Types of research design – experiments Chapter 8 in Babbie & Mouton (2001) Introduction to all research designs All research designs have specific objectives they strive for Have different strengths and limitations Have validity considerations SUMBER: web.uct.ac.za/.../Types%20of%20research%20d...
Types of research design – experiments. Chapter 8 in Babbie & Mouton (2001) Introduction to all research designs All research designs have specific objectives they strive for Have different strengths and limitations Have validity considerations. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Types of research design – experimentsChapter 8 in Babbie & Mouton (2001)
Introduction to all research designsAll research designs have specific
objectives they strive forHave different strengths and
When we say that a knowledge claim (or proposition) is valid, we make a JUDGEMENT about the extent to which relevant evidence supports that claim to be true
Is the interpretation of the evidence given the only possible one, or are there other plausible ones?
"Plausible rival hypotheses" = potential alternative explanations/claims
e.g. New York City's "zero tolerance" crime fighting strategy in the 1980s and 1990s - the reverse of the "broken windows" effect
Milgram's study on obedienceObedience to authorityThe willingness of subjects to follow E's orders
to give painful electrical shocks to another subject
A real, important issue here: how could "ordinary" citizens, like many Germans during the Nazi period, do these incredibly cruel and brutal things?
If a person is under allegiance to a legitimate authority, under what conditions will the person defy the authority if s/he is asked to carry out actions clearly incompatible with basic moral standards?SUMBER: web.uct.ac.za/.../Types%20of%20research%20d...
Improved performance because of the researcher's presence - people became aware that they were in an experiment, or that they were given special treatment
Especially for people who lack social contacts, e.g. residents of nursing homes, chronic mental patients
In real life, people may feel sorry for C-group who does not get "the treatment" - try to give them something extrae.g. compare usual day care for street
children with an enhanced day treatment condition
service providers may very well complain about inequity, and provide some enhanced service to the children receiving usual careSUMBER: web.uct.ac.za/.../Types%20of%20research%20d...
External validity Mainly questions about three aspects:
Research participants Independent variables, or manipulations Dependent variables, or outcomes
Says nothing about the truth of the result that we are generalizing
External validity only has meaning once the internal validity of a study has been established
Internal validity is the basic minimum without which an experiment is uninterpretableSUMBER: web.uct.ac.za/.../Types%20of%20research%20d...
External validity Our interest in answering research questions is
rarely restricted to the specific situation studied - our interest is in the variables, not the specific details of a piece of research
But studies differ in many ways, even if they study the same variables: operational definitions of the variables subject population studied procedural details observers settings
Generally bigger samples with valid measures lead to better external validity