The patient then waited through an extended period for healing. Then, in a surgery similar to those done to create vaginas for intersexed patients, surgeons constructed the patient's vagina by using skin grafts taken from her thighs or buttocks (Christine's vaginoplasty surgery was in 1954).
Experiments can be done in the field or in a laboratory. They can involve human or animal subjects. What distinguishes the type of experiment is the degree to which the experimenter can assign subjects to conditions. Three types are described here: True, Quasi- and Single-subject experiments. In a true experiment, subjects are randomly assigned to the treatment conditions (levels of the independent variable).
A type of quasi-experimental design that is generally better than either the nonequivalent groups design or the pretest-posttest design is one that combines elements of both. There is a treatment group that is given a pretest, receives a treatment, and then is given a posttest. Quasi-experimental research involves the manipulation of an independent variable without the random assignment of participants to conditions or orders of conditions. 2  Among the important types are nonequivalent groups designs, pretest-posttest, and interrupted time-series designs.