The experiment is one of the types of scientific research. What is an experiment? This is an important question. Below is one possible experiment definition:
Definition of an Experiment
An experiment is one type of scientific research in which researchers manipulate one or more variables to see what effect they may have on one or more other variables.
Independent and Dependent Variables
An experiment is a research method in which there will be one or more independent variables and dependent variables. What is an independent variable? In an experiment, a variable manipulated by the researcher is an independent variable. A dependent variable is a variable measured by the researcher. A dependent variable is a variable that is hypothesized to be influenced by the independent variable.
Example of an Experiment (Psychology Experiment Example)
There are many possible examples of experiments. Some of these would be human behavior experiments or psychology experiments. In this article, I provide a psychology experiment example.
Imagine that you wished to know whether listening to music would increase productivity in the workplace. You randomly assign each participant in this experiment to either an experimental condition or a control condition. (1)
In the experimental condition, participants listen to music while they work. In the control condition, the participants do not listen to music while they work. In this example, listening to music vs. not listening to music is the independent variable. The dependent variable in this example is productivity.
Notes
1. See the article, random assignment, for information about random assignment.