Field experiment Research aim: - Identify what type of advertisement increases consumers participation in environmental conversation. - Which reference group should be the advertisement use to increase consumer participation in environmental conversation. + What were they trying to find out? + What experimental design was used? + How many groups were there? + What was the treatment used? Describe the stimuli? + Is there any problems with the experimental design? If yes, what would you do? Research design notation - O = any formal observation or measurement - X = exposure to the treatment - EG = experimental group - CG = control group - R = random assignment - M = matching control Causal research - Methods: experiments - Characteristics: manipulation and control of variables - Purpose: determine cause and effect relationships - Eg: will increasing the price of products increase profitability? - Definition: change in a variable produce a change in another variable (independent variable dependent variable) - Association does not imply causation - Three conditions for causality: + evidence pf association between X and Y + X must occur before Y + absence of competing explanations Controlling extraneous variables - Design or physical control + only differences between groups are manipulated - Randomization + random assignment of test units to groups + ensures prior equality of experimental groups - Statistical control + measure and adjust for extraneous variables Reliability - Extent to which we can be certain that the observed score is free from random error - Consistency in results (Will I get the same result of I measured again?) Internal and External Validity - Internal validity: the extent to which the observed results are due to the experimental manipulation - External validity: the extent to which the observed results are likely to hold beyond the experimental setting Classical vs Statistical Designs - Classical: one treatment level/ one independent variable eg: sales response when I lower the price by 10% - Statistical: different treatment levels/ more than one independent variable eg: sales response when I lower the price by 10%/ 20%/ 30% eg: sales response when I lower price and increase advertising