RAWALPINDI WOMEN

UNIVERSITY
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY II

GROUP MEMBERS
Syeda Sabahat Batool (1910152031)
Rimsha Kanwal (1910152011)
Samreen Asif (1910152037)
Samiya Afzal (1910152012)
BS-PSY(VI SEMESTER)
SECTION:A
ASSIGNMENT 01

TOPIC: QUASI EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

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QUASI EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

Quasi experimental research design involves the manipulation

of independent variable to observe the effect on dependent
variable.

This type of research provides valuable and practical information, but prevents
drawing inferences of cause. The reasons for this are numerous but the real problem
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is internal validity. This means it is uncertain you are measuring in the quasi-
experiment what you are intending to measure.

Without random assignment, there can be other variables influencing any

observed differences between groups and not just the interaction between the
independent and dependent variables. Where an experiment can begin showing
causality, a quasi-experiment cannot. This basic fact is a difference between quasi and
true experiments, but does not make a quasi-experiment a lesser design. It simply
answers different questions.

Characteristics of Quasi Experimental Design

 Manipulation of the independent variable to observe the effects of the

dependent variables.
 It lacks at least one of the two other essential characteristics of true
experiment.
 Quasi experimental designs are generally used to establish the causality (effect
of independent variable on dependent variable) in situations where researchers
are not able to randomly assign the subjects to groups for various reasons.
 Quasi independent variables are used instead of true independent variables and
independent variable is not manipulated in complete controlled situations.

Advantages of Quasi Experimental Design

 Quasi-experiments design can be perfect to determine what is best for the

population. Also known as external validity.
 It gives the researchers power over the variables by being able to control them.
 The quasi-experiment method can be combined with other experimental
methods too.
 It provides transferability to a greater extent.
 It is an intuitive process that is well-shaped by the researchers.
 Involves real-world problems and solutions and not any artificial ones.
 Offers better control over the third variable known as the confounding variable
which influences the cause and effect.

Disadvantages of Quasi Experimental Design

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 It serves less internal validity than true experiments.

 Due to no randomization, you cannot tell for sure that the confounding or
third variable is eradicated. 

 It has scope for human errors.

 It can allow the researcher’s personal bias to get involved. 

 Human responses are difficult to measure, hence, there is a chance that the
results are produced artificially.

 Using old or backdated data can be incorrect and inadequate for the study.

Types of Quasi Experimental Design

 Pre-test post-test design

 Pre-test post-test control design
 Time series design
 Equivalent time series samples
 Equivalent samples materials design
 Non-equivalent control group
 Counterbalanced designs
 Multiple time series design
 Institutional cycle design
 Regression-discontinuity design

Pretest- Posttest Design

 Pretest-posttest design is a type of quasi-experiment in which the outcome of

interest is measured 2 times: once before and once after exposing a non-random group
of participants to a certain intervention/treatment. The objective is to evaluate the
effect of that intervention which can be:
 A training program
 A policy change
 A medical treatment, etc.
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Example

All students in a certain class take a pre-test. The teacher then uses a certain
teaching technique for one week and administers a post-test of similar difficulty. She
then analyzes the differences between the pre-test and post-test scores to see if the
teaching technique had a significant effect on scores.

Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design

The pretest-posttest control group design, also called the pretest-posttest

randomized experimental design, is a type of experiment where participants get
randomly assigned to either receive an intervention (the treatment group) or not (the
control group). The outcome of interest is measured 2 times, once before the
treatment group gets the intervention — the pretest — and once after it — the
posttest.

The objective is to measure the effect of the intervention which can be:
 A medical treatment
 An education program
 A policy change, etc.
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The pretest-posttest control group design has 3 major characteristics:

 The study participants are randomly assigned to either the treatment or the
control group (this random assignment can occur either before of after the
pretest).
 Both groups are exposed to the same conditions except for the intervention:
the treatment group receives the intervention, whereas the control group does
not.
 The outcome is measured simultaneously for both groups at 2 points in time
— the pretest and the posttest.

Example

Koenig et al. used a pretest-posttest control group design to study the effect of

a yoga program on the classroom behavior of autistic children. These children were
randomly assigned to either receive the yoga program or their standard morning
routine. The study concluded that yoga can significantly improve the classroom
behavior of autistic children. But because the researchers used a convenience sample
from a particular school and the classrooms that were allowed to participate were
hand-picked by administrators, the study outcome may not generalize well to all
children with autism.
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Nonequivalent Groups Design

In nonequivalent group design, the researcher chooses existing groups that

appear similar, but where only one of the groups experiences the treatment.

In a true experiment with random assignment, the control and treatment

groups are considered equivalent in every way other than the treatment. But in a
quasi-experiment where the groups are not random, they may differ in other ways—
they are nonequivalent groups.

When using this kind of design, researchers try to account for

any confounding variables by controlling for them in their analysis or by choosing
groups that are as similar as possible. This is the most common type of quasi-
experimental design

Example

You hypothesize that a new after-school program will lead to higher grades.
You choose two similar groups of children who attend different schools, one of which
implements the new program while the other does not. By comparing the children
who attend the program with those who do not, you can find out whether it has an
impact on grades.

Time Series Design

The time series design is useful when an experimenter wants to measure the
effects of a treatment over a long period of time. In this design, the experimenter
would continue to administer the treatment and measure the effects a number of times
during the course of experiment.

A time-series design is an example of longitudinal design in which researchers

collect samples of language on a regular basis over a set period (Kirk, 2009; Mellow,
Reeder, & Forster, 1996).

A time-series design is characterized by multiple observations both before and

after the treatment. The number of pretreatment and post treatment observations can
vary, and there is no need to have the same number of observations pre- and post
treatment (Kirk, 2009). The treatment may entail a single or multiple treatment
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sessions. Whether involving a single or multiple trainings, the treatment can vary in
length, from including brief to extended sessions.

Time-series designs, however, fare less well in terms of external validity. Due
to the larger number of observations and the richer analysis of language development
they make possible, time-series designs usually include a smaller number of
participants than quantitative designs with fewer observational points. This inevitably
has a negative impact on the generalizability of the findings to the wider population.

According to Daniel T. Kaplan and Leon Glass (1995), there are two critical
features of a time series that differentiate it from cross-sectional data-collection
procedures:

 Repeated measurements of a given behavior are taken across time at

equally spaced intervals. Taking multiple measurements is essential for
understanding how any given behavior unfolds over time, and doing so at
equal intervals affords a clear investigation of how the dynamics of that
behavior manifest at distinct time scales.
 The temporal ordering of measurements is preserved. Doing so is the only
way to fully examine the dynamics governing a particular process. If we
expect that a given stimulus will influence the development of a behavior in a
particular way, utilizing summary statistics will completely ignore the
temporal ordering of the data and likely occlude one’s view of important
behavioral dynamics.

Example:

A variant of the pretest-posttest design is the interrupted time-series design.

A time series is a set of measurements taken at intervals over a period of time. For
example, a manufacturing company might measure its workers’ productivity each
week for a year. In an interrupted time series-design, a time series like this one is
“interrupted” by a treatment. In one classic example, the treatment was the reduction
of the work shifts in a factory from 10 hours to 8 hours (Cook & Campbell,
1979). Because productivity increased rather quickly after the shortening of the work
shifts, and because it remained elevated for many months afterward, the researcher
concluded that the shortening of the shifts caused the increase in productivity. Notice
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that the interrupted time-series design is like a pretest-posttest design in that it

includes measurements of the dependent variable both before and after the treatment.
It is unlike the pretest-posttest design, however, in that it includes multiple pretest and
posttest measurements.

Equivalent Time Series Samples

The equivalent time sample design is a quasi-experimental method where the

intervention is administered several times and the intervention is taken away several
times. Observations of the outcome are taken after each administration of the
treatment and after each time period where the intervention is taken away.

The time period in between administration of the treatment and taking away
the treatment is called a "washout" period. The effects of the treatment or non-
treatment are allowed to dissipate before switching.

Example

If you are tracking the influence of blog writing on vocabulary acquisition, the
intervention is blog writing and the dependent variable is vocabulary acquisition. As
the students write a blog, you measure them several times over a certain period. If a
plot indicates an upward trend you could infer that blog writing made a difference in
vocabulary acquisition.

Counterbalanced Designs

Counterbalanced designs allow the researcher to isolate the main effects due to
condition and control for order and sequence effects only if there is no interaction
between the procedural variables (time, position) and the independent variables

Example

Some participants would be tested in the attractive defendant condition

followed by the unattractive defendant condition, and others would be tested in the
unattractive condition followed by the attractive condition. With three conditions,
there would be six different orders (ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, and CBA), so
some participants would be tested in each of the six orders. With counterbalancing,
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participants are assigned to orders randomly, using the techniques we have already
discussed. Thus random assignment plays an important role in within-subjects designs
just as in between-subjects designs. Here, instead of randomly assigning to conditions,
they are randomly assigned to different orders of conditions. In fact, it can safely be
said that if a study does not involve random assignment in one form or another, it is
not an experiment.

Multiple Selection Design

Multiple Selection Design is defined as when two or more research projects

are conducted, each complete in itself, to address research questions and/or
hypotheses, a topic, or a program. As with mixed methods, the studies may be a
combination of quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or both.

Example

 When searching for National Contacts, if two countries are selected in the
Country field, National Contacts from both countries will be displayed in the search
results, i.e., records corresponding to the first and to the second selected countries.
Use it on mobile and desktop for listing different options with multiple select. It can
be tied to an input, native select or rendered inline. Turn it on by setting select
Multiple to true. As an alternative to the checkbox list it works great for category
filtering... eg. E-commerce solutions.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion a quasi-experimental design is a non-randomized study design

used to evaluate the effect of an intervention. The intervention can be a training
program, a policy change or a medical treatment. Unlike a true experiment, in a quasi-
experimental study the choice of who gets the intervention and who doesn’t is not
randomized. Instead, the intervention can be assigned to participants according to
their choosing or that of the researcher, or by using any method other than
randomness.
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REFERENCES
Shadish, William R., et al., Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for
Generalized Causal Inference, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2002, pp.
103–243.

White, H and Sabarwal, S (2014), Quasi-Experimental Design and Methods.

Methodological briefs, impact evaluation No. 8. UNICEF, September 2014.

Shadish WR, Cook TD, Campbell DT. Experimental and quasi-experimental

designs for generalized causal inference. Boston (MA): Houghton Mifflin
Company; 2002

Cook TD, Campbell DT. Quasi-experimentation: design and analysis issues for field
settings. Chicago: Rand McNally Publishing Company, 1979.

Shadish WR, Heinsman DT. Experiments versus quasi-experiments: do they yield

the same answer? NIDA Res Monogr. 1997;170:147–64.

Rimshaw J, Campbell M, Eccles M, Steen N. Experimental and quasi-experimental

designs for evaluating guideline implementation strategies. Fam Pract.
2000;17(Suppl 1):S11–6.