SOCY 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Internal Validity, External Validity

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 210
• Professor: Fiona Kay

Document Summary

Experiments involve taking actions and observing the consequences of that action. Natural experiments: experiments that occur in the regular course of social events. Experiments involves three major pairs of components: independent and dependent variable. An experiment examines the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable. The independent variable takes form of an experimental stimulus, which is either present or absent. The stimulus is a dichotomous variable a variable that has only two attributes (also called a binomial variable) Both the independent and dependent variable must be operationally defined before the experiment begins: pretesting and post-testing. Pretesting: the measurement of a dependent variable among subjects before they are exposed to a stimulus representing an independent variable. Post-testing: the remeasurement of a dependent variable among subjects after they have been exposed to a stimulus representing an independent variable: experimental and control groups. Experimental group: a group of subjects to whom an experimental stimulus is administered.