quantitative non experimental research

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7.1 Overview of Nonexperimental Research

Learning objectives.

Define nonexperimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct nonexperimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Nonexperimental Research?

Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both.

In a sense, it is unfair to define this large and diverse set of approaches collectively by what they are not . But doing so reflects the fact that most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental and nonexperimental research to be an extremely important one. This is because while experimental research can provide strong evidence that changes in an independent variable cause differences in a dependent variable, nonexperimental research generally cannot. As we will see, however, this does not mean that nonexperimental research is less important than experimental research or inferior to it in any general sense.

When to Use Nonexperimental Research

As we saw in Chapter 6 “Experimental Research” , experimental research is appropriate when the researcher has a specific research question or hypothesis about a causal relationship between two variables—and it is possible, feasible, and ethical to manipulate the independent variable and randomly assign participants to conditions or to orders of conditions. It stands to reason, therefore, that nonexperimental research is appropriate—even necessary—when these conditions are not met. There are many ways in which this can be the case.

The research question or hypothesis can be about a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., How accurate are people’s first impressions?).
The research question can be about a noncausal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., Is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
The research question can be about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions (e.g., Does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
The research question can be broad and exploratory, or it can be about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., What is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Again, the choice between the experimental and nonexperimental approaches is generally dictated by the nature of the research question. If it is about a causal relationship and involves an independent variable that can be manipulated, the experimental approach is typically preferred. Otherwise, the nonexperimental approach is preferred. But the two approaches can also be used to address the same research question in complementary ways. For example, nonexperimental studies establishing that there is a relationship between watching violent television and aggressive behavior have been complemented by experimental studies confirming that the relationship is a causal one (Bushman & Huesmann, 2001). Similarly, after his original study, Milgram conducted experiments to explore the factors that affect obedience. He manipulated several independent variables, such as the distance between the experimenter and the participant, the participant and the confederate, and the location of the study (Milgram, 1974).

Types of Nonexperimental Research

Nonexperimental research falls into three broad categories: single-variable research, correlational and quasi-experimental research, and qualitative research. First, research can be nonexperimental because it focuses on a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables. Although there is no widely shared term for this kind of research, we will call it single-variable research . Milgram’s original obedience study was nonexperimental in this way. He was primarily interested in one variable—the extent to which participants obeyed the researcher when he told them to shock the confederate—and he observed all participants performing the same task under the same conditions. The study by Loftus and Pickrell described at the beginning of this chapter is also a good example of single-variable research. The variable was whether participants “remembered” having experienced mildly traumatic childhood events (e.g., getting lost in a shopping mall) that they had not actually experienced but that the research asked them about repeatedly. In this particular study, nearly a third of the participants “remembered” at least one event. (As with Milgram’s original study, this study inspired several later experiments on the factors that affect false memories.)

As these examples make clear, single-variable research can answer interesting and important questions. What it cannot do, however, is answer questions about statistical relationships between variables. This is a point that beginning researchers sometimes miss. Imagine, for example, a group of research methods students interested in the relationship between children’s being the victim of bullying and the children’s self-esteem. The first thing that is likely to occur to these researchers is to obtain a sample of middle-school students who have been bullied and then to measure their self-esteem. But this would be a single-variable study with self-esteem as the only variable. Although it would tell the researchers something about the self-esteem of children who have been bullied, it would not tell them what they really want to know, which is how the self-esteem of children who have been bullied compares with the self-esteem of children who have not. Is it lower? Is it the same? Could it even be higher? To answer this question, their sample would also have to include middle-school students who have not been bullied.

Research can also be nonexperimental because it focuses on a statistical relationship between two variables but does not include the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both. This kind of research takes two basic forms: correlational research and quasi-experimental research. In correlational research , the researcher measures the two variables of interest with little or no attempt to control extraneous variables and then assesses the relationship between them. A research methods student who finds out whether each of several middle-school students has been bullied and then measures each student’s self-esteem is conducting correlational research. In quasi-experimental research , the researcher manipulates an independent variable but does not randomly assign participants to conditions or orders of conditions. For example, a researcher might start an antibullying program (a kind of treatment) at one school and compare the incidence of bullying at that school with the incidence at a similar school that has no antibullying program.

The final way in which research can be nonexperimental is that it can be qualitative. The types of research we have discussed so far are all quantitative, referring to the fact that the data consist of numbers that are analyzed using statistical techniques. In qualitative research , the data are usually nonnumerical and are analyzed using nonstatistical techniques. Rosenhan’s study of the experience of people in a psychiatric ward was primarily qualitative. The data were the notes taken by the “pseudopatients”—the people pretending to have heard voices—along with their hospital records. Rosenhan’s analysis consists mainly of a written description of the experiences of the pseudopatients, supported by several concrete examples. To illustrate the hospital staff’s tendency to “depersonalize” their patients, he noted, “Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semipublic room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there” (Rosenhan, 1973, p. 256).

Internal Validity Revisited

Recall that internal validity is the extent to which the design of a study supports the conclusion that changes in the independent variable caused any observed differences in the dependent variable. Figure 7.1 shows how experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational research vary in terms of internal validity. Experimental research tends to be highest because it addresses the directionality and third-variable problems through manipulation and the control of extraneous variables through random assignment. If the average score on the dependent variable in an experiment differs across conditions, it is quite likely that the independent variable is responsible for that difference. Correlational research is lowest because it fails to address either problem. If the average score on the dependent variable differs across levels of the independent variable, it could be that the independent variable is responsible, but there are other interpretations. In some situations, the direction of causality could be reversed. In others, there could be a third variable that is causing differences in both the independent and dependent variables. Quasi-experimental research is in the middle because the manipulation of the independent variable addresses some problems, but the lack of random assignment and experimental control fails to address others. Imagine, for example, that a researcher finds two similar schools, starts an antibullying program in one, and then finds fewer bullying incidents in that “treatment school” than in the “control school.” There is no directionality problem because clearly the number of bullying incidents did not determine which school got the program. However, the lack of random assignment of children to schools could still mean that students in the treatment school differed from students in the control school in some other way that could explain the difference in bullying.

Experiments are generally high in internal validity, quasi-experiments lower, and correlational studies lower still.

Notice also in Figure 7.1 that there is some overlap in the internal validity of experiments, quasi-experiments, and correlational studies. For example, a poorly designed experiment that includes many confounding variables can be lower in internal validity than a well designed quasi-experiment with no obvious confounding variables.

Key Takeaways

Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, control of extraneous variables through random assignment, or both.
There are three broad types of nonexperimental research. Single-variable research focuses on a single variable rather than a relationship between variables. Correlational and quasi-experimental research focus on a statistical relationship but lack manipulation or random assignment. Qualitative research focuses on broader research questions, typically involves collecting large amounts of data from a small number of participants, and analyzes the data nonstatistically.
In general, experimental research is high in internal validity, correlational research is low in internal validity, and quasi-experimental research is in between.

Discussion: For each of the following studies, decide which type of research design it is and explain why.

A researcher conducts detailed interviews with unmarried teenage fathers to learn about how they feel and what they think about their role as fathers and summarizes their feelings in a written narrative.
A researcher measures the impulsivity of a large sample of drivers and looks at the statistical relationship between this variable and the number of traffic tickets the drivers have received.
A researcher randomly assigns patients with low back pain either to a treatment involving hypnosis or to a treatment involving exercise. She then measures their level of low back pain after 3 months.
A college instructor gives weekly quizzes to students in one section of his course but no weekly quizzes to students in another section to see whether this has an effect on their test performance.

Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2001). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223–254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258.

Research Methods in Psychology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

6.1 Overview of Non-Experimental Research

Learning objectives.

Define non-experimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct non-experimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable. Rather than manipulating an independent variable, researchers conducting non-experimental research simply measure variables as they naturally occur (in the lab or real world).

Most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental and non-experimental research to be an extremely important one. This is because although experimental research can provide strong evidence that changes in an independent variable cause differences in a dependent variable, non-experimental research generally cannot. As we will see, however, this inability to make causal conclusions does not mean that non-experimental research is less important than experimental research.

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

As we saw in the last chapter , experimental research is appropriate when the researcher has a specific research question or hypothesis about a causal relationship between two variables—and it is possible, feasible, and ethical to manipulate the independent variable. It stands to reason, therefore, that non-experimental research is appropriate—even necessary—when these conditions are not met. There are many times in which non-experimental research is preferred, including when:

the research question or hypothesis relates to a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., How accurate are people’s first impressions?).
the research question pertains to a non-causal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
the research question is about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions for practical or ethical reasons (e.g., does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
the research question is broad and exploratory, or is about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., what is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Again, the choice between the experimental and non-experimental approaches is generally dictated by the nature of the research question. Recall the three goals of science are to describe, to predict, and to explain. If the goal is to explain and the research question pertains to causal relationships, then the experimental approach is typically preferred. If the goal is to describe or to predict, a non-experimental approach will suffice. But the two approaches can also be used to address the same research question in complementary ways. For example, Similarly, after his original study, Milgram conducted experiments to explore the factors that affect obedience. He manipulated several independent variables, such as the distance between the experimenter and the participant, the participant and the confederate, and the location of the study (Milgram, 1974) [1] .

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Non-experimental research falls into three broad categories: cross-sectional research, correlational research, and observational research.

First, cross-sectional research involves comparing two or more pre-existing groups of people. What makes this approach non-experimental is that there is no manipulation of an independent variable and no random assignment of participants to groups. Imagine, for example, that a researcher administers the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to 50 American college students and 50 Japanese college students. Although this “feels” like a between-subjects experiment, it is a cross-sectional study because the researcher did not manipulate the students’ nationalities. As another example, if we wanted to compare the memory test performance of a group of cannabis users with a group of non-users, this would be considered a cross-sectional study because for ethical and practical reasons we would not be able to randomly assign participants to the cannabis user and non-user groups. Rather we would need to compare these pre-existing groups which could introduce a selection bias (the groups may differ in other ways that affect their responses on the dependent variable). For instance, cannabis users are more likely to use more alcohol and other drugs and these differences may account for differences in the dependent variable across groups, rather than cannabis use per se.

Cross-sectional designs are commonly used by developmental psychologists who study aging and by researchers interested in sex differences. Using this design, developmental psychologists compare groups of people of different ages (e.g., young adults spanning from 18-25 years of age versus older adults spanning 60-75 years of age) on various dependent variables (e.g., memory, depression, life satisfaction). Of course, the primary limitation of using this design to study the effects of aging is that differences between the groups other than age may account for differences in the dependent variable. For instance, differences between the groups may reflect the generation that people come from (a cohort effect) rather than a direct effect of age. For this reason, longitudinal studies in which one group of people is followed as they age offer a superior means of studying the effects of aging. Once again, cross-sectional designs are also commonly used to study sex differences. Since researchers cannot practically or ethically manipulate the sex of their participants they must rely on cross-sectional designs to compare groups of men and women on different outcomes (e.g., verbal ability, substance use, depression). Using these designs researchers have discovered that men are more likely than women to suffer from substance abuse problems while women are more likely than men to suffer from depression. But, using this design it is unclear what is causing these differences. So, using this design it is unclear whether these differences are due to environmental factors like socialization or biological factors like hormones?

When researchers use a participant characteristic to create groups (nationality, cannabis use, age, sex), the independent variable is usually referred to as an experimenter-selected independent variable (as opposed to the experimenter-manipulated independent variables used in experimental research). Figure 6.1 shows data from a hypothetical study on the relationship between whether people make a daily list of things to do (a “to-do list”) and stress. Notice that it is unclear whether this is an experiment or a cross-sectional study because it is unclear whether the independent variable was manipulated by the researcher or simply selected by the researcher. If the researcher randomly assigned some participants to make daily to-do lists and others not to, then the independent variable was experimenter-manipulated and it is a true experiment. If the researcher simply asked participants whether they made daily to-do lists or not, then the independent variable it is experimenter-selected and the study is cross-sectional. The distinction is important because if the study was an experiment, then it could be concluded that making the daily to-do lists reduced participants’ stress. But if it was a cross-sectional study, it could only be concluded that these variables are statistically related. Perhaps being stressed has a negative effect on people’s ability to plan ahead. Or perhaps people who are more conscientious are more likely to make to-do lists and less likely to be stressed. The crucial point is that what defines a study as experimental or cross-sectional l is not the variables being studied, nor whether the variables are quantitative or categorical, nor the type of graph or statistics used to analyze the data. It is how the study is conducted.

Figure 6.1 Results of a Hypothetical Study on Whether People Who Make Daily To-Do Lists Experience Less Stress Than People Who Do Not Make Such Lists

Second, the most common type of non-experimental research conducted in Psychology is correlational research. Correlational research is considered non-experimental because it focuses on the statistical relationship between two variables but does not include the manipulation of an independent variable. More specifically, in correlational research , the researcher measures two continuous variables with little or no attempt to control extraneous variables and then assesses the relationship between them. As an example, a researcher interested in the relationship between self-esteem and school achievement could collect data on students’ self-esteem and their GPAs to see if the two variables are statistically related. Correlational research is very similar to cross-sectional research, and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. The distinction that will be made in this book is that, rather than comparing two or more pre-existing groups of people as is done with cross-sectional research, correlational research involves correlating two continuous variables (groups are not formed and compared).

Third, observational research is non-experimental because it focuses on making observations of behavior in a natural or laboratory setting without manipulating anything. Milgram’s original obedience study was non-experimental in this way. He was primarily interested in the extent to which participants obeyed the researcher when he told them to shock the confederate and he observed all participants performing the same task under the same conditions. The study by Loftus and Pickrell described at the beginning of this chapter is also a good example of observational research. The variable was whether participants “remembered” having experienced mildly traumatic childhood events (e.g., getting lost in a shopping mall) that they had not actually experienced but that the researchers asked them about repeatedly. In this particular study, nearly a third of the participants “remembered” at least one event. (As with Milgram’s original study, this study inspired several later experiments on the factors that affect false memories.

The types of research we have discussed so far are all quantitative, referring to the fact that the data consist of numbers that are analyzed using statistical techniques. But as you will learn in this chapter, many observational research studies are more qualitative in nature. In qualitative research , the data are usually nonnumerical and therefore cannot be analyzed using statistical techniques. Rosenhan’s observational study of the experience of people in a psychiatric ward was primarily qualitative. The data were the notes taken by the “pseudopatients”—the people pretending to have heard voices—along with their hospital records. Rosenhan’s analysis consists mainly of a written description of the experiences of the pseudopatients, supported by several concrete examples. To illustrate the hospital staff’s tendency to “depersonalize” their patients, he noted, “Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semi-public room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there” (Rosenhan, 1973, p. 256) [2] . Qualitative data has a separate set of analysis tools depending on the research question. For example, thematic analysis would focus on themes that emerge in the data or conversation analysis would focus on the way the words were said in an interview or focus group.

Internal Validity Revisited

Recall that internal validity is the extent to which the design of a study supports the conclusion that changes in the independent variable caused any observed differences in the dependent variable. Figure 6.2 shows how experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental (correlational) research vary in terms of internal validity. Experimental research tends to be highest in internal validity because the use of manipulation (of the independent variable) and control (of extraneous variables) help to rule out alternative explanations for the observed relationships. If the average score on the dependent variable in an experiment differs across conditions, it is quite likely that the independent variable is responsible for that difference. Non-experimental (correlational) research is lowest in internal validity because these designs fail to use manipulation or control. Quasi-experimental research (which will be described in more detail in a subsequent chapter) is in the middle because it contains some, but not all, of the features of a true experiment. For instance, it may fail to use random assignment to assign participants to groups or fail to use counterbalancing to control for potential order effects. Imagine, for example, that a researcher finds two similar schools, starts an anti-bullying program in one, and then finds fewer bullying incidents in that “treatment school” than in the “control school.” While a comparison is being made with a control condition, the lack of random assignment of children to schools could still mean that students in the treatment school differed from students in the control school in some other way that could explain the difference in bullying (e.g., there may be a selection effect).

Figure 7.1 Internal Validity of Correlational, Quasi-Experimental, and Experimental Studies. Experiments are generally high in internal validity, quasi-experiments lower, and correlational studies lower still.

Figure 6.2 Internal Validity of Correlation, Quasi-Experimental, and Experimental Studies. Experiments are generally high in internal validity, quasi-experiments lower, and correlation studies lower still.

Notice also in Figure 6.2 that there is some overlap in the internal validity of experiments, quasi-experiments, and correlational studies. For example, a poorly designed experiment that includes many confounding variables can be lower in internal validity than a well-designed quasi-experiment with no obvious confounding variables. Internal validity is also only one of several validities that one might consider, as noted in Chapter 5.

Key Takeaways

Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable.
There are two broad types of non-experimental research. Correlational research that focuses on statistical relationships between variables that are measured but not manipulated, and observational research in which participants are observed and their behavior is recorded without the researcher interfering or manipulating any variables.
In general, experimental research is high in internal validity, correlational research is low in internal validity, and quasi-experimental research is in between.
A researcher conducts detailed interviews with unmarried teenage fathers to learn about how they feel and what they think about their role as fathers and summarizes their feelings in a written narrative.
A researcher measures the impulsivity of a large sample of drivers and looks at the statistical relationship between this variable and the number of traffic tickets the drivers have received.
A researcher randomly assigns patients with low back pain either to a treatment involving hypnosis or to a treatment involving exercise. She then measures their level of low back pain after 3 months.
A college instructor gives weekly quizzes to students in one section of his course but no weekly quizzes to students in another section to see whether this has an effect on their test performance.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row. ↵
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258. ↵

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Chapter 7: Nonexperimental Research

Overview of Nonexperimental Research

Learning Objectives

Define nonexperimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct nonexperimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Nonexperimental Research?

Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both.

In a sense, it is unfair to define this large and diverse set of approaches collectively by what they are not . But doing so reflects the fact that most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental and nonexperimental research to be an extremely important one. This distinction is because although experimental research can provide strong evidence that changes in an independent variable cause differences in a dependent variable, nonexperimental research generally cannot. As we will see, however, this inability does not mean that nonexperimental research is less important than experimental research or inferior to it in any general sense.

When to Use Nonexperimental Research

As we saw in Chapter 6 , experimental research is appropriate when the researcher has a specific research question or hypothesis about a causal relationship between two variables—and it is possible, feasible, and ethical to manipulate the independent variable and randomly assign participants to conditions or to orders of conditions. It stands to reason, therefore, that nonexperimental research is appropriate—even necessary—when these conditions are not met. There are many ways in which preferring nonexperimental research can be the case.

The research question or hypothesis can be about a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., How accurate are people’s first impressions?).
The research question can be about a noncausal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., Is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
The research question can be about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions (e.g., Does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
The research question can be broad and exploratory, or it can be about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., What is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Again, the choice between the experimental and nonexperimental approaches is generally dictated by the nature of the research question. If it is about a causal relationship and involves an independent variable that can be manipulated, the experimental approach is typically preferred. Otherwise, the nonexperimental approach is preferred. But the two approaches can also be used to address the same research question in complementary ways. For example, nonexperimental studies establishing that there is a relationship between watching violent television and aggressive behaviour have been complemented by experimental studies confirming that the relationship is a causal one (Bushman & Huesmann, 2001) [1] . Similarly, after his original study, Milgram conducted experiments to explore the factors that affect obedience. He manipulated several independent variables, such as the distance between the experimenter and the participant, the participant and the confederate, and the location of the study (Milgram, 1974) [2] .

Types of Nonexperimental Research

As these examples make clear, single-variable research can answer interesting and important questions. What it cannot do, however, is answer questions about statistical relationships between variables. This detail is a point that beginning researchers sometimes miss. Imagine, for example, a group of research methods students interested in the relationship between children’s being the victim of bullying and the children’s self-esteem. The first thing that is likely to occur to these researchers is to obtain a sample of middle-school students who have been bullied and then to measure their self-esteem. But this design would be a single-variable study with self-esteem as the only variable. Although it would tell the researchers something about the self-esteem of children who have been bullied, it would not tell them what they really want to know, which is how the self-esteem of children who have been bullied compares with the self-esteem of children who have not. Is it lower? Is it the same? Could it even be higher? To answer this question, their sample would also have to include middle-school students who have not been bullied thereby introducing another variable.

The final way in which research can be nonexperimental is that it can be qualitative. The types of research we have discussed so far are all quantitative, referring to the fact that the data consist of numbers that are analyzed using statistical techniques. In qualitative research , the data are usually nonnumerical and therefore cannot be analyzed using statistical techniques. Rosenhan’s study of the experience of people in a psychiatric ward was primarily qualitative. The data were the notes taken by the “pseudopatients”—the people pretending to have heard voices—along with their hospital records. Rosenhan’s analysis consists mainly of a written description of the experiences of the pseudopatients, supported by several concrete examples. To illustrate the hospital staff’s tendency to “depersonalize” their patients, he noted, “Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semipublic room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there” (Rosenhan, 1973, p. 256). [3] Qualitative data has a separate set of analysis tools depending on the research question. For example, thematic analysis would focus on themes that emerge in the data or conversation analysis would focus on the way the words were said in an interview or focus group.

Internal Validity Revisited

Key Takeaways

Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, control of extraneous variables through random assignment, or both.
There are three broad types of nonexperimental research. Single-variable research focuses on a single variable rather than a relationship between variables. Correlational and quasi-experimental research focus on a statistical relationship but lack manipulation or random assignment. Qualitative research focuses on broader research questions, typically involves collecting large amounts of data from a small number of participants, and analyses the data nonstatistically.
In general, experimental research is high in internal validity, correlational research is low in internal validity, and quasi-experimental research is in between.

Discussion: For each of the following studies, decide which type of research design it is and explain why.

A researcher conducts detailed interviews with unmarried teenage fathers to learn about how they feel and what they think about their role as fathers and summarizes their feelings in a written narrative.
A researcher measures the impulsivity of a large sample of drivers and looks at the statistical relationship between this variable and the number of traffic tickets the drivers have received.
A researcher randomly assigns patients with low back pain either to a treatment involving hypnosis or to a treatment involving exercise. She then measures their level of low back pain after 3 months.
A college instructor gives weekly quizzes to students in one section of his course but no weekly quizzes to students in another section to see whether this has an effect on their test performance.
Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2001). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223–254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ↵
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row. ↵
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258. ↵

Research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both.

Research that focuses on a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables.

The researcher measures the two variables of interest with little or no attempt to control extraneous variables and then assesses the relationship between them.

The researcher manipulates an independent variable but does not randomly assign participants to conditions or orders of conditions.

Research Methods in Psychology - 2nd Canadian Edition Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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6.1: Overview of Non-Experimental Research

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Learning Objectives

Define non-experimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct non-experimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

the research question or hypothesis relates to a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., How accurate are people’s first impressions?).
the research question pertains to a non-causal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
the research question is about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions for practical or ethical reasons (e.g., does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
the research question is broad and exploratory, or is about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., what is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Non-experimental research falls into three broad categories: cross-sectional research, correlational research, and observational research.

When researchers use a participant characteristic to create groups (nationality, cannabis use, age, sex), the independent variable is usually referred to as an experimenter-selected independent variable (as opposed to the experimenter-manipulated independent variables used in experimental research). Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) shows data from a hypothetical study on the relationship between whether people make a daily list of things to do (a “to-do list”) and stress. Notice that it is unclear whether this is an experiment or a cross-sectional study because it is unclear whether the independent variable was manipulated by the researcher or simply selected by the researcher. If the researcher randomly assigned some participants to make daily to-do lists and others not to, then the independent variable was experimenter-manipulated and it is a true experiment. If the researcher simply asked participants whether they made daily to-do lists or not, then the independent variable it is experimenter-selected and the study is cross-sectional. The distinction is important because if the study was an experiment, then it could be concluded that making the daily to-do lists reduced participants’ stress. But if it was a cross-sectional study, it could only be concluded that these variables are statistically related. Perhaps being stressed has a negative effect on people’s ability to plan ahead. Or perhaps people who are more conscientious are more likely to make to-do lists and less likely to be stressed. The crucial point is that what defines a study as experimental or cross-sectional l is not the variables being studied, nor whether the variables are quantitative or categorical, nor the type of graph or statistics used to analyze the data. It is how the study is conducted.

Internal Validity Revisited

Recall that internal validity is the extent to which the design of a study supports the conclusion that changes in the independent variable caused any observed differences in the dependent variable. Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\) shows how experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental (correlational) research vary in terms of internal validity. Experimental research tends to be highest in internal validity because the use of manipulation (of the independent variable) and control (of extraneous variables) help to rule out alternative explanations for the observed relationships. If the average score on the dependent variable in an experiment differs across conditions, it is quite likely that the independent variable is responsible for that difference. Non-experimental (correlational) research is lowest in internal validity because these designs fail to use manipulation or control. Quasi-experimental research (which will be described in more detail in a subsequent chapter) is in the middle because it contains some, but not all, of the features of a true experiment. For instance, it may fail to use random assignment to assign participants to groups or fail to use counterbalancing to control for potential order effects. Imagine, for example, that a researcher finds two similar schools, starts an anti-bullying program in one, and then finds fewer bullying incidents in that “treatment school” than in the “control school.” While a comparison is being made with a control condition, the lack of random assignment of children to schools could still mean that students in the treatment school differed from students in the control school in some other way that could explain the difference in bullying (e.g., there may be a selection effect).

Notice also in Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\) that there is some overlap in the internal validity of experiments, quasi-experiments, and correlational studies. For example, a poorly designed experiment that includes many confounding variables can be lower in internal validity than a well-designed quasi-experiment with no obvious confounding variables. Internal validity is also only one of several validities that one might consider, as noted in Chapter 5.

Key Takeaways

Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable.
There are two broad types of non-experimental research. Correlational research that focuses on statistical relationships between variables that are measured but not manipulated, and observational research in which participants are observed and their behavior is recorded without the researcher interfering or manipulating any variables.
In general, experimental research is high in internal validity, correlational research is low in internal validity, and quasi-experimental research is in between.
A researcher conducts detailed interviews with unmarried teenage fathers to learn about how they feel and what they think about their role as fathers and summarizes their feelings in a written narrative.
A researcher measures the impulsivity of a large sample of drivers and looks at the statistical relationship between this variable and the number of traffic tickets the drivers have received.
A researcher randomly assigns patients with low back pain either to a treatment involving hypnosis or to a treatment involving exercise. She then measures their level of low back pain after 3 months.
A college instructor gives weekly quizzes to students in one section of his course but no weekly quizzes to students in another section to see whether this has an effect on their test performance.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258.

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Non-Experimental Research

28 Overview of Non-Experimental Research

Learning objectives.

Define non-experimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct non-experimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

the research question or hypothesis relates to a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., how accurate are people’s first impressions?).
the research question pertains to a non-causal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
the research question is about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions for practical or ethical reasons (e.g., does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
the research question is broad and exploratory, or is about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., what is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Again, the choice between the experimental and non-experimental approaches is generally dictated by the nature of the research question. Recall the three goals of science are to describe, to predict, and to explain. If the goal is to explain and the research question pertains to causal relationships, then the experimental approach is typically preferred. If the goal is to describe or to predict, a non-experimental approach is appropriate. But the two approaches can also be used to address the same research question in complementary ways. For example, in Milgram’s original (non-experimental) obedience study, he was primarily interested in one variable—the extent to which participants obeyed the researcher when he told them to shock the confederate—and he observed all participants performing the same task under the same conditions. However, Milgram subsequently conducted experiments to explore the factors that affect obedience. He manipulated several independent variables, such as the distance between the experimenter and the participant, the participant and the confederate, and the location of the study (Milgram, 1974) [1] .

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Non-experimental research falls into two broad categories: correlational research and observational research.

The most common type of non-experimental research conducted in psychology is correlational research. Correlational research is considered non-experimental because it focuses on the statistical relationship between two variables but does not include the manipulation of an independent variable. More specifically, in correlational research , the researcher measures two variables with little or no attempt to control extraneous variables and then assesses the relationship between them. As an example, a researcher interested in the relationship between self-esteem and school achievement could collect data on students’ self-esteem and their GPAs to see if the two variables are statistically related.

Observational research is non-experimental because it focuses on making observations of behavior in a natural or laboratory setting without manipulating anything. Milgram’s original obedience study was non-experimental in this way. He was primarily interested in the extent to which participants obeyed the researcher when he told them to shock the confederate and he observed all participants performing the same task under the same conditions. The study by Loftus and Pickrell described at the beginning of this chapter is also a good example of observational research. The variable was whether participants “remembered” having experienced mildly traumatic childhood events (e.g., getting lost in a shopping mall) that they had not actually experienced but that the researchers asked them about repeatedly. In this particular study, nearly a third of the participants “remembered” at least one event. (As with Milgram’s original study, this study inspired several later experiments on the factors that affect false memories).

Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Cross-Sequential Studies

When psychologists wish to study change over time (for example, when developmental psychologists wish to study aging) they usually take one of three non-experimental approaches: cross-sectional, longitudinal, or cross-sequential. Cross-sectional studies involve comparing two or more pre-existing groups of people (e.g., children at different stages of development). What makes this approach non-experimental is that there is no manipulation of an independent variable and no random assignment of participants to groups. Using this design, developmental psychologists compare groups of people of different ages (e.g., young adults spanning from 18-25 years of age versus older adults spanning 60-75 years of age) on various dependent variables (e.g., memory, depression, life satisfaction). Of course, the primary limitation of using this design to study the effects of aging is that differences between the groups other than age may account for differences in the dependent variable. For instance, differences between the groups may reflect the generation that people come from (a cohort effect ) rather than a direct effect of age. For this reason, longitudinal studies , in which one group of people is followed over time as they age, offer a superior means of studying the effects of aging. However, longitudinal studies are by definition more time consuming and so require a much greater investment on the part of the researcher and the participants. A third approach, known as cross-sequential studies , combines elements of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Rather than measuring differences between people in different age groups or following the same people over a long period of time, researchers adopting this approach choose a smaller period of time during which they follow people in different age groups. For example, they might measure changes over a ten year period among participants who at the start of the study fall into the following age groups: 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old, 50 years old, and 60 years old. This design is advantageous because the researcher reaps the immediate benefits of being able to compare the age groups after the first assessment. Further, by following the different age groups over time they can subsequently determine whether the original differences they found across the age groups are due to true age effects or cohort effects.

The types of research we have discussed so far are all quantitative, referring to the fact that the data consist of numbers that are analyzed using statistical techniques. But as you will learn in this chapter, many observational research studies are more qualitative in nature. In qualitative research , the data are usually nonnumerical and therefore cannot be analyzed using statistical techniques. Rosenhan’s observational study of the experience of people in psychiatric wards was primarily qualitative. The data were the notes taken by the “pseudopatients”—the people pretending to have heard voices—along with their hospital records. Rosenhan’s analysis consists mainly of a written description of the experiences of the pseudopatients, supported by several concrete examples. To illustrate the hospital staff’s tendency to “depersonalize” their patients, he noted, “Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semi-public room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there” (Rosenhan, 1973, p. 256) [2] . Qualitative data has a separate set of analysis tools depending on the research question. For example, thematic analysis would focus on themes that emerge in the data or conversation analysis would focus on the way the words were said in an interview or focus group.

Internal Validity Revisited

Recall that internal validity is the extent to which the design of a study supports the conclusion that changes in the independent variable caused any observed differences in the dependent variable. Figure 6.1 shows how experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental (correlational) research vary in terms of internal validity. Experimental research tends to be highest in internal validity because the use of manipulation (of the independent variable) and control (of extraneous variables) help to rule out alternative explanations for the observed relationships. If the average score on the dependent variable in an experiment differs across conditions, it is quite likely that the independent variable is responsible for that difference. Non-experimental (correlational) research is lowest in internal validity because these designs fail to use manipulation or control. Quasi-experimental research (which will be described in more detail in a subsequent chapter) falls in the middle because it contains some, but not all, of the features of a true experiment. For instance, it may fail to use random assignment to assign participants to groups or fail to use counterbalancing to control for potential order effects. Imagine, for example, that a researcher finds two similar schools, starts an anti-bullying program in one, and then finds fewer bullying incidents in that “treatment school” than in the “control school.” While a comparison is being made with a control condition, the inability to randomly assign children to schools could still mean that students in the treatment school differed from students in the control school in some other way that could explain the difference in bullying (e.g., there may be a selection effect).

Figure 6.1 Internal Validity of Correlational, Quasi-Experimental, and Experimental Studies. Experiments are generally high in internal validity, quasi-experiments lower, and correlational studies lower still.

Notice also in Figure 6.1 that there is some overlap in the internal validity of experiments, quasi-experiments, and correlational (non-experimental) studies. For example, a poorly designed experiment that includes many confounding variables can be lower in internal validity than a well-designed quasi-experiment with no obvious confounding variables. Internal validity is also only one of several validities that one might consider, as noted in Chapter 5.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row. ↵
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258. ↵

A research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable.

Research that is non-experimental because it focuses on the statistical relationship between two variables but does not include the manipulation of an independent variable.

Research that is non-experimental because it focuses on recording systemic observations of behavior in a natural or laboratory setting without manipulating anything.

Studies that involve comparing two or more pre-existing groups of people (e.g., children at different stages of development).

Differences between the groups may reflect the generation that people come from rather than a direct effect of age.

Studies in which one group of people are followed over time as they age.

Studies in which researchers follow people in different age groups in a smaller period of time.

Research Methods in Psychology Copyright © 2019 by Rajiv S. Jhangiani, I-Chant A. Chiang, Carrie Cuttler, & Dana C. Leighton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

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Overview of Non-Experimental Research

Rajiv S. Jhangiani; I-Chant A. Chiang; Carrie Cuttler; and Dana C. Leighton

Learning Objectives

Define non-experimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct non-experimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

the research question or hypothesis relates to a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., how accurate are people’s first impressions?).
the research question pertains to a non-causal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
the research question is about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions for practical or ethical reasons (e.g., does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
the research question is broad and exploratory, or is about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., what is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Again, the choice between the experimental and non-experimental approaches is generally dictated by the nature of the research question. Recall the three goals of science are to describe, to predict, and to explain. If the goal is to explain and the research question pertains to causal relationships, then the experimental approach is typically preferred. If the goal is to describe or to predict, a non-experimental approach is appropriate. But the two approaches can also be used to address the same research question in complementary ways. For example, in Milgram’s original (non-experimental) obedience study, he was primarily interested in one variable—the extent to which participants obeyed the researcher when he told them to shock the confederate—and he observed all participants performing the same task under the same conditions. However, Milgram subsequently conducted experiments to explore the factors that affect obedience. He manipulated several independent variables, such as the distance between the experimenter and the participant, the participant and the confederate, and the location of the study (Milgram, 1974) [1] .

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Non-experimental research falls into two broad categories: correlational research and observational research.

Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Cross-Sequential Studies

The types of research we have discussed so far are all quantitative, referring to the fact that the data consist of numbers that are analyzed using statistical techniques. But as you will learn in this chapter, many observational research studies are more qualitative in nature. In qualitative research , the data are usually nonnumerical and therefore cannot be analyzed using statistical techniques. Rosenhan’s observational study of the experience of people in psychiatric wards was primarily qualitative. The data were the notes taken by the “pseudopatients”—the people pretending to have heard voices—along with their hospital records. Rosenhan’s analysis consists mainly of a written description of the experiences of the pseudopatients, supported by several concrete examples. To illustrate the hospital staff’s tendency to “depersonalize” their patients, he noted, “Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semi-public room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there” (Rosenhan, 1973, p. 256) [2] . Qualitative data has a separate set of analysis tools depending on the research question. For example, thematic analysis would focus on themes that emerge in the data or conversation analysis would focus on the way the words were said in an interview or focus group.

Internal Validity Revisited

Recall that internal validity is the extent to which the design of a study supports the conclusion that changes in the independent variable caused any observed differences in the dependent variable. Figure 6.1 shows how experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental (correlational) research vary in terms of internal validity. Experimental research tends to be highest in internal validity because the use of manipulation (of the independent variable) and control (of extraneous variables) help to rule out alternative explanations for the observed relationships. If the average score on the dependent variable in an experiment differs across conditions, it is quite likely that the independent variable is responsible for that difference. Non-experimental (correlational) research is lowest in internal validity because these designs fail to use manipulation or control. Quasi-experimental research (which will be described in more detail in a subsequent chapter) falls in the middle because it contains some, but not all, of the features of a true experiment. For instance, it may fail to use random assignment to assign participants to groups or fail to use counterbalancing to control for potential order effects. Imagine, for example, that a researcher finds two similar schools, starts an anti-bullying program in one, and then finds fewer bullying incidents in that “treatment school” than in the “control school.” While a comparison is being made with a control condition, the inability to randomly assign children to schools could still mean that students in the treatment school differed from students in the control school in some other way that could explain the difference in bullying (e.g., there may be a selection effect).

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row. ↵
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258. ↵

A research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable.

Research that is non-experimental because it focuses on the statistical relationship between two variables but does not include the manipulation of an independent variable.

Research that is non-experimental because it focuses on recording systemic observations of behavior in a natural or laboratory setting without manipulating anything.

Studies that involve comparing two or more pre-existing groups of people (e.g., children at different stages of development).

Differences between the groups may reflect the generation that people come from rather than a direct effect of age.

Studies in which one group of people are followed over time as they age.

Studies in which researchers follow people in different age groups in a smaller period of time.

Overview of Non-Experimental Research Copyright © 2022 by Rajiv S. Jhangiani; I-Chant A. Chiang; Carrie Cuttler; and Dana C. Leighton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, nonexperimental research: strengths, weaknesses and issues of precision.

European Journal of Training and Development

ISSN : 2046-9012

Article publication date: 6 September 2016

Nonexperimental research, defined as any kind of quantitative or qualitative research that is not an experiment, is the predominate kind of research design used in the social sciences. How to unambiguously and correctly present the results of nonexperimental research, however, remains decidedly unclear and possibly detrimental to applied disciplines such as human resource development. To clarify issues about the accurate reporting and generalization of nonexperimental research results, this paper aims to present information about the relative strength of research designs, followed by the strengths and weaknesses of nonexperimental research. Further, some possible ways to more precisely report nonexperimental findings without using causal language are explored. Next, the researcher takes the position that the results of nonexperimental research can be used cautiously, yet appropriately, for making practice recommendations. Finally, some closing thoughts about nonexperimental research and the appropriate use of causal language are presented.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the extant social science literature was consulted to inform this paper.

Nonexperimental research, when reported accurately, makes a tremendous contribution because it can be used for conducting research when experimentation is not feasible or desired. It can be used also to make tentative recommendations for practice.

Originality/value

This article presents useful means to more accurately report nonexperimental findings through avoiding causal language. Ways to link nonexperimental results to making practice recommendations are explored.

Research design
Experimental design
Causal inference
Nonexperimental
Social science research
Triangulation

Reio, T.G. (2016), "Nonexperimental research: strengths, weaknesses and issues of precision", European Journal of Training and Development , Vol. 40 No. 8/9, pp. 676-690. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-07-2015-0058

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Determining the level of evidence: Nonexperimental research designs

Affiliation.

1 Amy Glasofer is a nurse scientist at Virtua Center for Learning in Mt. Laurel, N.J., and Ann B. Townsend is an adult NP with The Nurse Practitioner Group, LLC.
PMID: 33953103
DOI: 10.1097/01.NURSE.0000731852.39123.e1

To support evidence-based nursing practice, the authors provide guidelines for appraising research based on quality, quantity, and consistency. This article, the second of a three-part series, focuses on nonexperimental research designs.

Evidence-Based Nursing*
Guidelines as Topic
Research Design*

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Non-experimental research: What it is, overview & advantages

Non-experimental research is the type of research that lacks an independent variable. Instead, the researcher observes the context in which the phenomenon occurs and analyzes it to obtain information.

Unlike experimental research , where the variables are held constant, non-experimental research happens during the study when the researcher cannot control, manipulate or alter the subjects but relies on interpretation or observations to conclude.

This means that the method must not rely on correlations, surveys , or case studies and cannot demonstrate an actual cause and effect relationship.

Characteristics of non-experimental research

Some of the essential characteristics of non-experimental research are necessary for the final results. Let’s talk about them to identify the most critical parts of them.

Most studies are based on events that occurred previously and are analyzed later.
In this method, controlled experiments are not performed for reasons such as ethics or morality.
No study samples are created; on the contrary, the samples or participants already exist and develop in their environment.
The researcher does not intervene directly in the environment of the sample.
This method studies the phenomena exactly as they occurred.

Types of non-experimental research

Non-experimental research can take the following forms:

Cross-sectional research : Cross-sectional research is used to observe and analyze the exact time of the research to cover various study groups or samples. This type of research is divided into:

Descriptive: When values are observed where one or more variables are presented.
Causal: It is responsible for explaining the reasons and relationship that exists between variables in a given time.

Longitudinal research: In a longitudinal study , researchers aim to analyze the changes and development of the relationships between variables over time. Longitudinal research can be divided into:

Trend: When they study the changes faced by the study group in general.
Group evolution: When the study group is a smaller sample.
Panel: It is in charge of analyzing individual and group changes to discover the factor that produces them.

LEARN ABOUT: Quasi-experimental Research

When to use non-experimental research

Non-experimental research can be applied in the following ways:

When the research question may be about one variable rather than a statistical relationship about two variables.
There is a non-causal statistical relationship between variables in the research question.
The research question has a causal research relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated.
In exploratory or broad research where a particular experience is confronted.

Advantages and disadvantages

Some advantages of non-experimental research are:

It is very flexible during the research process
The cause of the phenomenon is known, and the effect it has is investigated.
The researcher can define the characteristics of the study group.

Among the disadvantages of non-experimental research are:

The groups are not representative of the entire population.
Errors in the methodology may occur, leading to research biases .

Non-experimental research is based on the observation of phenomena in their natural environment. In this way, they can be studied later to reach a conclusion.

Difference between experimental and non-experimental research

Experimental research involves changing variables and randomly assigning conditions to participants. As it can determine the cause, experimental research designs are used for research in medicine, biology, and social science.

Experimental research designs have strict standards for control and establishing validity. Although they may need many resources, they can lead to very interesting results.

Non-experimental research, on the other hand, is usually descriptive or correlational without any explicit changes done by the researcher. You simply describe the situation as it is, or describe a relationship between variables. Without any control, it is difficult to determine causal effects. The validity remains a concern in this type of research. However, it’s’ more regarding the measurements instead of the effects.

LEARN MORE: Descriptive Research vs Correlational Research

Whether you should choose experimental research or non-experimental research design depends on your goals and resources. If you need any help with how to conduct research and collect relevant data, or have queries regarding the best approach for your research goals, contact us today! You can create an account with our survey software and avail of 88+ features including dashboard and reporting for free.

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2.5: Experimental and Non-experimental Research

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Danielle Navarro
University of New South Wales

One of the big distinctions that you should be aware of is the distinction between “experimental research” and “non-experimental research”. When we make this distinction, what we’re really talking about is the degree of control that the researcher exercises over the people and events in the study.

Experimental research

The key features of experimental research is that the researcher controls all aspects of the study, especially what participants experience during the study. In particular, the researcher manipulates or varies the predictor variables (IVs), and then allows the outcome variable (DV) to vary naturally. The idea here is to deliberately vary the predictors (IVs) to see if they have any causal effects on the outcomes. Moreover, in order to ensure that there’s no chance that something other than the predictor variables is causing the outcomes, everything else is kept constant or is in some other way “balanced” to ensure that they have no effect on the results. In practice, it’s almost impossible to think of everything else that might have an influence on the outcome of an experiment, much less keep it constant. The standard solution to this is randomisation: that is, we randomly assign people to different groups, and then give each group a different treatment (i.e., assign them different values of the predictor variables). We’ll talk more about randomisation later in this course, but for now, it’s enough to say that what randomisation does is minimise (but not eliminate) the chances that there are any systematic difference between groups.

Let’s consider a very simple, completely unrealistic and grossly unethical example. Suppose you wanted to find out if smoking causes lung cancer. One way to do this would be to find people who smoke and people who don’t smoke, and look to see if smokers have a higher rate of lung cancer. This is not a proper experiment, since the researcher doesn’t have a lot of control over who is and isn’t a smoker. And this really matters: for instance, it might be that people who choose to smoke cigarettes also tend to have poor diets, or maybe they tend to work in asbestos mines, or whatever. The point here is that the groups (smokers and non-smokers) actually differ on lots of things, not just smoking. So it might be that the higher incidence of lung cancer among smokers is caused by something else, not by smoking per se. In technical terms, these other things (e.g. diet) are called “confounds”, and we’ll talk about those in just a moment.

In the meantime, let’s now consider what a proper experiment might look like. Recall that our concern was that smokers and non-smokers might differ in lots of ways. The solution, as long as you have no ethics, is to control who smokes and who doesn’t. Specifically, if we randomly divide participants into two groups, and force half of them to become smokers, then it’s very unlikely that the groups will differ in any respect other than the fact that half of them smoke. That way, if our smoking group gets cancer at a higher rate than the non-smoking group, then we can feel pretty confident that (a) smoking does cause cancer and (b) we’re murderers.

Non-experimental research

Non-experimental research is a broad term that covers “any study in which the researcher doesn’t have quite as much control as they do in an experiment”. Obviously, control is something that scientists like to have, but as the previous example illustrates, there are lots of situations in which you can’t or shouldn’t try to obtain that control. Since it’s grossly unethical (and almost certainly criminal) to force people to smoke in order to find out if they get cancer, this is a good example of a situation in which you really shouldn’t try to obtain experimental control. But there are other reasons too. Even leaving aside the ethical issues, our “smoking experiment” does have a few other issues. For instance, when I suggested that we “force” half of the people to become smokers, I must have been talking about starting with a sample of non-smokers, and then forcing them to become smokers. While this sounds like the kind of solid, evil experimental design that a mad scientist would love, it might not be a very sound way of investigating the effect in the real world. For instance, suppose that smoking only causes lung cancer when people have poor diets, and suppose also that people who normally smoke do tend to have poor diets. However, since the “smokers” in our experiment aren’t “natural” smokers (i.e., we forced non-smokers to become smokers; they didn’t take on all of the other normal, real life characteristics that smokers might tend to possess) they probably have better diets. As such, in this silly example they wouldn’t get lung cancer, and our experiment will fail, because it violates the structure of the “natural” world (the technical name for this is an “artifactual” result; see later).

One distinction worth making between two types of non-experimental research is the difference be- tween quasi-experimental research and case studies. The example I discussed earlier – in which we wanted to examine incidence of lung cancer among smokers and non-smokers, without trying to control who smokes and who doesn’t – is a quasi-experimental design. That is, it’s the same as an experiment, but we don’t control the predictors (IVs). We can still use statistics to analyse the results, it’s just that we have to be a lot more careful.

The alternative approach, case studies, aims to provide a very detailed description of one or a few instances. In general, you can’t use statistics to analyse the results of case studies, and it’s usually very hard to draw any general conclusions about “people in general” from a few isolated examples. However, case studies are very useful in some situations. Firstly, there are situations where you don’t have any alternative: neuropsychology has this issue a lot. Sometimes, you just can’t find a lot of people with brain damage in a specific area, so the only thing you can do is describe those cases that you do have in as much detail and with as much care as you can. However, there’s also some genuine advantages to case studies: because you don’t have as many people to study, you have the ability to invest lots of time and effort trying to understand the specific factors at play in each case. This is a very valuable thing to do. As a consequence, case studies can complement the more statistically-oriented approaches that you see in experimental and quasi-experimental designs. We won’t talk much about case studies in these lectures, but they are nevertheless very valuable tools!

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

This article is part of the research topic.

Modelling Approaches for Climate Variability and Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Resource Constrained Farming Systems

Uptake of climate-smart agricultural technologies and practices: A Three-phase Behavioral Model Provisionally Accepted

1 Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Climate change due to human activities is a reality and a growing threat to global food security. The trend of increasing temperature and decreasing rainfall in Iran shows climate warming, the result of climate change in Iran. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach to developing new agricultural practices that support food security against climate change. The purpose of this study was to design a behavioral model for using CSA technologies in three phases: cognitive, motivational, and volitional, using the theories of planned behavior, self-determination, and social cognition. This research is the first to combine behavioral models to understand the application of CSA technologies. The research method in this study was quantitative and non-experimental. The statistical population included 800 wheat farmers from the city of Nazarabad in the Alborz province of Iran. A sample size of 260 people was determined using the Cochran formula. Appropriate stratified sampling was selected as the sampling method. Wheat farmers were then randomly selected in each village through proportional assignment. The research data was collected through a cross-sectional survey and a questionnaire. The models and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The statistical results confirmed the theoretical model and fifteen research hypotheses. Additionally, the estimated field model explained about 62% of the variance in the behavior of using CSA technologies. Therefore, cognition, motivation, and volition effectively shape the behavior of using CSA technologies. In the cognitive phase, environmental concerns have the greatest impact on attitude towards the behavior of using CSA technologies (β = 0.714). In the motivational phase, personal norms have the most impact on the intention to use CSA technologies (β= 0.643). Finally, in the volitional phase, the intention to use CSA technologies has the highest impact on the behavior of using CSA technologies (β = 0.386). The increase in the guaranteed purchase price of wheat and paying soft and long-term loans by the policymakers will lead to an increase in the intention of wheat farmers to use CSA technologies.

Keywords: Climate change 1, Climate-smart agriculture 2, Theory of Planned Behavior 3, Self-Determination theory 4, social cognition theory 5

Received: 21 Feb 2024; Accepted: 25 Apr 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Khademi Noshabadi, Omidi Najafabadi and Mirdamadi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mx. Maryam Omidi Najafabadi, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, 1477893855, Tehran, Iran

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Overview of Nonexperimental Research

Learning objectives.

Define nonexperimental research, distinguish it clearly from experimental research, and give several examples.
Explain when a researcher might choose to conduct nonexperimental research as opposed to experimental research.

What Is Nonexperimental Research?

Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions, or both.

In a sense, it is unfair to define this large and diverse set of approaches collectively by what they are not . But doing so reflects the fact that most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental and nonexperimental research to be an extremely important one. This distinction is because although experimental research can provide strong evidence that changes in an independent variable cause differences in a dependent variable, nonexperimental research generally cannot. As we will see, however, this inability does not mean that nonexperimental research is less important than experimental research or inferior to it in any general sense.

When to Use Nonexperimental Research

The research question or hypothesis can be about a single variable rather than a statistical relationship between two variables (e.g., How accurate are people’s first impressions?).
The research question can be about a noncausal statistical relationship between variables (e.g., Is there a correlation between verbal intelligence and mathematical intelligence?).
The research question can be about a causal relationship, but the independent variable cannot be manipulated or participants cannot be randomly assigned to conditions or orders of conditions (e.g., Does damage to a person’s hippocampus impair the formation of long-term memory traces?).
The research question can be broad and exploratory, or it can be about what it is like to have a particular experience (e.g., What is it like to be a working mother diagnosed with depression?).

Again, the choice between the experimental and nonexperimental approaches is generally dictated by the nature of the research question. If it is about a causal relationship and involves an independent variable that can be manipulated, the experimental approach is typically preferred. Otherwise, the nonexperimental approach is preferred. But the two approaches can also be used to address the same research question in complementary ways. For example, nonexperimental studies establishing that there is a relationship between watching violent television and aggressive behaviour have been complemented by experimental studies confirming that the relationship is a causal one (Bushman & Huesmann, 2001) [1] . Similarly, after his original study, Milgram conducted experiments to explore the factors that affect obedience. He manipulated several independent variables, such as the distance between the experimenter and the participant, the participant and the confederate, and the location of the study (Milgram, 1974) [2] .

Types of Nonexperimental Research

As these examples make clear, single-variable research can answer interesting and important questions. What it cannot do, however, is answer questions about statistical relationships between variables. This detail is a point that beginning researchers sometimes miss. Imagine, for example, a group of research methods students interested in the relationship between children’s being the victim of bullying and the children’s self-esteem. The first thing that is likely to occur to these researchers is to obtain a sample of middle-school students who have been bullied and then to measure their self-esteem. But this design would be a single-variable study with self-esteem as the only variable. Although it would tell the researchers something about the self-esteem of children who have been bullied, it would not tell them what they really want to know, which is how the self-esteem of children who have been bullied compares with the self-esteem of children who have not. Is it lower? Is it the same? Could it even be higher? To answer this question, their sample would also have to include middle-school students who have not been bullied thereby introducing another variable.

The final way in which research can be nonexperimental is that it can be qualitative. The types of research we have discussed so far are all quantitative, referring to the fact that the data consist of numbers that are analyzed using statistical techniques. In qualitative research , the data are usually nonnumerical and therefore cannot be analyzed using statistical techniques. Rosenhan’s study of the experience of people in a psychiatric ward was primarily qualitative. The data were the notes taken by the “pseudopatients”—the people pretending to have heard voices—along with their hospital records. Rosenhan’s analysis consists mainly of a written description of the experiences of the pseudopatients, supported by several concrete examples. To illustrate the hospital staff’s tendency to “depersonalize” their patients, he noted, “Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the initial physical examinations in a semipublic room, where staff members went about their own business as if we were not there” (Rosenhan, 1973, p. 256) [3] . Qualitative data has a separate set of analysis tools depending on the research question. For example, thematic analysis would focus on themes that emerge in the data or conversation analysis would focus on the way the words were said in an interview or focus group.

Internal Validity Revisited

Key Takeaways

Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, control of extraneous variables through random assignment, or both.
There are three broad types of nonexperimental research. Single-variable research focuses on a single variable rather than a relationship between variables. Correlational and quasi-experimental research focus on a statistical relationship but lack manipulation or random assignment. Qualitative research focuses on broader research questions, typically involves collecting large amounts of data from a small number of participants, and analyses the data nonstatistically.
In general, experimental research is high in internal validity, correlational research is low in internal validity, and quasi-experimental research is in between.
A researcher conducts detailed interviews with unmarried teenage fathers to learn about how they feel and what they think about their role as fathers and summarizes their feelings in a written narrative.
A researcher measures the impulsivity of a large sample of drivers and looks at the statistical relationship between this variable and the number of traffic tickets the drivers have received.
A researcher randomly assigns patients with low back pain either to a treatment involving hypnosis or to a treatment involving exercise. She then measures their level of low back pain after 3 months.
A college instructor gives weekly quizzes to students in one section of his course but no weekly quizzes to students in another section to see whether this has an effect on their test performance.
Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2001). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223–254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ↵
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper & Row. ↵
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 , 250–258. ↵

Research Methods in Psychology Copyright © 2015 by Paul C. Price, Rajiv Jhangiani, & I-Chant A. Chiang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Quantitative Research with Nonexperimental Designs
What is the difference between experimental and non-experimental research designs?. There are two types of quantitative research designs: experimental and nonexperimental. This introduction draws from The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.Leung and Shek (2018) explain:
Quantitative Research Designs: Non-Experimental vs. Experimental
Without this level of control, you cannot determine any causal effects. While validity is still a concern in non-experimental research, the concerns are more about the validity of the measurements, rather than the validity of the effects. Finally, a quasi-experimental design is a combination of the two designs described above.
7.1 Overview of Nonexperimental Research
Key Takeaways. Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, control of extraneous variables through random assignment, or both. There are three broad types of nonexperimental research. Single-variable research focuses on a single variable rather than a relationship between variables.
6.1 Overview of Non-Experimental Research
Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable. Rather than manipulating an independent variable, researchers conducting non-experimental research simply measure variables as they naturally occur (in the lab or real world). Most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental ...
1.6: Non-Experimental Research
Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable. Rather than manipulating an independent variable, researchers conducting non-experimental research simply measure variables as they naturally occur (in the lab or real world). Most researchers in social sciences consider the distinction between ...
Overview of Nonexperimental Research
Key Takeaways. Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, control of extraneous variables through random assignment, or both. There are three broad types of nonexperimental research. Single-variable research focuses on a single variable rather than a relationship between variables.
A Primer to Experimental and Nonexperimental Quantitative Research: The
Quantitative research turns information collected about people or about processes into numerical data. Depending on the underlying purpose, the goal is to address questions that have to do with intervention, prognosis, causation, association, description, or assessment. In experimental research, an intervention is manipulated.
6.1: Overview of Non-Experimental Research
Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable. Rather than manipulating an independent variable, researchers conducting non-experimental research simply measure variables as they naturally occur (in the lab or real world). Most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental ...
Overview of Non-Experimental Research
Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable. Rather than manipulating an independent variable, researchers conducting non-experimental research simply measure variables as they naturally occur (in the lab or real world). Most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental ...
Overview of Non-Experimental Research
Non-experimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable. Rather than manipulating an independent variable, researchers conducting non-experimental research simply measure variables as they naturally occur (in the lab or real world). Most researchers in psychology consider the distinction between experimental ...
Nonexperimental research: strengths, weaknesses and issues of precision
Finally, some closing thoughts about nonexperimental research and the appropriate use of causal language are presented.,A review of the extant social science literature was consulted to inform this paper.,Nonexperimental research, when reported accurately, makes a tremendous contribution because it can be used for conducting research when ...
Nonexperimental Quantitative Research and Its Role in Guiding
Different research designs answer different questions. Educators cannot use nonexperimental quantitative research designs, such as descriptive surveys and correlational research, to determine definitively that an intervention causes improved student outcomes and is an evidence-based practice.
Determining the level of evidence: Nonexperimental research ...
Humans. Research Design*. To support evidence-based nursing practice, the authors provide guidelines for appraising research based on quality, quantity, and consistency. This article, the second of a three-part series, focuses on nonexperimental research designs.
What Is Quantitative Research?
Quantitative research methods. You can use quantitative research methods for descriptive, correlational or experimental research. In descriptive research, you simply seek an overall summary of your study variables.; In correlational research, you investigate relationships between your study variables.; In experimental research, you systematically examine whether there is a cause-and-effect ...
Non-experimental research: What it is, Types & Tips
Non-experimental research is the type of research that lacks an independent variable. Instead, the researcher observes the context in which the phenomenon occurs and analyzes it to obtain information. Unlike experimental research, where the variables are held constant, non-experimental research happens during the study when the researcher ...
2.5: Experimental and Non-experimental Research
2.5: Experimental and Non-experimental Research. One of the big distinctions that you should be aware of is the distinction between "experimental research" and "non-experimental research". When we make this distinction, what we're really talking about is the degree of control that the researcher exercises over the people and events in ...
Toward a New Classification of Nonexperimental Quantitative Research
In this paper, the present treatment of nonexperimental methods is reviewed and critiqued, and a new, two-dimensional classification of nonexperimental quantitative research is proposed. The first dimension is based on the primary "research objective" (i.e., description, prediction, and explanation), and the second dimension is called the ...
Toward a New Classification of Nonexperimental Quantitative Research
Toward a New Classification of Nonexperimental. Quantitative Research. by Burke Johnson. A substantial proportion of quantitative educational research is non- experimental because many important variables of interest are not. manipulable. Because nonexperimental research is an important. methodology employed by many researchers, it is important ...
Toward a New Classification of Nonexperimental Quantitative Research
This study utilized a cross-sectional, predictive, non-experimental research design, a classification of non-experimental quantitative research suggested by Johnson (2001). In this design, the ...
(PDF) Nonexperimental Quantitative Research and Its Role in Guiding
The quantitative, non-experimental correlational design was easy to use for the calculation of the correlation coefficients that indicated both extent and direction of impact of the variables ...
Experiments and Quantitative Research
Here is a brief overview from the SAGE Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods: Experimental design is one of several forms of scientific inquiry employed to identify the cause-and-effect relation between two or more variables and to assess the magnitude of the effect (s) produced. The independent variable is the experiment or treatment applied ...
Toward a New Classification of Nonexperimental Quantitative Research
A substantial proportion of quantitative educational research is non-experimental because many important variables of interest are not manipulable. Because nonexperimental research is an important methodology employed by many researchers, it is important to use a classification system of nonexperimental methods that is highly descriptive of what we do and also allows us to communicate ...
[PDF] NONEXPERIMENTAL QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
A. Erasmus. Business. 2018. Orientation: Leadership remains an important area of research. Insights into employee motivation is furthered by investigating the relationships between engaging leadership, need satisfaction, work…. Expand. 2. Highly Influenced. 10 Excerpts.
Frontiers
This research is the first to combine behavioral models to understand the application of CSA technologies. The research method in this study was quantitative and non-experimental. The statistical population included 800 wheat farmers from the city of Nazarabad in the Alborz province of Iran.
Improving students' mathematical complex problem solving using the
This research employed quantitative techniques, namely a non-equivalent quasi-experimental control group design. Students in class IX of SMP Negeri 1 Kahu in Bone Regency were the research subjects. They were chosen through purposive sampling. The tool employed incorporates sophisticated problem-solving.
Overview of Nonexperimental Research
Key Takeaways. Nonexperimental research is research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable, control of extraneous variables through random assignment, or both. There are three broad types of nonexperimental research. Single-variable research focuses on a single variable rather than a relationship between variables.

7.1 Overview of Nonexperimental Research

What Is Nonexperimental Research?

When to Use Nonexperimental Research

Types of Nonexperimental Research

Internal Validity Revisited

Key Takeaways

6.1 Overview of Non-Experimental Research

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Internal Validity Revisited

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Overview of Nonexperimental Research

What Is Nonexperimental Research?

When to Use Nonexperimental Research

Types of Nonexperimental Research

Internal Validity Revisited

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6.1: Overview of Non-Experimental Research

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Internal Validity Revisited

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28 Overview of Non-Experimental Research

What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Cross-Sequential Studies

Internal Validity Revisited

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Overview of Non-Experimental Research

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What Is Non-Experimental Research?

When to Use Non-Experimental Research

Types of Non-Experimental Research

Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Cross-Sequential Studies

Internal Validity Revisited

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Uptake of climate-smart agricultural technologies and practices: A Three-phase Behavioral Model Provisionally Accepted

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Overview of Nonexperimental Research

What Is Nonexperimental Research?

When to Use Nonexperimental Research

Types of Nonexperimental Research

Internal Validity Revisited

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