Experiments Flashcards
(24 cards)
What is a lab experiment?
A sociologist manipulates variables to discover a cause and effect relationship.
What is a practical strength of lab experiments?
Often cheap and less time consuming
What are 2 Practical weakness of lab experiments?
1) Cannot be used to study the past, as it is impossible to control all that variables acting in the past
2) Impossible to control all variables that might exert influence on teachers expectations.
What is an Ethical advantage of Lab experiments?
Education development not impacted.
What is an Ethical disadvantage of lab experiments?
Lack of informed consent, deception and harm and also can cause emotional and psychological effects on those involved.
What are Reliability advantage of Lab experiments?
It is in a controlled environment, so it can easily be replicated.
What are 2 Validity disadvantage of Lab experiments?
1) The hawthrone effect, as students know they are in an experiment.
2) In an artificial environment so it is doubtful if it can give true picture of the real world.
What is a representative disadvantage of Lab experiments?
Most experiments are small scale so there is limited application. Cannot make generalisations.
What group would favour lab experiments?
Positivists as they are very reliable because they are easily replicated.
Why would interpretivists not like this method?
Intepretivists argue we have free will that humans are different from the natural pheonmeona that natural scientists study, because we have consciousnesses.
What is a good study to use for Lab experiments?
Milgram (1974) lied to paritcptants and told them they must administer electric shocks when a learner failed to answer a question correctly, but the real aim was to measure obedience to authority.
What is another good study to use for Lab experiments?
Mason. Teachers were given positive/negative/neutral reports on a pupil. The teachers watched a video of that pupil taking a test and had to identify any errors, as well as predict an end of year level. Negative reports = lower levels.
What 2 points should you use for the question Outline and explain two reasons why laboratory experiments are mostly associated with positivist research aims?
1) reliable ( explain why positivists like this) Use Mason;s study, to show it can be easily replicated, gaining a similar sample, using same video. Allowing to see changes overtime.
2) Scientific (explain this) Use Milgram study, this means the researcher did not impose their own meaning in research, this can be used to predict the future.
What is a Field experiment?
Takes place in the real social world, where the sociologists creates a situation of an existing real life situation to their research purpose.
What is a Practical advantage of Field experiments?
It is possible to do field experiments in large institutions like a schools.
What are 2 practical disadvantages of field experiments?
Gatekeeper can deny access in schools
Can be difficult to access difficult groups
What is a Ethical disadvantage of field experiments?
They do not usually gain informed consent of those involved, because to do so would give it away.
What is a reliable disadvantage of field experiments?
Cannot control all the variables
What is a Validity advantage of Field experiments?
People are unaware of the experimental situation, peopel will act normally.
What is a Valid disadvantage of Field experiments?
The more real the situation, the more less control of variables meaning we cannot be certain that causes we have identified are the correct ones.
What is an Representative disadvantage of field experiments?
Not suited to researching large scale social behavior partners such as class and achievement ( you have to be in a class)
Who is in favour of field experiments?
Interpretivists see field experiments as more valid information than artificial conditions of lab experiments.
Why will Positivists not be in favour of field experiments?
Less control over variables.
What is a Good study to use for field expriements?
Rosthental and Jacobson ( study of spurters to test the self fulfilling prophecy)
