Читать книгу Demystifying Research for Medical and Healthcare Students - John L. Anderson - Страница 36

Why indeed? Have a guess …!

That's right – we need to check that the ‘Fleming Effect’ has not happened. That is, we need to check that any changes we observe after introducing the experimental ‘variable’ are, in fact, due to the experimental variable and not to some outside variable, like, for example, dirt blown in through an open window which might contaminate our results!

Another reason is that the very act of doing research has, itself, an effect on what we are researching. Let me illustrate this.