Laboratory experiments

Research methods

Realiability of laboratory experiment

Other scientist can replicate it.They can repeat it exactly in every detail ,producing the same results.eg the experimenter can specify what steps were followed in the original experiment so the researcher can repeat this in the future.

My not be a large enough sample to generalise and compare your samplings.

Practical problems of laboratory experiments and an advantage

Society is a very complex phenomenon.in practice it would be impossible to identify,let alone control, all the possible variables that may exert an influence on ,say, a child’s educational achievement or a workers attitude to work.

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Name two other practical problem

It is in possible to study the past, since by definition it is impossible to control variables that were acting in the past rather than the present.

In addition laboratory conditions only study a small samples.This makes it hard to study large scale social things such as voting and religion.The small scale nature of laboratory experiments also reduce reduce reprisentiveness thus can’t be generalising.

Ethical problems

* Lack of conformed consent
* Deception
* Harm

Advantage
* Most laboratory experiments seek to gain conformed consent often a requirement to gain funding

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Hawthorn affect

A laboratory is not a normal or natural environment.it is therefore likely that any behaviour in these conditions are likely to be unnatural.Thus the experiment will not produce valid results

Free will

Interpritivist sociologists argue that humans are fundamentally different to plants and rocks unlike these objects we have free will,consciousness and choice.

This means our behaviour can’t be explained in terms of cause and effect.instead it can only be explained in term of choices we freely make.in this view the experimental method which it search for causes is thus not an appropriate method for studying human beings.

Field experiments

A field experiment has 2 features that distinguish it from a laboratory experiment

* it takes place in the subjects natural surroundings rather than in an artificial laboratory environment.
* Those involved are generally not aware that they are the subjects of the environment,in which case there is no Hawthorne effect.

The researcher manipulates one or more of the variables in the situation to see what effect it has on the unwitting subjects

Rosenhans study shows the value of the field experiments..They are more natural,valid and realistic and they avoid the artificiality of the laboratory experiment.however the more realistic we make an experiment the less control we have of the variables that might be operating.if so we can’t be certain that the causes we have identified are the right ones.
* Some critics argue that the lab experiments are unethical since it involves carrying out an experiment on their subject without their knowledge or consent.

The comparative method

Carried out in the mind of sociologist

In seeking to discover cause and effect relationships,the comparative method has 3 advantages;it avoids artificiality;it can be used to study past and present event and even poses no ethical problems,such as harming subjects.

However the comparative method gives the researcher even less control of the variables than do field field expediments,so we can be even less certain whether a thought experiment really has discovered the cause of something