The experimental and comparative methods Flashcards
The experiment is the main way of conducting research in the
natural sciences
Experiments are used to test a hypothesis and must be done
in laboratory conditions so that the researcher can isolate and manipulate variables
In experiments, the researcher takes 2 groups (the control group and the experimental group) and
alters a factor (the independent variable) in the experimental group to see if the dependent variable changes
Advantages of the experimental method
- enables scientists to test hypotheses in controlled conditions
- makes it easy to isolate and manipulate variables to find the cause of events
- repeatable so can be checked by other researchers
- enables comparisons with similar research
Example of an experiment - Rosenthal and Jacobson’s Pygmalion in the Classroom
- done in the field rather than a lab so couldn’t fully isolate variables
- independent variable was whether teachers were told students were high ability
- dependent variable was students’ results
- provided evidence for the self-fulfilling prophecy
Example of an experiment: Bandura’s Bobo doll study
- more of a psychological experiment
- independent variable was what the children were shown
- dependent variable was behaviour towards doll
- used to support the hypodermic syringe model
Problems with the experimental method
- the Hawthorne effect
- difficult to isolate a single cause of a social issue like crime or educational underachievement
- may have negative effects on participants
- people may object to being experimented on
- if people don’t realise they’re in an experiment (eg to avoid hawthorne effect), the researcher won’t have informed consent
- experiments are often only possible in small-scale settings
Hawthorne effect definition
when the presence of a researcher, or a group’s knowledge that it is the focus of attention, changes the behaviour of a group
Hawthorne experiment (found evidence of Hawthorne effect)
- Elton Mayo experimenting on productivity of factor workers in the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electricity Company of Chicago
- testing various conditions eg room temperature, lighting, rest length etc but found that productivity went up even when conditions were made worse
- concluded that it was the presence of researches which increased productivity - The Hawthorne Effect
Field experiments are conducted
in the real world in normal social conditions (mainly done by interpretivists)
Example of field experiment - Rosenhan ‘On being sane in insane places’
- looking at how mental hospitals labelled people as mentally ill
- arranged for sane ‘patients’ to fake symptoms of schizophrenia, then act normally once admitted to hospital - all were diagnosed as schizophrenic
- then he told the staff to expect patients who were faking illness - the staff thought they had identified all of the fake patients but actually all those who they identified were genuine patients
The comparative method
- alternative to experiments (with the same principles)
- researcher collects data about different societies or social groups in the real world, then compares them to see conditions present in one group and try to explain some social event
- most commonly used by positivists trying to isolate and identify the causes of behaviour
Example of the comparative method - Durkheim’s suicide study
- compared official suicide statistics in various societies and examined them to see what seemed to be the factors associated with a high suicide rate
- compared variables such as religion, marriage and geographical location
- concluded that different suicide rates could be partially explained by different religious beliefs
