PSYB01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Time Series, Experiment, Confounding
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In many instances, we cannot directly manipulate an independent variable such as ses, race, gender, age or personal history. For an experimenter either will have to select participants who have been exposed to specified events such as war or trauma or have particular characteristics. Subject variable when particular individual characteristics are used for the base of selecting research participant (in quasiexperiment) that can be measured or described but not directly manipulated like weight, height or gender. Natural treatment a naturally occurring event is treated as a quasi-independent variable, which can be measured but not manipulated. Quasiexperiment is one that investigates the effects of a quasi-independent variable on a dependent variable. There is a comparison group that is comparable with the experimental group in critical ways, but participants are not randomly assigned to the experimental and comparison groups. It is used to study things such as child abuse or gender differences.
