Internal Validity & Experimental Research

This week we will be learning how researchers test for cause and effect using experiments. Most commonly in our field, researchers want to know if an intervention creates change in particular outcome variables (e.g., depression, stress, relationship satisfaction, etc.). They do this by creating an experiment where they deliver said intervention to at least one group of people. It can be difficulty to control for all the external factors that can complicate an experiment or create change in the outcome variables. We will talk about how researchers reduce their threats to internal validity, so that they can say with more certainty that their intervention created the change they observed in their participants.