: the difference between natural and quasi experiments

Question

in the psychological sense, if that makes any difference.

thanks!!

In: 3

Answer 1

Natural experiments are situations where the researcher does not manipulate any variables themselves, but simply observes the outcomes of something that is already happening.

Quasi-experiments are when the researcher does not assign particpants to groups randomly, but still manipulates other variables in the experiment.

So, for example:

Natural Experiment: A soda company changes from natural to artificial sugar in their drinks. Researchers track the weight of people who drink the soda before and after the change. The researcher isn’t actually manipulating anything, just observing data change that is happening naturally.

Quasi-Experiment: The researcher offers both kinds of soda to people, but lets _them_ decide what they want to drink. They strictly control the diets of the participants, but the participants get to decide which soda they want. The researcher isn’t controlling who is in what group, but _is_ controlling other possible variables.

Traditional Experiment: The researcher assigns people to each soda group randomly and still controls their diets. Now the researcher is controlling all of the variables of the experiment.

Traditional experiments are better than quasi, and quasi are better than natural because the more variables you control, the better you are able to correctly identify causation. You’d only use quasi or natural experiments when traditional experiments are not feasible.