What is th difference between scientific method, scientific inquiry and experimental design?

Question

What is th difference between scientific method, scientific inquiry and experimental design?

Answer 1

The term "scientific method" is a broad term with many

different meanings depending on the context. News people

often refer to "scientific method" in reporting the results of surveys or polls.  In that context, "scientific" means that a random sample was used and "non-scientific" means that the respondents were not selected by a random method.

The term "scientific inquiry" refers to a study that used a methodoloty that fit any of the many strategies often described in research methods books.  More often based on some type of random selection or random assignment.  The study will  be "ex-post-facto" if the "causing" variable was only identified but not manipulated or fixed by the researcher.  It may also be correlational, often considered to be a type of ex-post-facto, study. In such non-experimental studies the interpretation of "cause" is very weak and depends on logical arguments such as time etc. to argue for cause.  

The term "experimental design" refers to any study that used

treatment conditions (2 or more) manipulated or fixed by

the researcher.  A "true experiment" also requires random

assignment of entities to the levels or different forms of treatments.  If random assignment is not used, the experiment is considered to be a "quasi-experiment".  

True experiments are often considered to build a stronger

case for cause-effect.