Experimental Research Methods

Overview

Now that you have learned about the great variety of nonexperimental research methods, we turn to the one category of research designs that allows researchers to ascertain cause and effect: experimental research. This Unit will begin with a discussion of the basics of experimental design, including the criteria for a true experiment, before going on to more complex experimental designs that involve multiple independent and dependent variables. Unit 4 closes by considering a special kind of approach to experimental research designed for use with very few subjects.

The topics to be covered in this unit are:

• Basics of Experimental Research
• Internal and External Validity
• Between-Subjects Experiments
• Within-Subjects Experiments
• Practical Considerations
• Complex Research Designs
• Single-Subject Research