Research methods - Design issues in Experiments.

This means different participants in each condition.

Advantages

• No order effect because each participant only does the task once.
• No demand characteristic as participants are unable to guess the aims.
• Can use the same materials meaning low cost.

Disadvantages

• Participant variables are not controlled meaning that bias could occur
• Participants could be to different.

Ways of dealing with the disadvantage(s)

• Random allocation of participants into groups so as to gain a diverse and unbiased sample.

This means the same participants in each condition.

Advantages

• No participant variable.
• Need less people meaning low cost and less time.

Disadvantages

• Order effect (may not be able to conduct second condition immediately.
• Need different materials.
• Practice Effect.

Ways of dealing with the disadvantage(s)

• Choose independant design instead.
• Leave a long time between each condition.
• Altering the test but still maintaining the same level of difficulty.

This means different participants in each condition matched with a member of the other group. Such as ethnic background, gender, age, social background, economic status amd education status.

Advantages

• No order effect.
• Participants variables minimised.
• No wait nessacary for participants to forget the first condition.

Disadvantages

• Same participant variables may make it hard to find the perfect match.
• Time consuming.

Ways of dealing with the disadvantage(s)

• randomly allocate pairs to conditions by doing this the factors unmatched and unknow are distributed evenly across the conditions.