Question

Provide examples of experimental and nonexperimental research design. Contrast the levels of control applied to each.

Answer 1

Experimental and nonexperimental research design:

A. Experimental research: When a researcher is able to manipulate, observe variable and subjects to identify a cause-and-effect relationship. In Experimental research the research to be conducted in a lab, with one group being placed in an experimental group, or the ones being manipulated, while the other is placed in a placebo group, or inert condition or non-manipulated group. Experimental research is more reliable because a laboratory-based experiment gives a high level of control and reliability.

Experimental research conducted in laboratory in a controlled environment. Purpose of the experiment is to find out the causation and experimental studies are causal studies. These studies answer what, why, how questions in the research. The experimenter can manipulate the variables and has a control group and a placebo. The experimental group is similar to the control group except that the control group does not get any treatment while the experimental group gets the treatment. The control group receives the treatment that the experimenter wants to test and the placebo group is tested without any treatment finally changes in the results of both groups are compared. Experiment repeats in the same environment more than one time to get most valid results. There are basically three different types of experiments they are controlled experiments, quasi-experiments and field experiments.

Examples of experimental research design:

If a machine like a mixer is making a noise, the human ear will listen first and then eyes will watch for the location from where the noise is coming. Then our hands will inspect the portion of noise and fix and test it again through eyes and ears. If the noise is off, then the experiment is done. This pattern of experimenting a research is known as experimental research design.

Another example on the experimental design is when objects of three different colours are ready for sale and sent to three different stores. If colour has a significant impact on the sale, then all of the objects can be sent as same colour. Here sets of design are created before experimenting.

B. Non-experimental research: A researcher cannot control, manipulate any variable or subjects. Non-experimental researcher includes surveys or case studies. Non-experimental research has a high level of external validity.

In non-experimental research no control group so the non-experimental research design study the phenomenon, people in a natural manner without manipulation. In few non-experimental studies the causation is established by determining that a certain variable has an impact on another variable. It can also compare the results of two or more groups or people on one or more variables.

Violence men vs. women -We cannot have a true experimental study. Our predictor variable for violence is gender. To have a true experimental study we would need to be able to manipulate the predictor variable. If we had a way to switch men into women and women into men, back and forth, so that we could see which gender is more violent, then we could run a true experimental study. When a researcher studies gender difference in computer use he cannot randomly assign gender.

Examples of non-experimental research design:

To do surveys, for example a survey of people who uses an online application. This experiment involves, collection of descriptive data, its not controlled like predefined design data sets. The process is left to nature and people will give the data and data will be collected like yes or no questions and the subsequent research is done.

Another survey about how many people consumes a particular pill in a year, Data collection procedures are least controlling in this survey as the public is free to give comments on the particular asked data. This helps the researcher involving in descriptive and independent collection of data.