RESEARCH DESIGN SELECTION 2

Research Design Selection

The research questions selected are:

1. What is the relationship between alcohol and breast cancer?
2. Is the use of soap and water or alcohol-based rubs more effective in preventing
   nosocomial infections?
3. How effective are anti-depressive medications on anxiety and depression?
   In answering these research questions, I have chosen experimental research design. This
   approach provides procedures which allow a researcher to test their hypotheses through arriving
   at valid conclusions about independent-dependent variable relationships (Campbell & Stanley,
   2015). Experimental research design is, therefore, effective in establishing cause and effect
   relationships with very high level of internal validity. All the three research questions selected
   involve determining a cause-effect relationship. That is why experimental research design is the
   most suitable in conducting them. It will allow the researcher to establish exactly how the
   independent and dependent variables are related.
   High internal validity is not the only strength that experimental research design has. It
   also allows for easy duplication of the research. The findings made can be easily verified by
   other researchers by simply following the exact steps that the first researcher used (Campbell &
   Stanley, 2015). Additionally, the approach allows a researcher to arrive at specific conclusions.
   This is because of the high level of control that the researcher has over various variables in the
   experiment.

RESEARCH DESIGN SELECTION 3
Like other research designs, experimental research design has its fair share of
weaknesses. One of them is that human error can lead to highly subjective results. Human errors
may be systematic or random and are often a result of the approach’s high control level
(Campbell & Stanley, 2015). Regardless of the type of error, it leads to results that are faulty too.
In addition, the process is very time consuming. Each variable in the experiment has to be
isolated and tested. If there are any combination of variables they also have to be considered. The
result is that a lot of time is spent performing the experiment. If a researcher has time constraints,
experimental research design may not be the most appropriate choice.

RESEARCH DESIGN SELECTION 4

References

Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (2015). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for
research. Ravenio Books.