השוואת שיטות

	ניסוי שדה	ניסוי מבוקר אקראי באשכולות
תחום	תכנון ניסויים	תכנון ניסויים
משפחה	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
שנת המקור	1920s–1930s (agriculture); 1990s–2000s (social sciences)	1978–1980s
הוגה השיטה	Formalized by R. A. Fisher (1935); systematized in social sciences by Harrison & List (2004)	Cornfield (1978); systematised by Donner and colleagues (1980s)
סוג	Experimental design	Experimental design
מקור מכונן	Harrison, G. W., & List, J. A. (2004). Field experiments. Journal of Economic Literature, 42(4), 1009–1055.	Donner, A., & Klar, N. (2000). Design and Analysis of Cluster Randomization Trials in Health Research. Arnold. ISBN: 978-0340652978
כינויים	field trial, natural field experiment, randomized field experiment, field RCT	cluster RCT, group-randomized trial, community randomized trial, cluster-randomized experiment
קשורות	5	4
תקציר	A field experiment applies the logic of a randomized controlled trial in a naturally occurring, real-world environment rather than an artificial laboratory. Participants are randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions while going about everyday activities, allowing researchers to estimate causal effects with high internal validity while preserving a level of ecological realism that laboratory settings cannot offer. The design is especially prominent in economics, public health, political science, and development research.	A cluster randomized controlled trial (cluster RCT) is an experimental design in which intact social or organisational groups — such as schools, clinics, villages, or workplaces — are randomly assigned to treatment conditions rather than individual participants. Outcomes are still measured at the individual level, but the unit of randomization is the cluster. This design is essential when an intervention is delivered to whole groups, when there is a risk of contamination between participants in the same setting, or when individual randomization is logistically or ethically impractical.