What’s the difference between experimental research and quasi-experimental research?
Quasi-experimental does NOT have radomization, OR lacks a control group
what are the 3 major types of QUANTITATIVE research?
- Experimental research (aka clinical trials or RCT)
- Quasi-experimental
- Non-experimental
What is the Hawthorne effect
the knowledge of being in a study may cause people to change their behavior bc they know they’re being watched (this is a disadvantage to the researcher–it can bias the study outcomes)
What are the advantages of experimental research? And the disadvantages?
advantage: it is most powerful for detecting cause and effect relationships
Disadvantage: often not feasible or ethical, it’s costly, also risk of Hawthorne effect
Rival hypothesis
An alternative explanation, competing with the researcher’s hypothesis, for interpreting the results of a study.
What is a challenge of longitudinal studies?
attrition (the loss of participants over time)
Threats to Internal Validity
- Selection bias— preexisting differences btwn groups being compared (randomization helps to reduce this)
- History threat—other events co-occurring with causal factor that could also affect outcomes (ex. Of self-breast examinations with Michelle Obama in control group)
- Maturation threat—processes that result simply from the passage of time
- Mortality/attrition threat—differential loss of participants from different groups
What are “strata”
Strata are mutually exclusive segments of a population based on a specific characteristic. (aka subpopulations, such as women)
