Researchers didn’t observe classroom interactions so there was no data to support this claim.
- Later studies that did use observation found no evidence of teacher expectations being passed on through classroom interactions.
What is a broader focus of the Rosenthal and Jacobson study?
- Rosenthal and Jacobson looked at the whole labelling process rather than examining single elements in isolation.
- The study was longitudinal, identifying trends over time.
