Laboratory vs Field Research

In this article, I will discuss regarding laboratory vs field research setting in detail. Each science has its own laboratory, where experiments are performed under standard conditions. 

Necessary equipment is provided in the laboratory, proper temperature and lighting are arranged. In addition, a noise-free environment is provided so that work can be done in unison.

Laboratory

The term is usually used to denote a room where psychologists and researchers can observe behavior while at the same time maintaining some degree of control over the physical environment which might otherwise affect the behavior of people being observed. 

Laboratory Experiment

The main characteristic of a laboratory experiment is the investigator's ability to control and alter the variables being tested.

Because of this control, the investigator is able to eliminate many of the extraneous variables that might otherwise affect the results of the experiment.

Examples could include heat, noise, distraction, or the nature of the participants themselves.

Merits or Advantages of Laboratory Experiment

1. Great control over the conditions of the study can be specified more clearly.
2. Participants can be selected.
3. Participants can be placed in conditions more systematically.
4. Because of the experimenter's ability to control the effect of extraneous variables, the cause and effect relationship can be established.
5. The laboratory offers the experimenter the opportunity to measure behavior with a great precision than would be possible in the natural environment.
6. The laboratory also allows the research scientist to simplify the complex events of the natural world by breaking them down into simpler components parts, we can say it as experimental reductionism.

Demerits or Disadvantages of Laboratory Experiment

1. It is claimed that the laboratory lacks relevance to the real-life in that tasks explored in the laboratory may not transfer to the outside world.
2. Participants may react to the laboratory setting either by acting in the way they feel the experiment requires (demand characteristics) or by displaying artificial behavior because of their concern that they are being judged in some way (evaluation apprehension). 
3. Avoiding demand characteristics and evaluation apprehension often involves the use of deception in laboratory research, raising serious questions concerning the ETHICS of such investigations.

Field Research

A bounded area especially a region within which a body experiences forces resulting from the presence of other bodies not in contact with it. Any region within which certain specified phenomena occur.

Field Experiment

Any experiment carried out in natural settings rather than in the artificial environment of a laboratory. This type of experiment replaces the artificial settings of the laboratory with a more natural one. Participants are not aware that they are taking part in an experiment.

Merits or Advantages of Field Research

1. By focusing on behavior in a natural setting, the experimenter increases the external validity of the findings.
2. Participants are unaware of their participation in an experiment, they are less likely to display demand characteristics or evaluation apprehension.
3. The experimenter maintains control over the independent variables.

Demerits or disadvantages of Field Research

1. Because many manipulations of the independent variables may be quite subtle, they may pass by unnoticed by the participants. 
2. Similarly, the reactions of the participants may also be subtle and may pass by unnoticed by the experimenter.
3. In contrast to the laboratory settings, the experimenter has less control over the effect of extraneous variables which might interfere with the purity of the cause and effect relationship.
4. Participants are not aware of their participation in an experiment, there are ethical concerns such as an invasion of privacy and lack of informed consent.