Quasi-Experimental Designs - Essay Example

Quasi-Experimental Designs According to the PowerPoint slides, quasi-experimental design is employed when there are two groups of people that cannotbe assigned randomly to other groups. Also, in this type of design the variables cannot be manipulated as they would be in other types of experiments and the variables are measured rather than manipulated (slides 4,6). In this case, there are four different studies that are important to assess as to their variables and how they would work. The first study that I chose is study one that demonstrates that women perform more poorly, on average, than men perform on the mathematics section of the SAT.

I chose this study because I wanted to know more about it and it left me with the question, “why?” One of the reasons that came to mind as to why this is true is that men are more geared towards math an science that the majority of women. I though this would be something interesting to study. The independent variable is the mathematics section on the SAT test. The dependent variable is the women’s performance. In order to study this concept to gain additional information would be the comparison group design.

The reason this design could be chosen is because it lends itself to observing the two groups. If this study were done, the comparison between the men and women as to their training and education may be important to understand why men perform better than women on the SAT. This would allow the researchers to understand what factors were involved in helping women achieve on the overall SAT and where the challenges were for them on the mathematics section. This knowledge could be helpful in creating a higher standard of teaching and learning for women who wanted to go into math and science when they finished high school.

Another way that this process could be used would be to do a comparison group before and after. This would be an extension of the research in that women could take the test before an intervention like tutoring was used, and then take the test after they had tutoring to see whether their scores improved. The intended outcome would be that women would perform higher on the mathematics section after they had the tutoring. Boyd (2002) states that this would not be a true comparison group because the research participants are being compared against themselves.

However, this would be in addition to the first experiment. The second study I chose study two because it demonstrates that lower-socioeconomic-status students benefit more over time from an academic tutoring program than do higher socioeconomic-status students. I would think this would also be true and would like to know more information on this one. The independent variable is the socioeconomic status of the students. The dependent variable is the tutoring program and its effect on performance.

Another research design that could be used to gain more information in this study would be a case study design. In this study, an individual could be chosen to research that was in this particular study. The purpose of the case study would be to understand the environment in which the individual grew up and how it has affected their ability to learn. The case study may provide insight into how lower-socioeconomic-status hinders the individual and perhaps why the academic tutoring program is successful.

This would add more weight to a program evaluation of the tutoring program to see how effective it was and whether all children were benefiting from this type of program or not.ReferencesBoyd, H.H. (2002). Use comparison groups to strengthen your evaluation. University of Wisconsin Wisconsin-Extension Cooperative Extension Madison, Wisconsin. Retrieved from www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/resources/pdf/agenda.pdfClassroom Presentation. (n.d.). Quasi-experimental research designs. Chapter 14.