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In quality of life, and social, educational, and psychological research more generally, a study design that is used to test cause-and-effect relationships between variables uses an experimental design. Both experimental and quasi-experimental designs are widely used to test cause-and-effect relationships.
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Experimental design is considered one of the most statistically robust designs in social, educational, and psychological research because of its ability to control many threats to internal validity through the use of random assignment and control groups. A significant difference between experimental and nonexperimental design is the manipulation of the treatment conditions or the levels of the independent variables in an experimental design. The development of experimental design was originated by R.A. Fisher in the field of agriculture (Fisher, 1935). The difference between true experimental...
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References
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (1963). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. Chicago: Rand MçNally & Company.
Fisher, R. A. (1935). The design of experiments. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.
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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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Koh, K. (2014). Experimental Design. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_967
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_967
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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