Methods of Enquiry in Psychology — Psychology STD 11 Humanities — Question

Field Experiments:

• The investigator actually creates situation in a real life setting as close as possible to those of true laboratory experiment.
• It involves manipulation of independent variables and control of extraneous variables.
• Its goal is to allow causal conclusions to be drawn from research conducted in natural settings.

For example: Suppose a researcher wants to know whether the frequent use of verbal reinforcement (e.g. praise etc) have any effect on employee's performance or not. For this purpose he will select any organization and will divide the employees, without their knowledge into two groups-one group will receive, praise and encouragement for their work and the other will not.

• The experimenter will then draw the conclusions according to the results obtained.

Advantages:

• Field experiments have high external validity i.e. since they are carried out in natural settings, they are close to reality and can be generalized.
• Subjects are not aware of their states as subjects, so they are not conscious to behave in a desired manner.
• Cause-effect relationship can be studied.

Limitations:

• All the extraneous variables cannot be controlled.
• It is time consuming and expensive.
• It goes against the ethics to deceive subjects.