Postexperimental Inquiries: Assessing Demand Awareness and Treatment Effectiveness

Abstract

The preceding chapter discusses debriefing procedures—postexperimental sessions during which experimenters attempt to disabuse their subjects of experimentally created misinformation and eliminate any negative aftereffects caused by the research. The focus in debriefing is on the experimenter’s telling subjects about the study. However, postexperimental sessions are also used to ask subjects about the study. Specifically, experimenters attempt

to judge the degree to which the manipulations and measures were appropriate and effective, to determine the extent and accuracy of participants’ suspicions, and to verify that the participants construed the situation as intended (e.g., accepted the “cover story”) and were involved with it…(Tesch, 1977, p. 219)