Question

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the following nonexperimental designs: naturalistic observations phenomenological studies case studies archival studies If you were asked to use one of these designs in a study next week, which nonexperimental design would you select and why?

Answer 1

• Naturalistic observations is one of the research methods used by experimenters to study people in their natural environment.This method is used when lab experiments are unrealistic and expensive.
• Advantages:-This method helps to observe people in their natural setting without making any interferences and controlling the behaviour by the experimenter.It allows researchers to study those things ,which cannot be manipulated in labs due to ethical reasons.
• It also increases the external validity if the research study.The things observed in a natural setting can be much easily generalized to the real population.
• Disadvantages:- It could be difficult to determine the exact cause of a behavior and the experimenter cannot control for outside variables in this type of research method.
• People may behave differently and show socially desirable behaviours if they know they are being observed which could hinder the purpose of the study.
• Phenomenological studies helps to understand what a group of people feel about a particular phenomenon.Perceptions and perspectives of people are analyzed.
• Advantages:-One main advantage is the fact that it can provide researchers with a profound and detailed understanding of a single phenomena.
• Also the data collected from a group of people is rich and impressive and can provide a unique approach to understand the phenomena under study.
• Disadvantages:-Establishing reliability and validity of this type of research becomes difficult,thus making subjective studies difficult.
• Researchers can induce their biases which could influence the studies,thus making less reliable.
• Case studies involve in depth study of a single individual or group and exploring the causes of their behaviours.
• Advantages:-It studies one single unit intensively and in depth thus providing a thorough explanation of behaviours.
• It studies a social unit in its entire perspectives,so there is no sampling in case study method.
• Disadvantages:-Subjectivity of this method can be a problem,as one single unit is being studied.The results can be difficult to be generalized.
• Due to narrow focus of study the discrimination & bias can occur in the investigation of a single social unit.
• Archival studies involve collecting information from past records and data,including,articles,journals,statistics etc.
• Advantages:-It helps to minimize the response biases of subjects since the researcher is not present while the data is recorded.
• Since the data is already collected,there is a lot of it,which reduces the cost of conducting the research as ample data is already available.
• Disadvantages:-Archival data can have mistakes due to human error.People can make mistakes while recording data.
• Old data sometimes looses its credibility,since with each year,definitions keep changing about concepts,so something which has been defined in a journal,5 years back,wont hold the same meaning today.Definitions of concepts keep getting modified.
• I would like to use case study method,as it is more comprehensive and detailed and covers all aspects of a single unit without any external influences.