Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Boxes
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A New Era of Experimental Political Science
- Part I Experimental Designs
- Part II Experimental Data
- Part III Experimental Treatments and Measures
- 12 Improving Experimental Treatments in Political Science
- 13 Beyond Attitudes: Incorporating Measures of Behavior in Survey Experiments
- Part IV Experimental Analys is and Presentation
- Part V Experimental Reliability and Generalizability
- Part VI Using Experiments to study Identity
- Part VII Using Experiments to Study Government Actions
- Author Index
- Subject Index
12 - Improving Experimental Treatments in Political Science
from Part III - Experimental Treatments and Measures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 March 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Boxes
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A New Era of Experimental Political Science
- Part I Experimental Designs
- Part II Experimental Data
- Part III Experimental Treatments and Measures
- 12 Improving Experimental Treatments in Political Science
- 13 Beyond Attitudes: Incorporating Measures of Behavior in Survey Experiments
- Part IV Experimental Analys is and Presentation
- Part V Experimental Reliability and Generalizability
- Part VI Using Experiments to study Identity
- Part VII Using Experiments to Study Government Actions
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
This chapter examines experimental treatments and the theoretical, practical and empirical issues involved in their implementation. I begin by discussing the underlying purpose of experimental treatments. Second, I address what it means to say that a treatment has generalizable effects. Third, I discuss practical issues involved in constructing treatments in a variety of contexts including written, spoken, visual, and behavioral interventions. In the fourth section, I highlight the importance of validating that experimental treatments have induced the intended differences by experimental condition in the independent variable. I point to the general neglect of manipulation checks in experiments in political science and emphasize what can be learned through their inclusion. Contemporary publications provide some evidence of confusion among political scientists about the purposes for which manipulation checks and attention checks are appropriate. In the fifth and final section, I highlight the need for political scientists to move beyond between-subject assignment of treatments to consider far more powerful within-subject and hybrid experimental treatments.
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- Advances in Experimental Political Science , pp. 219 - 238Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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