Experiments

Question 1

What are experiments?

Answer 1

• Is the main method of natural sciences and a key feature is the high degree of control that the researcher has over the situation
• In an experiment the researcher identifies and controls all the variables that might affect the outcome of the situation being studied
• By manipulating the variables and observing what happens, the researcher can discover cause and effect relationships

Question 2

What are the 2 main types of experiments?

Answer 2

• Laboratory experiments and field experiments

Question 3

What is a field experiment ?

Answer 3

• An experiment that takes place in real world situations such as in Classrooms or offices
• Those involved are generally not aware that they are subjects of an experiment, in which case there is no Hawthorne effect

Question 4

What is an example of field experiment?

Answer 4

• In Rosenhans psuedopatient experiment, researchers presented themselves at 12 California mental hospitals saying they had been hearing voices, and each one of them has been admitted and diagnosed as schizophrenic
• Once they were in hospital they stopped complaining and proceeded to act normally , however the hospital staff treated them as though they were ill
• This helps to suggest it was not the patients behavior that led to them being treated as sick but the label of schizophrenic itself that led to it
• this helps to show the value of field experiments, however the more realistic we make the situation, the less control we have over the variables that might be operating and if this is the case we cannot be certain that the causes we have identified are the correct ones

Question 5

Advantages of Field Experiment

Answer 5

• High validity, because it is in a natural setting, people are unaware of the experimental situation and are in their usual social environment, they will act normally and their reactions will be more realistic
• provides ecological validity meaning that it shows what happens in everyday classrooms and it could help uncover how educational processes such as streaming and labelling work
• allows us to study real world interactions for example between teachers and students

Question 6

Disadvantages of field experiments

Answer 6

• Ethical issues, they do not usually gain informed consent of those involves because to do so would give the game away, and this would act as problem especially working with children in schools
• Lack of control, factors such as home background and peer influence cannot be easily controlled therefore it is hard to isolate the link between the manipulated variable and the outcome
• Is short term, so they might miss long term effects of things such as labelling or streaming or the development of a sub culture over time

Question 7

What are laboratory experiments?

Answer 7

• Are conducted in highly controlled environments, where the researcher manipulates the variables to observe cause and effect
• They are more common in natural sciences and less so in sociology due to ethical and practical issues

Question 8

Advantages of laboratory experiments

Answer 8

• Highly reliable because, once been conducted other scientists can then replicate it, by repeating it in the exact same detail
• Produces Quantitative data , and this means it can be analysed
• Higher control over variables meaning there is a precise amount of manipulation of variables to be able to establish a clear cause and effect

Question 9

Disadvantages of laboratory experiments

Answer 9

• Cannot be used to study the past, because it is impossible to control variables that were acting in the past
• Limited representativeness because it is usually done small scale meaning it is difficult to investigate large scales social phenomena’s with it
• Behavior in a lab may not reflect what students or teachers would do in a real classroom
• Hawthorne effect, if the person being studied knows they are being studied, they may try behave differently for example by trying to second guess what the researcher wants them to do and acting accordingly

Question 10

What is a thought experiment and an example of it?

Answer 10

• Involves identifying 2 groups that are the same apart from one characteristic and then comparing them to see if the difference has any effect
• An example of this is Durkheims study of suicide
• He predicted that low levels of integration of individuals into social groups caused high rates of suicide
• He argued that Catholicism produced higher levels of integration than Protestantism and therefore he predicted that protestants would have higher suicide rates than catholics
• He tested his hypothesis by comparing the suicide rates of each and he found that his prediction was supported by ONS which showed Catholics to have lower suicide rates
• This method has 3 advantages, it can be used to study past events, has no ethical problems and avoids artificiality

Question 11

What is Positivists and interpretivists view on experiments?

Answer 11

• Positivists favor laboratory experiments in particular because they value quantitative data and the ability to establish the cause and effect
• Interpretivists oppose laboratory experiments because they are critical of the artificial settings and the lack of meaning behind behavior