16 Advantages and Disadvantages of Experimental Research

In research, there are multiple methods to find out the best way to describe our reality.. Experimental research is the most popular method, thanks to its high control over variables and its ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships.

There are many disciplines in which this method is used, being essential in sciences such as psychology, sociology, chemistry and pharmacy, among others.

In this article we will see the advantages and disadvantages of this method., describing some examples applied in various disciplines.

• Recommended article: "Quasi-experimental research: what is it and how is it designed?"

Advantages of experimental research

Below we have summarized the advantages of experimental research.

1. Variable control

This method makes it possible to isolate the variables to be studied and modify them depending on the objective of the study.. Variables can also be combined to study how they interact with each other.

As a result, experimental research allows the greatest degree of control of the variables.

2. Identification of the cause-effect relationship

By studying the variables in isolation, it is easy to establish the direct relationship between an action incorporated by the researcher and the results obtained.

3. No study limits

Any topic can be approached through the experimental method, you just have to know how to introduce it into the experimental design and extract the variables to be analyzed.

4. Results can be doubled

By having control over the variables and the context in which the experiment is carried out, it can be replicated and repeated as many times as desired.

In addition, another research group can carry out the same experiment following the directions of the original experimenter and duplicate their results.

5. Can be combined with other research methods

To ensure that the results obtained are reliable, it is beneficial to combine experimental research with other methods.

By doing this, you can compare research results and see if there are any striking discrepancies.

• It may interest you: "The 15 types of research (and characteristics)"

Disadvantages

Despite all the advantages that we have seen in the previous points, experimental research can also have some drawbacks and weaknesses.

1. Non-operational aspects

Love, happiness and other abstract ideas are difficult to study. That is, unlike variables such as length, height, temperature and so on, emotions, for example, cannot be measured with precision.

2. artificial situations

In the laboratory, situations are created according to the objective to be investigated. These situations are highly controlled and can hardly represent a real situation.

Due to this artificiality, it may be the case that variables that in nature always occur together are excluded.

3. human error

Human beings are imperfect and, although experimentation is rigorous, it may be the case that the experimenter himself is wrong when measuring the variables.

Although human error does not have to be a very serious event, in the most serious cases it can mean having to invalidate all the results and it is necessary to repeat the study.

4. The environment influences the participants

If the laboratory or any other place where the study is carried out presents any distracting factor or that can alter the mood of the participant, their responses will be affected.

5. Manipulation of variables may not be objective

It is possible that, either due to investigator bias or intentionally, the results are manipulated and interpreted in a way that confirms the hypotheses to verify in the study.

6. It can take a long time

Scientific investigation requires many steps. First you have to choose the object of study, then you have to find out what its variables, later an experimental design has to be elaborated and there are still a few steps more.

Having to go through all these phases means taking a lot of time. In addition, it may be the case that, once the experiment has started, errors are detected that must be corrected and data collection paused.

Obtaining participants for the sample is a long process, and it is not a guarantee that they will finally carry out the experiment.

7. ethical issues

Along the history there have been cases of experiments that have generated controversy because they have bordered on ethical violations.

To give an example, Nazi doctors experimented on concentration camp prisoners in an inhumane and cruel way, having no qualms about torturing and killing them.

Another ethical aspect to take into account is animal experimentation. Many environmentalists and animal rights defenders are totally against the use of animals with scientific purpose, although this may mean saving human lives, as in the case of research pharmaceutical.

8. Research offers no real explanation

Many times, experimental research aims to answer questions related to very specific aspects. Since a real situation is not being studied, neither can a precise explanation of why certain phenomena occur in nature be obtained.

It is good to know what influences a certain variable in isolation, since it facilitates the prediction, however, in nature that same variable does not occur separately from the rest.

9. Extraneous variables cannot always be controlled

Although one of the main advantages of experimental research is to achieve greater control of extraneous variables, this does not mean that they cannot be ignored.

10. The sample may not be representative

Although it is a rare phenomenon, the truth is that it can happen that the participants present significantly different characteristics compared to the population where they were extracted.

For example, suppose we want to study the degree to which young women are obsessed with being thin. We decided that our sample would be between the ages of 18 and 25 and we recruited them in our own city.

The predictable thing would be to find women with various concerns: some will worry a lot about their weight while others will consider that it is not a key aspect in their lives.

In our research we have had a sample made up mostly of women with obesity, a factor that clearly generates concern about weight in terms of health

11. Groups may not be comparable

If the study compares two or more groups, it may be the case that they are not comparable for different reasons.

Let's take the following as an example: Let's imagine that we want to study how sports performance is influenced by the sex variable. We managed to recruit 30 men and 30 women and put all of them through the same physical tests.

It turns out that all these people were already practicing sports before participating in the study, giving themselves the coincidence that most women perform contemporary dance and most men practice soccer.

When analyzing the results of the physical tests, we see that men have more resistance and strength while women have higher levels of coordination and flexibility.

Based on this, we do not know if it was the type of sport or the gender variable that influenced the qualitative differences in sports performance.

Bibliographic references:

• Neumann, W. L., and Neumann, W. L. (2006). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches.
• Punch, K. F. (2013). Introduction to social research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. sage