Quasi Experimental Design in Scientific Psychology

Abstract

For most of the history of scientific psychology, it has been accepted that experimental research, with its twin assets of random assignment and manipulation of the independent variable by the researcher, is the ideal method for psychological research. Some researchers believe this so strongly that they avoid studying important questions about human personality, sex differences in behaviour, and other subjects that do not lend themselves to experimental research.

A few decades ago researchers in psychology were interested in applied psychology issues conducting research on how students learnt in school, how social factors influenced the behaviour of an individual, how to motivate factory workers to perform at a higher level etc. These research questions cannot be answered by lab experiments as one has to go to the field and the real life situation like the classroom etc., to find answers to the research issues mentioned above. Thus the quasi experimental research came into existence. Quasi-experimental research design can be more easily implemented in natural settings and one can make direct assessment of subjects, find out the effects of a specific treatment introduced by the researcher, and while doing so the researcher can also minimise the influence of extraneous variables. In this paper, the quasi experimental design is discussed with scientific significance.

Keywords: Quasi Experimental, Design, Classification, Merits, Demerits