EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES

An experimental study is a type of evaluation that seeks to determine whether a program or

intervention had the intended causal effect on program participants. There are three key
components of an experimental study design: (1) pre-post test design, (2) a treatment group and a
control group, and (3) random assignment of study participants. Experimental studies are
used in the evaluation of new therapeutic and preventive measures or procedures in
patients, healthy persons or communities.
They are further sub classified into clinical trials, field trials and community trials. A

pre-post test design requires that you collect data on study participants level of performance
before the intervention took place (pre-), and that you collect the same data on where study
participants are after the intervention took place (post). This design is the best way to be sure that
your intervention had a causal effect.

Features
The chief characteristic of experimental design is its use of random assignment; namely,
randomly assigning subjects to treatment and control groups. Random assignment in the
consumer-spending study described previously means that the two groups would be equal on
characteristics that may influence consumption patterns, such as income and education. Because
subjects, regardless of these characteristics, stand an equal chance of being assigned to either
group, experimental design greatly reduces the chance of bias in the study.
A pre-post test design requires that you collect data on study participants level of performance
before the intervention took place (pre-), and that you collect the same data on where study
participants are after the intervention took place (post). This design is the best way to be sure that
your intervention had a causal effect.

Study design

CLINICAL TRIALS.
These are also referred to as randomized controlled trials. They are studies used to
evaluate new therapeutic and preventive measures in patients. Study subjects are
randomly assigned to either of the two groups, i.e. treatment or control in order to
determine efficacy of therapeutic interventions. The treatment group is given the
new treatment while the control group is given a dummy treatment or placebo.

Clinical study design is the formulation of trials and experiments, as well as observational
studies in medical, clinical and other types of research (e.g., epidemiological) involving human
beings.[1] The goal of a clinical study is to assess the safety, efficacy, and / or the mechanism of
action of an investigational medicinal product, or new drug or device that is in development, but
potentially not yet approved by a health authority (e.g. FDA).
Some of the considerations here are shared under the more general topic of design of
experiments but there can be others, in particular related to patient confidentiality and ethics.
Clinical study design is the formulation of trials and experiments, as well as observational
studies in medical, clinical and other types of research (e.g., epidemiological) involving human
beings.[1] The goal of a clinical study is to assess the safety, efficacy, and / or the mechanism of
action of an investigational medicinal product, or new drug or device that is in development, but
potentially not yet approved by a health authority (e.g. FDA).
Some of the considerations here are shared under the more general topic of design of
experiments but there can be others, in particular related to patient confidentiality and ethics.

FIELD TRIALS
These are experiments used to evaluate preventive measures applied to healthy
individuals deemed to be at risk of disease. For example the application of a new
vaccine.
COMMUNITY TRIALS
These are experiments used to evaluate preventive measures applied to whole
communities rather than individuals. The application of universal salt iodization for
prevention of goiter and vitamin A for prevention of night blindness were tested
using community trials. Findings from this type of studies need to be verified using
other epidemiological studies.

To get the true effects of the program or intervention, it is necessary to have both a treatment
group and a control group. As the name suggests, the treatment group receives the intervention.
The control group, however, gets the business-as-usual conditions, meaning they only receive
interventions that they would have gotten if they had not participated in the study. By having
both a group that received the intervention and another group that did not, researchers control for
the possibility that other factors not related to the intervention (e.g., students getting accustomed
to a test, or simple maturation over the intervening time) are responsible for the difference
between the pre-test and post-test results. It is also important that both the treatment group and
the control group are of adequate size to be able to determine whether an effect took place or not.
While the size of the sample ought to be determined by specific scientific methods, a general rule
of thumb is that each group ought to have at least 30 participants.
Finally, it is important to make sure that both the treatment group and the control group are
statistically similar. While no two groups will ever be exactly alike, the best way to be sure that
they are as close as possible is having a random assignment of the study participants into the
treatment group and control group. By randomly assigning participants, you can be sure that any
difference between the treatment group and control group is due to chance alone, and not by a
selection bias.
In scientific studies, experimental design is the gold standard of research designs.
This methodology relies on random assignment and laboratory controls to ensure
the most valid, reliable results. Although researchers recognize that correlation does
not mean causation, experimental designs produce the strongest, most valid
results. However, experimental design is often not practical for many studies in
social science, education and business because researchers cannot, in many
instances, exercise laboratory controls in natural-world settings or randomly assign
subjects.

Strengths
The greatest strength of an experimental-research design is the high level of certainty with which
changes in the outcome of interest consumer spending in the business study described earlier
can be attributed to the independent variable or treatment in this case, a marketing strategy.
By controlling study bias through random assignment, it is more likely that differences in
consumer spending can be attributed to the effects of the marketing strategy rather than other
variables that affect differences in spending, such as income. In addition, research studies using
an experimental design can be replicated more than once, using different groups of subjects.

Weaknesses
The greatest drawback of experimental-research design is its artificiality. Its pointed out that
effects occurring in an experiment under research controls might not take place in more natural
settings. A new marketing strategy may increase consumer spending among a group of research
subjects, but may not have the same effects among consumers nationwide. The difficulty in
imposing laboratory controls in a natural setting leads many researchers in business, education

and social sciences to rely on quasi-experimental designs, which do not randomly assign
subjects.

REFERENCES
1. R. Bonita, R. Beaglehole, T. Kjellstrm. 2006. Basic epidemiology. 2nd edition.
WHO.
2. Hennekens C., Buring J. 1987. Epidemiology in Medicine. Lippincott Williams &
Wilkins.