Question

Explain how a study can be important but lack a diverse, random sample and a real-world setting. What type of study is likely to have neither of these?

Answer 1

Non experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both.

Non-experimental research Is a kind of study where a researcher cannot control, manipulate or alter the predictor variable or subjects, but instead, relies on interpretation, observation or interactions to come to a conclusion.Nonexperimental designs include research designs in which an experimenter simply either describes a group or examines relationships between preexisting groups. The members of the groups are not randomly assigned and an independent variable is not manipulated by the experimenter, thus, no conclusions about causal relationships between variables in the study can be drawn. Generally, little attempt is made to control for threats to internal validity in nonexperimental designs. Non-experimental designs are used simply to answer questions about groups or about whether group differences exist. The conclusions drawn from nonexperimental research are primarily descriptive in nature. .

Despite the fact that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both, Non-experimental research tends to have a high level of external validity, meaning it can be generalized to a larger population .As discussed above non-experimental research involves variables that are not manipulated by the researcher and instead are studied as they exist. One reason for using nonexperimental research is that many variables of interest in social science cannot be manipulated because they are attribute variables, such as gender, socioeconomic status, learning style, or any other personal characteristic or trait. For example, a researcher cannot randomly place individuals into different groups based on gender or learning style because these are naturally existing attributes.

Non experimental research falls into three broad categories: single-variable research, correlational and quasi-experimental research, and qualitative research. First, research can be non experimental because it focuses on a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables. Non experimental research focuses on a statistical relationship between two variables but does not include the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both. This kind of research takes two basic forms: correlational research and quasi-experimental research. In correlational research, the researcher measures the two variables of interest with little or no attempt to control extraneous variables and then assesses the relationship between them In quasi-experimental research, the researcher manipulates an independent variable but does not randomly assign participants to conditions or orders of conditions.

TRUE EXPERIMENTS VS QUASI-EXPERIMENTS:

• In a true experiment, participants are randomly assigned to either the treatment or the control group, whereas they are not assigned randomly in a quasi-experiment
• In a quasi-experiment, the control and treatment groups differ not only in terms of the experimental treatment they receive, but also in other, often unknown or unknowable, ways. Thus, the researcher must try to statistically control for as many of these differences as possible
• Because control is lacking in quasi-experiments, there may be several "rival hypotheses" competing with the experimental manipulation as explanations for observed results

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