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Experimental Research Designs & Quasi Research Designs
Experimental Research Designs & Quasi Research Designs
Field experiment
An experiment has internal validity when it fulfills the three conditions required
for causal inference: covariation, time-order relationship, and elimination of
plausible alternative causes.
When we balance a factor such as body weight, we make the three groups
equivalent in terms of their average body weight.
Note that this differs from holding body weight constant, which would require
that all of the girls in the study have the same body weight.
Similarly, balancing the number of Barbie dolls owned by girls in the three
groups would mean that the average number of dolls owned in the three
groups is the same, not that the number of dolls owned by each girl is held
constant at some number.
The beauty of random assignment is that all individual differences are
balanced, not just the ones we’ve mentioned. Therefore, we can rule out
alternative explanations due to any individual differences among participants
Block Randomization
Block randomization balances subject characteristics and potential confoundings that
occur during the time in which the experiment is conducted, and it creates groups of
equal size.
Suppose we have an experiment with five conditions (labeled, for convenience, as A, B,
C, D, and E).
One “block” is made up of a random order of all five conditions:
One block of conditions → Random order of conditions
ABCDE CAE B D
In block randomization, we assign subjects to conditions one block at a time. In our
example with five conditions, five subjects would be needed to complete the first block
with one subject in each condition. The next five subjects would be assigned to one of
each of the five conditions to complete a second block, and so on. If we want to have
10 subjects in each of five conditions, then there would be 10 blocks in the block-
randomized schedule. Each block would consist of a random arrangement of the five
conditions. This procedure is illustrated below for the first 11 participants.
block randomization produces groups that are of equal size.
Second, block randomization controls for time-related variables.
Because experiments often take a substantial amount of time to
complete, some participants can be affected by events that occur
during the time the experiment is conducted. In block
randomization, every condition is tested in each block so these
time-related variables are balanced across the conditions of the
experiment.
Block randomization also works to balance other time-related
variables, such as changes in experimenters or even changes in
the populations from which subjects are drawn. For example, a
perfectly acceptable experiment could be done drawing students
from both fall and spring semester classes if a block
randomization schedule is used.
Threats to Internal Validity
Selective subject loss, but not mechanical subject loss, threatens the
internal validity of an experiment.
Placebo control groups are used to control for the problem of demand
characteristics, and double-blind experiments control both demand
characteristics and experimenter effects
Potential variables that are not directly of interest to the researcher but
that could still be sources of confounding in the experiment are called
extraneous variables.
Selective subject loss o ccurs (1) when subjects are lost differentially
across the conditions of the experiment; (2) when some characteristic
of the subject is responsible for the loss; and (3) when this subject
characteristic is related to the dependent v ariable used to assess the
outcome of the study.
Matched Group Design
After subjects are matched on the matching task, they should then be
randomly assigned to the conditions of the independent variable.
Natural Group Design
At the end of the a year the branch with TQM has higher quality of
production than the one that retained the traditional management
technique.