Experimental Designs

The validity of inferences stemming from empirical research in industrial and organizational psychology and allied disciplines is a function of a number of factors, including research design. Research design has to do with the plan, structure, or blueprint for a study. The literature indicates that among the components of such a plan are (a) the experimental design type (i.e., randomized experiment, quasi-experiment, and nonexperiment); (b) the study setting (e.g., created for the purpose of doing research); (c) the numbers and types of study participants; (d) the way in which the variables considered by the study are operationally defined; and (e) the techniques that will be used to analyze the data produced by the study. The focus here is on the randomized experiment. It differs in ...