experimental research finding either negatively or positively to all the research subject, selectively to members of the research subjects or
selectively to members of a particular comparative research group. For
instance, a researcher may unknowingly use and group into experimental group 1, more subjects who had just finished an earlier experiment on
reading and therefore have more reading skills than the control group subjects most of whose members did not participate in the reading
experiment project earlier completed by the earlier researcher. Because of this earlier treatment of reading skill on some subjects and none for other subjects, there is already an ab initio introduction of unfair advantage to the experimental group subjects and unfair disadvantage to the control group, for any research study they are used for, involving reading; an undeserved
advantage or disadvantage especially when later experimental work involve word problems, as in mathematics, study which involve one‟s reading skills, and so on. To avoid this problem, researchers should find out earlier
experiences of their subjects, ensure that these experiences are fairly well distributed in the population they want to work with and then randomly sample from that population. (Ali, 1996)
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Identify the extraneous variables that constitute internal validity threats to experimental design studies.
will threaten the external validity. We shall discuss these threats one after the other in this section as follows:
1. Hawthorne Effect: Situations under which experiments in education proceed need to be controlled so that experiments can go on as naturally as possible rather than going on under contrived conditions or subjects‟ response to novel conditions induced by an experiment. When experimental conditions are not adequately controlled, subjects‟ reactions and responses to experiments may become distorted by the mere introduction of the research conditions. By subjects becoming aware of the new situation created by the introduction of an experiment in their class, school, football team and so on, they may become resentful, feel preferred, feel rejected or inferior to other research group or even the population that was not used; some subjects may question, why us, not them? Any of these responses may have some effect on the subjects. The effects such responses have would depend on how the subjects were affected by the responses. Subjects‟ knowledge of their participation in an experiment as the treatment group may engender their contrived or biased response to the introduction of this new situation rather than as a result of the effect which the experimental treatment has on the experimental group subjects. When subjects respond to the newness effect of the experimental treatment rather than to the experimental treatment itself, this is referred to as Hawthorne effect and it is a serious external validity threat to an experiment. Similarly, when control group subjects respond to their knowledge of the fact that nothing is done to them (they are the control) while something is done to their classmates, such a response arises not as a result of the control condition but more so as a result of their knowledge that nothing was done to them or happening to them. This responses is the placebo effect on the control group subject. (Ali, 1996).
It is possible to minimize Hawthorne effect and other situations which contribute to external validity threats through a longer study, say, two or three years but it would
result in the newness effect wearing off thus eliminating Hawthorne effect but this is unwise to do because of mortality, maturational, and historical problems arising from long studies and which then constitute themselves into internal validity
threats). A more useful suggestion to minimize Hawthorne effect and other
situational external validity threats is to hold all the situations affecting experimental and control groups constant; randomly draw and assign research samples or
randomly assign treatment and control conditions to groups; and manipulate
subjects to the extent that they do not know that any research work, as far as the independent variable is concerned, is in progress. There are several ways of holding experimental research conditions constant for all the subjects in an experiment.
These include treating them alike on all things except with regard to the impendent
variable. For instance on a teaching effective method study, duration of teaching;
actual teaching time; teacher qualification and personality; topics covered and their scope; tests; apparatus used; language of instruction; environmental conditions, etc
must be the same for experimental as well as the control group. Again, if assistants are used in the research, they must be trained on what to do, how to do then with little distraction and how to do them effectively.
2. Population Validity: In order to be able to make a valid assertion, based on one‟s experimental results, about the population, the sample used in a study must be typical of the population from which it was drawn. Sometimes, the population experimentally accessible to the researcher may not truly represent the typical population; for instance primary school children from rich and affluent homes of Victoria Island, Lagos, do not typically represent the primary school population in Nigeria but the former group may be the one that is readily accessible to the experiment. Any generalisation to the Nigerian primary school population based on samples drawn from
experimentally accessible population creates external validity threat. On the other hand a use of target population would permit valid generalisation, based on samples drawn, about the target population. Sample for a target primary school population would include pupils from a variety of socio- economic conditions; different parts of the country; school types and so on.
Usually, to obtain a sample which reflects the target population is difficult.
This can be overcome by identifying the population, the major attributes of the population and using the attributes of the identified population as zones and or clusters from each of which sample representations is drawn. For instance, if there are three categories of primary schools in Nigeria, say, well established, less well established and poorly established, each category is listed and samples representing the three categories of primary schools are drawn. If location is an attribute, then Nigeria may be zoned first into, say, five equal zones, and primary schools of the three categories mentioned earlier are identified and then randomly sampled from each of the five zones to which the country was divided.
However, there is a problem about the suggestion made above. It is that of logistical convenience. Clearly, zoning, identifying population criteria of a very large country
is a difficult time-consuming task; difficulty whose implications are enormous in terms of times of time, cost, ability to manage the conduct of the study and so on.
Despite these difficulties, if a study is going to be generalized to the target population it is better to have reliable knowledge about a more restricted population of this target, even on a zone by ozone basis (although even in the zones some areas may not be included in the sample) than to have a far more restricted
unrepresentational sample (pupils of primary schools in Victoria Island, Lagos) and use conclusions from unrepresentational sample drawn from experimentally
accessible population to make generalizations about the target population.
3. Experimental Environmental Conditions: The conditions under which the experiment takes place is equally important as the experiment itself.
Environments of schools consist of several factors which influence experiments. Similarly, outcomes of experiments influence school environments. However, what is important to the researcher before proceeding with his research as far as the experimental environment of his study is concerned is making sure that the environment implicit in his study are those existing or attainable in typical schools in the area he is doing the study. An experimental environment in which calculators, photomicrographs, computer simulated teaching episodes are used in rich, well established surburban schools ignores the fact that such experimental environment do not may be impossible to attain in rural, small, local schools – and the latter schools are usually in the majority in developing countries.
Finally, all the types of threats discussed in the foregoing section highlight the research enormity of involvements and expectations of work that is of experimental nature, in educational media. Knowing what these threats are is important. But far more important are ways and means through which the researcher can control and minimize or eliminate their effects on the experiment carried out. These ways and means have been described in this section. Now test yourself with the question posed below
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
List the external validity threats to any experimental research study.
4.0 CONCLUSION
In this unit, you have learnt what internal and external validity threats to experimental studies are and how to control or eliminate them
5.0 SUMMARY
The main point in this unit include the following:
1.
2.
Different types of extraneous variables constitute themselves as internal or external threats to experimental design studies.
Various control measures were discussed.
ANSWERS TO SELF – ASSESSMENT EXERCISES
EXERCISE I
Internal validity threat and external validity threat.
EXERCISE 2
Pretesting, History, Maturation, Instability of instrument, Experimental Mortality, Statistical Regression, Selection Biases arising from differential selection of subjects, and Influence of Earlier Treatment Experiences.
EXERCISE 3
Howthone effect, population validity and experimental environmental conditions.
6.0 TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT
How would you administratively control biases due to Howthone effect, instability of instrument in our experimental studies in educational media? When would you employ statistical control and why?
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Ali, A. (1996). Fundamentals of Research in Education. Awka, Anambra State:
Meks Publishers (Nig).
Bracht, G.H. and Glass, G.V. (1968). The external validity of experiments.
American Educational Journal 1 (5), 437 – 474.
Campbell, D.T. and Stanley, J.C. (1966). Experimental and Quasi designs for Research. Chicago: Rend McNally.
Cook, T.D. and Campbell, D.T. (19790. Quasi – experimental design and Analysis.
Skokie II: Rand McNally.
Cook, D. L. (1962). The Hawthorne effect in Educational Research. Phi DELTA Kappan. 56(1), 515 – 418.
Kerlinger, F. (1964). Foundations of Behavioural Research. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Rasheed, A. (1990). Psychology of Learning. Onitsha: Salman press Co.
Thorndike, B and Hagen, E. (1977). Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education. New York: John Wiley and Sons.