Lecture
Collecting empirical data in experimental research involves implementing experimental manipulations and controlling the levels of the IV. In order to judge how the difference in the conditions of the IV affected the basic process under study, one must apply the comparative method of reasoning (comparing experimental and control conditions). This is an analytical comparison (it presupposes the identification of criteria).
The experimenter's research activity involves not only hypothetico-deductive reasoning but also includes sensory observation of the indicators of the variables and the organization of experimental manipulations through the management of conditions. Thus, the experimenter's activity is the functional control of the various levels of the IV, the planning of the experiment, and its conduct.
Planning the experiment provides the conditions for arriving at a sound (valid) conclusion about the experimentally established relationship. The aim of planning is to achieve validity.
The techniques used in this process serve as means of operationalizing the variables.
Experimentation in the broad sense is the alteration of some set of conditions in the study of regularities in one or another area of empirical reality.
In the narrow sense, experimentation is the testing of scientific hypotheses of a causal nature based on the application of the norms of the experimental method (+ the presence of a DV and an IV).
From the standpoint of the norm of the researcher's reasoning, the experimental method is a model of hypothetico-deductive reasoning.
Experimentation in the narrow sense includes the principle of hypothesis testing, which presupposes proof by contradiction (falsification of the hypothesis / asymmetry of the conclusion).
Two aspects are specific to understanding the foundations of psychological experimentation:
- recognition of the ontological status of psychological reality;
- the scientistic stance as an acceptance of the possibility of scientific cognition.
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