Departments of Sociology & Advanced Methodologies, Purdue University, USA.
Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, USA.
Soc Sci Res. 2022 Nov;108:102799. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2022.102799. Epub 2022 Oct 3.
In the midst of the current causal revolution, experimental methods are increasingly embraced across the social sciences. We first document the growth in the use of the experimental method and then overview the current state of the field along with suggestions for future research. Our review covers the core features of experiments that facilitate causal inference, and we offer numerous examples of different experimental designs and the types of research questions they are well-suited to test. We then harmonize popular but differing perspectives on validity in regard to experiments focused on theoretical considerations. Next, we detail a new framework of purposive sampling for social science experiments, suggesting researchers could benefit from moving beyond only two stock choices of representativeness or convenience. We then discuss issues of analysis unique to experimental data before ending with a critical discussion of null findings, open-science practices, social desirability, and other open debates in the experimental methods literature.
在当前的因果革命中，实验方法在社会科学领域中越来越受到青睐。我们首先记录了实验方法使用的增长情况，然后概述了该领域的现状，并为未来的研究提出了建议。我们的综述涵盖了促进因果推断的实验的核心特征，并提供了许多不同实验设计的例子，以及它们适合测试的研究问题类型。然后，我们调和了关于以理论考虑为重点的实验的有效性的流行但不同的观点。接下来，我们详细介绍了一种用于社会科学实验的有目的抽样的新框架，建议研究人员可以受益于超越代表性或便利性这两种常见的选择。然后，我们讨论了实验数据特有的分析问题，最后对实验方法文献中的零发现、开放科学实践、社会期望和其他公开辩论进行了批判性讨论。
