Quantitative Research FINAL
Quantitative Research FINAL
Quantitative Research FINAL
Although, the experimental method has greatest utility in the laboratory, it has been
effectively applied non-laboratory settings such as the classroom. The immediate
purpose of
experimentation is to predict events in the experimental setting. The ultimate purpose is
to generalize the variable relationships so that they may be applied outside the
laboratory to a wider population of interest.
The true experimental research design must contain a control group, a variable that can
be manipulated by the researcher, and the distribution must be random. The
classifications of true experimental design include:
The posttest-only Control Group Design: In this design, subjects are randomly
selected and assigned to the 2 groups (control and experimental), and only the
experimental group is treated. After close observation, both groups are post-
tested, and a conclusion is drawn from the difference between these groups.
The pretest-posttest Control Group Design: For this control group design,
subjects are randomly assigned to the 2 groups, both are presented, but only the
experimental group is treated. After close observation, both groups are post-
tested to measure the degree of change in each group.
Solomon four-group Design: This is the combination of the pretest-only and
the pretest-posttest control groups. In this case, the randomly selected subjects
are placed into 4 groups.
The first two of these groups are tested using the posttest-only method, while the other
two are tested using the pretest-posttest method.
Internal validity is the extent to which you can be confident that a cause-and-effect
relationship established in a study cannot be explained by other factors.
In other words, can you reasonably draw a causal link between your treatment and the
response in an experiment?
Internal validity makes the conclusions of a causal relationship credible and trustworthy.
Without high internal validity, an experiment cannot demonstrate a causal link between
two variables.
There are three necessary conditions for internal validity. All three conditions must
occur to experimentally establish causality between an independent variable A (your
treatment variable) and dependent variable B (your response variable).
Researchers change the independent variable in the treatment group and keep it
constant in the control group. Then they compare the results of these groups.
Using a control group means that any change in the dependent variable can be
attributed to the independent variable.
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The treatment is any independent variable manipulated by the experimenters, and its
exact form depends on the type of research being performed. In a medical trial, it might
be a new drug or therapy. In public policy studies, it could be a new social policy that
some receive and not others.
In a well-designed experiment, all variables apart from the treatment should be kept
constant between the two groups. This means researchers can correctly measure the
entire effect of the treatment without interference from confounding variables.
Example of a control group: You are interested in whether college students perform
better in school if they are paid for their performance. To test this, you divide several
students into control and treatment groups.
You pay the students in the treatment group for achieving high grades.
Students in the control group do not receive any money.
By comparing the average change in their grades over the year, you can find out
whether monetary incentives improve school performance.
Studies can also include more than one treatment or control group. Researchers might
want to examine the impact of multiple treatments at once, or compare a new treatment
to several alternatives currently available.
Example of multiple control groups: You have developed a new pill to treat high blood
pressure. To test its effectiveness, you run an experiment with a treatment and two
control groups.
The difference between the treatment group and control group 1 demonstrates
the effectiveness of the pill as compared to no treatment.
The difference between the treatment group and control group 2 shows whether
the new pill improves on treatments already available on the market.
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