Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- I INTRODUCTION
- II EXPERIMENTAL REASONING ABOUT CAUSALITY
- III WHAT MAKES A GOOD EXPERIMENT?
- 7 Validity and Experimental Manipulations
- 8 Location, Artificiality, and Related Design Issues
- 9 Choosing Subjects
- 10 Subjects' Motivations
- IV ETHICS
- V CONCLUSION
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
9 - Choosing Subjects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- I INTRODUCTION
- II EXPERIMENTAL REASONING ABOUT CAUSALITY
- III WHAT MAKES A GOOD EXPERIMENT?
- 7 Validity and Experimental Manipulations
- 8 Location, Artificiality, and Related Design Issues
- 9 Choosing Subjects
- 10 Subjects' Motivations
- IV ETHICS
- V CONCLUSION
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Consider the perspective expressed by Brady (2000, p. 52) on the usefulness of laboratory experiments to study public opinion: “Laboratory experiments, however, produce findings of limited usefulness because the treatments are often unrealistic and sometimes mundane and the subjects tend to be samples of convenience such as the proverbial ‘college sophomores.’ … [L]aboratory experiments can seldom capture the full range of citizens' views and the variety of political stimuli found in the real world. Representative surveys are the obvious way to capture the range of citizens' perspectives.” Brady's complaint that laboratory experiments are not valid can be summarized into two criticisms: Laboratory experiments rely too heavily on undergraduate students and laboratory experiments involve an artificial environment that is unrealistic and uninteresting to subjects. In the previous chapter we discussed questions of artificiality in experiments. In this chapter we explore the use of undergraduate students in laboratory experiments and in the next we address how to make experiments interesting to subjects (i.e., motivating subjects).
On the Use of Students as Subjects
How Often Are Students Used as Subjects?
Although some political scientists use subject pools that are drawn from a larger community surrounding their university laboratory, as in the classic work of Shanto Iyengar (1987) and the more recent study by Diana Mutz (2007), many of the subjects used in laboratory experiments are undergraduates.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Experimental Political Science and the Study of CausalityFrom Nature to the Lab, pp. 322 - 352Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010