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Experimental Design

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research

  • 69 Accesses

Synonyms

Experiments; Randomized clinical trial; Randomized trial

Definition

In quality-of-life and well-being research specifically, and in medical, nursing, social, educational, and psychological research more generally, experimental design can be used to test cause-and-effect relationships between the independent and dependent variables.

Description

Experimental design was pioneered by R. A. Fisher in the fields of agriculture and education (Fisher 1935). In studies that use experimental design, the independent variables are manipulated or controlled by researchers, which enables the testing of the cause-and-effect relationship between the independent and dependent variables. An experimental design can control many threats to internal validity by using random assignment of participants to different treatment/intervention and control/comparison groups. Therefore, it is considered one of the most statistically robust designs in quality-of-life and well-being research, as well as in...

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References

  • Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (1963). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. Chicago: Rand MçNally & Company.

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  • Fisher, R. A. (1935). The design of experiments. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.

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  • Kerlinger, F. N., & Lee, H. B. (2000). Foundations of behavioral research (4th ed.). Belmont: Cengage Learning.

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  • Schneider, B., Carnoy, M., Kilpatrick, J., Schmidt, W. H., & Shavelson, R. J. (2007). Estimating causal effects: Using experimental designs and observational design. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Kim Koh

Authors
  1. Kim Koh
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kim Koh .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy

    Filomena Maggino

Section Editor information

  1. Department of ECPS & Intitute of Applied Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Bruno Zumbo

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Koh, K. (2020). Experimental Design. In: Maggino, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_967-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_967-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69909-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69909-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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