I think they should never be used.

  • JokklMaster@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Exactly. Luckily I’m in a field where true experiments are possible, but I have many colleagues who can’t ethically run true experiments. It’s surveys or nothing for the most part. They have very advanced statistics to account for the lack of control in their research.

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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      7 months ago

      And even if you can carry out a proper experiment, it might be useful to see of there’s already a survey on the same topic. If there is, you can use that data to design your experiment, and hopefully you’ll be able to take important variables into account.