Types of Studies Flashcards
Laboratory Experiment
Test hypothesises in scientifically designed, highly controlled environments.
Allows variables to be manipulated.
Some participants are used as a control group allowing for comparison.
Cause and effect relationship
Field Experiments
These take place in the ‘field’ - the environment the behavior would be expected to occur in.
The researcher can manipulate the IV.
They may not havew control over envrionement variables or participant variables.
Natural Experiments
The researcher exploits a situation that is naturally occuring - in an environment that the behavior is expected to occur in.
The IV has been operationalised by circumstance, groups can be compared. The DV may also be operationalised situationally.
Laboratory Experiments - Advantages
The results are throught to be reliabe due to variables being controlled.
reliability is easy to check as others can replicate the procedure.
Conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect relationships.
The pace of research can be forced - you can stimulate conditions.
Field Experiments - Advantages
Validity is likely to increase as the experiment takes place in the natural environment.
demand characteristics are reduced as there is usually limited contact with the researcher.
Natural Experiments - Advantages
It is possable to study events that cannot be manipulated/or have ethical implucations.
High validity as using real situations/experiences.
No/few demand characteristics.
Laboratory Experiments - Weaknesses
As events do not occur in the natural environment the research may have low validity and it isnt possable to generalise the findings.
The laboratory situation means more likelihood of demand characteristics.
The more variables and people are manipulated the more likely there will be ethical issues.
Field Experiments - Weaknesses
As only the IV is manipulated, control is reduced and the results become less reliable through likelyhood of extranious variables and sources of bias.
Natural Experiments - Weaknesses
No control over variables - little reliability, have causal relationships been correctly identified?
Ethical implications - consent? Feedback?
Quasi Experiment
Have an IV that’s based on an existing difference between people.
Noone has manipulated this variable.
Quasi Experiment - Advantages
Quasi experiments are often carried out under controlled conditions and therefore shame the stages of laboratory experiments.
Quasi Experiment - Weaknesses
Quasi experiments, like natural experiments, cannot randomly allocate participants to conditions and therefore there maybe confounding variables.
