• Question: Has an experiment ever gone wrong?

    Asked by anon-285447 to Amrita on 4 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Amrita Bains

      Amrita Bains answered on 4 Mar 2021:

      Hi Mia! I can promise most my experiments go wrong especially the first time round! It is always quite rare when the first experiment goes right and when it does I really question myself as to why that has happened. But the good news is that you can always practice your experiment before you start to collect your real data and any mistakes you find and fix are always good lessons for when making your next experiment.

      For now, most of my experiments are online and use programming so normally there is something that is wrong with the code that I use but once I figure it out I feel like I have won the biggest prize ever!

Comments

  • laurenmcgale commented on :

    I have never had an experiment ‘go wrong’ exactly, but sometimes we find things we don’t expect to find. Some people don’t like it when this happens and prefer it when they find things they expect to find, but for me it is just as interesting to find weird results. Why did we get such funny results? Does this mean the people I have tested are not a good example of average people? Did I maybe do something wrong? How could I improve it for next time? That is all part of the scientific process! Trial and error, and when you figure it out and it works, you need to repeat it a few times just to be sure!

  • Photo: Dennis

    Dennis commented on :

    My MSc project was not the most elegant research project. So in a sense, a few things have gone wrong. I decided to try using a writing intervention to promte positive body image among adolescents. Thing is, I only allowed my participants to write in English in spite of them being non-native English speakers. I took that learning with me now that I’m doing my PhD.