Sociology- Using experiments

Sociology- Using experiments

1. Risk undermining the professional roles and responsibilities of the teachers and their duty of care to students- for example, by misleading them by planting false information about pupils' ability.

2. The experimental method involves treating one group different to another. When dealing with issues of pupil progress, this can create ethical issues over whether such experiments may have harmful effects on those involved. The ethics of sociological research should involve informed consent, and there is the question of whether young children are really able to give consent to experimental research. Even if such consent can be attained, the very fact of obtaining such consent may change the behaviour of school pupils, parents or teachers involved, undermining the validity of any findings. Not obtaining such consent, or misleading participants into giving it, breaches ethical guidelines.

3. The Hawthorne effect may arise through the very presence of researchers in an educational setting. The researchers may be seen as a threat by teachers or pupils, which may alter their normal behaviour.

4. Experiments in education research in in varying degrees of artificial situations, so the findings of a classroom experiment, for example, may not reflect situations, experiences or behaviour in everyday schooling.

5. Experimental situations generally involve testing a hypothesis by attempting to isolate one or two variables. However, education issues involve a complex range of factors, and the experiment risks over simplifying causes and thereby undermining the validity of research. Teacher expectation, for example, is only one factor among many others affecting student progress.