Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of experimental method as a method of enquiry.

Solution

The strength and weaknesses of experimental method.

1. It can provide relatively speaking, a convincing evidence of a sense-effect relationship between two or more variables. However, experiments are often conducted in a highly controlled laboratory situation. In this sense, they only simulate situations that exist in the outside world.

2. They are frequently criticised for this reason. The experiments may produce results that do not generalise well, or apply to real situations. In other wor4ds, they have low external validity. Another limitation of the laboratory experiment is that it is not always feasible to study a particular problem experimentally.

3. For example, an experiment to study the effect of nutritional deficiency on intelligence level of children cannot be conducted as it would be ethically wrong to starve anyone. The third problem is that it is difficult to (know and control all the relevant variables.)

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