Question

Discuss the importance of having comparable populations underlying comparisons of experimental and non-experimental estimates.

Answer 1

Having comparable populations underlying comparisons of experimental and non-experimental estimates is important. This is because of the following reasons:

1) Acts as a validation check on the outcome of experimental and non-experimental estimates

2) Makes results robust, explanatory, reliable and acceptable

3) Helps determine the direction of cause and effect relationship

4) The researcher would have an idea of likely outcome of the experiment which would help in making a comparison of actual outcome with the possible outcome.

5) Helps in evaluation & analysis of all possible variables that would contribute to the desirable outcome

6) Helps in evaluation and finalization of the model used for prediction or forecasting

7) Helps charting out the explanatory variables and features in the order of their respective relative importance

8) Eventually would contribute to controlling costs in conducting experiments and puts a check on conducting any random experiment.