What legitimate factors might lead a scientist to do an imperfect version of an experiment, such as using chicken eggs as a stand-in for gull eggs? (Check all that apply.)

Question

_____  because the scientist doesn't care about proper procedure
_____  the perfect experiment is too expensive
_____  the perfect experiment would harm the study species
_____  to quickly get preliminary data for a grant
_____  ignorance
_____  the perfect experiment would take too much time

Clarify question:
What is the key concept addressed by the question?

What type of thinking is required?

Gather Content:
What do you already know about experimental design? What other information is related to the question? 

Choose Answer:
Given what you now know, what information is most likely to produce the correct answer?

Reflection:
Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?
 

Answer 1

_____  because the scientist doesn't care about proper procedure
__X__  the perfect experiment is too expensive
__X__  the perfect experiment would harm the study species
__X__  to quickly get preliminary data for a grant
_____  ignorance
__X__  the perfect experiment would take too much time

Clarify question:
What is the key concept addressed by the question?
Need to understand the process of designing an experiment and what variations the design can take without impacting the results.

What type of thinking is required?
This is an evaluate question. You are being presented with several potential justifications for an experimental design that does not perfectly replicate the natural situation. You need to judge whether each choice is or is not a valid justification.

Gather Content:
What do you already know about experimental design? What other information is related to the question? 
This question comes from the section of the textbook that discusses behavioral ecology. There is more than one correct answer. This question is not directly about behavioral ecology, rather, it concerns experimental design. The ideal animal behavior experiment would occur in the wild and would replicate natural conditions as closely as possible. This is always the most desirable because the data the experiment generates would be much more valid. The question is asking you to pick out a valid reason why a researcher would conduct an experiment that doesn’t exactly replicate the natural situation (ex. using chicken eggs instead of sea gull eggs when testing egg predation rates).

Choose Answer:
Given what you now know, what information is most likely to produce the correct answer?
The only incorrect answer is the choice “because the scientist doesn’t care about proper procedure”, this is clearly wrong. Getting an experiment to perfectly match natural conditions is always the best option, but sometimes that just isn’t possible.

Reflection:
Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?
Were you able to select all of the correct justifications? The key to this evaluate question is to see that perfection in experimental design is always ideal but not always possible.