Natural experiments.

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Natural experiments.

Advantages

  • Allows research where IV cannot be manipulated for ethical or practical reasons, e.g. studies of privation.
  • High ecological validity - resulting in many real world applications.
  • Very little bias from sampling or demand characteristics.

Disadvantages

  • Difficult to infer cause and effect due to lack of control and no direct manipulation of the IV.
  • Extremely difficult to replicate - difficult to test for reliability.
  • Many extraneous variables, which are a threat to validity.
  • Participants may be aware of being studies causing participant effects, investigator effects and demand characteristics.

Evaluation

Natural experiments are perhaps the most effective at showing real life behaviours as they have extremely high ecological validity. However, due to the effect of extraneous variables and the lack of control, it may be difficult to establish a high internal validity for this type of experiment.

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