3.7: Critical Analysis

When critically analyzing a study in terms of its use of experiments, the main analysis concerns whether the study is based on a designed experiment, where the researchers control the environment of the subjects, or an observational study, where the subjects are simply observed. Many studies, particularly those with a social or medial context, will have at least some part of them that are observational, though some factors may be controlled to some extent. The key is to consider what is being controlled, what is being observed, and what confounding issues may affect how the results can be interpreted.

The key questions in critically analyzing the use of an experiment in a study are:

1. Is the study a designed experiment, an observational study, or does it contain elements of both types of studies?
2. What are the potential confounding problems that the study may have?
3. Are there ethical questions about how the experiment was performed?

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