Advantages and Disadvantages of Experimental Research
Experimental research focuses mainly on the relationships between known variables. This research also provides strong casual interpretational evidence. The advantages and disadvantages of Experimental research are presented below.
Advantages of Experimental Research
Control Over Variables
This research aids in controlling independent variables for the experiments aim to remove extraneous and unwanted variables. The control over the irrelevant variables is higher as compared to other research types or methods.
Easy Determination of Cause and Effect Relationship
The experimental design of this type of research includes manipulating independent variables to easily determine the cause and effect relationship.
Better Results
Due to the control set up by experimenter and the strict conditions, better results can be achieved. Another good thing about experimental research is that experiments can be repeated and results can be checked again. Better results that have been obtained can also give researcher greater confidence regarding the results.
Other advantages of experimental research are gaining insights to instruction methods, performing experiments and combining methods for rigidity, determining the best for the population and providing greater transferability.
Disadvantages of Experimental Research
Failure to do Experiment
One of the disadvantages of experimental research is that you cannot do experiments at times because you cannot manipulate independent variables either due to ethical or practical reasons. Taking for instance a situation wherein you are enthusiastic about the effects of an individual’s culture or the tendency of helping strangers, you cannot do the experiment. The reason for this is simply because you are not capable of manipulating the individual’s culture.
Creates Artificial Situations
Another disadvantage of experimental research is that this controls irrelevant variables at times and this also means creating situations that are somehow artificial.
Subject to Human Error
Just like any other type of research, experimental research is also subjected to human error and this will somehow affect the efficiency of the results.
Other disadvantages of experimental research are personal biases, unreliable samples, artificial results, and results that can only be applied to one situation and may be hard to replicate and lastly difficulty in measuring human response. Another disadvantage is that results may not be generalized into real-life situations. This research can be time consuming and expensive. There are also several areas wherein experiments cannot be utilized due to ethical and practical considerations.
Experimental designs are frequently contrived scenarios that do not often mimic the things that happen in real world. The degree on which results can be generalized all over situations and real world applications are limited. Experimental research helps with internal validity however this is at the expense of the external validity. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of experimental research can help you determine if this type of research suits your need or not.