ABSTRACT
True experiments are characterized by randomization, manipulation, and control (comparison), and are used to determine causal effects of conditions being manipulated (Polit & Beck, 2011). In contrast to experiments, quasi-experiments lack random assignment to treatment conditions (Campbell & Stanley, 1963). Quasi-experimental designs are the result of unavoidable constraints arising from ethical, financial, or logistical limitations (Rosenbaum, 2002). Nursing science has many questions that are not appropriately answered using experiments. For example, to test the effect of delay in seeking treatment for acute heart failure (Jurgens, 2006), it would be impractical to randomly assign subjects to delay or nondelay in treatment seeking, and unethical if it were practical to do so.
