Critical thinkingArticle: Shadish (2008)Critical thinking in Quasi-ExperimentationAll experiments are about discovering the effects of causes.All experiments have in common the deliberate manipulation of an assumed cause, followed by observation of the effects that follow.A Quasi-experiment: an experiment that does not use random assignment conditions. What is a cause?An inus condition: an insufficient cause by itself. It effectiveness required it to be embedded in a larger set of conditions.Most causal relationships are not deterministic, but only increase the probability that an effect will occur.This is the reason why a given causal relationship will only occur under some conditions but not universally.To different degrees, all causal relationships are contextually dependent, so the generalization of experimental effects is always at issue.Experimental causes are manipulable.Experiments explore the effects of things that can be manipulated.Experimental causes must be manipulable.In quasi-experiments, the cause is whatever was manipulated, which may include many more things than the researcher realizes were manipulated.In quasi-experiments, especially if the researcher is not the person manipulating the treatment, it is easy to make mistaken claims about what was manipulated, and the context in which it occurred.What is an effect?In an experiment, we observe what did happen when people receive a treatment.The counterfactual is knowledge of what would have happened to those same people if they simultaneously had not received treatment.An effect is the difference between what did happen and what...