Experimental Design

An experimental design is a specific strategy employed in research to answer a question of interest. In the field of educational psychology, accumulation of knowledge is based on research. For example, an educational psychologist may wish to address the question of whether or not a specific method for teaching mathematics to primary school children results in superior performance on a standardized test when contrasted with an alternative method. Another educational psychologist might conduct a study to determine whether or not noise negatively affects the reading ability of children whose school is situated in close proximity to an airport.

The three research strategies typically employed within the discipline of educational psychology are observational research, the experimental method, and correlational research. Whereas observational research is typically informal and ...