Educational Research Methods
A site to support teaching and learning...
Experiments
Experimental research is interventionist (as opposed to naturalistic), that is it deliberately intervenes in the natural state of affairs to see what will happen.
"In experimental research…control is attained through the manipulation of experimental arrangements. The conditions of the experiment provide a context of production for the phenomenon to be studied. The experiment is designed to 'produce' the phenomena under conditions suitable for observation: the direct intervention of control standardises the conditions of production so that measurements (observations) will be comparable from condition to condition and study to study." (Kemmis, 1980: 110).
Kemmis, S. (1980). The Imagination of the Case and the Invention of the Study. In H. Simons (Ed.), Towards a Science of the Singular: Essays about Case Study in Educational Research and Evaluation (pp. 96-142). Norwich: Centre for Applied Research in Education, University of East Anglia.
Where manipulation is not possible, it may sometimes be possible to use a ‘natural experiment’.
Educational experiments may be very difficult to fully replicate.
A detailed review of the nature of, and challenges in undertaking and interpreting, educational experiments may be found in:
Taber, K. S. (2019). Experimental research into teaching innovations: responding to methodological and ethical challenges. Studies in Science Education. doi:10.1080/03057267.2019.1658058
This is a personal site of Keith S. Taber to support teaching of educational research methods.
(Dr Keith Taber is Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.)
2016-2019
