Experimental Research Design: Advantages, Limitations and Validity

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of experimental research designs, highlighting their advantages and limitations. It begins by defining experimental research as a blueprint for testing hypotheses and examining relationships between dependent and independent variables. The essay emphasizes the efficiency and applicability of experimental research across various disciplines, including education, science, social work, and security studies. Advantages discussed include the ability to replicate studies for verification, establish conditions not found in natural settings, control extraneous variables, and achieve dependable results. The essay also addresses the limitations of experimental research, such as the creation of artificial situations that may not be viable in real-life, the potential for human error, and the trade-off between internal and external validity, which may limit the generalizability of results. The essay concludes by affirming the importance of experimental research in establishing facts but cautions researchers to be aware of its limitations.

Running head: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH 1
Experimental Research
Student
Institution
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Basically, an experimental research design can be defined as a blueprint for the process
that may make a researcher able to test his hypothesis by examining valid conclusions about
relationships between dependent and independent variables. Experimental research has different
advantages and limitations that have been discussed in this essay.
To start with Experimental research is a basic, efficient and straightforward form of
research that is applicable across a variety of disciplines like education, science, social work and
even security studies. Also, as explained by Polit & Beck (2014), experimental research
approaches are always repetitive making the researcher able to check and verify the results
whenever necessary.
In an experimental research, conditions that cannot be determined in a natural setting can
be established in an experimental setting that enables the researcher to have a greater control of
extraneous variables. Polit & Beck (2014) explains that some conditions that may consume a
long time to occur in a natural setting can occur more quickly in an experimental environment.
Last, due to the controlled environment in an experimental research design, the researcher
is always able to achieve more dependable results. Additionally, experimental research is a more
yearned-for, method of establishing casual conclusions relating to treatments or interventions and
determining whether or not one or more variables causes a change in a specific outcome.
Conversely, experimental research design may create artificial situations that may not be
viable in real-life situations. This is specifically because all other variables may be tightly
controlled (Streubert & Carpenter, 2011). Also, human error during experiments may result in
wrong predictions.
Truly, experimental research designs tend to assist in ensuring internal validity, while at
sometimes work at the expense of external validity. When this occurs, the results obtained may

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not be generalizable to the whole population (Streubert & Carpenter, 2011). The experimental
researches also tend to determine how events occurred, and not necessarily why they happened.
According to the above discussion, I agree that experimental research is important in
establishing facts that may not be obtained in a natural environment. However, the researchers
should be aware and be cautious of the limitations of this research design which have been
highlighted.

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References
Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2014). Essentials of nursing research: Appraising evidence for
nursing practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
249-264.
Streubert, J. H., & Carpenter, R. D. (2011). Qualitative research in nursing advancing the
humanistic imperative. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health /Lippincott Williams &
Wilkins. Educational Administration Quarterly, 97-137.