Differences between the scientific method and experimental method:

The scientific method follows a series of steps to reach a result and they are observation,
problem planning, theory, experimentation, and law. For example, for a medical prescription
all of this is done.

and the experimental is what you obtain through your personal experiences, for example, if
you ever get burned, you will never touch the fire again.

Experiential learning involves doing something, learning from mistakes, and acquiring
experience, knowledge, or skills in this process. Scientific learning involves asking a question
and finding evidence to answer it. This usually sparks interest and curiosity about what is
happening. The scientific method involves doing research to find out the answer to a
question, and can be seen as a small subdivision of the large umbrella that is experiential
learning.

Experimental methods:

Human beings remember 90% of what they do, see, hear and speak, according to Rutgers
University. Traditionally, this combination of experiences commonly occurs in the workplace,
but less so in classrooms, therapy offices, and training rooms, where the focus is often on
speaking or reading. However, experimental methods can be used in these situations to
increase the effectiveness of the learning experience.

Experiential learning activities:

The Association for Experimental Education describes ways so that teachers do not feel
limited by traditional teaching methods. The tools of experiential learning can be creative and
varied. You can ask students to do a research project on a topic, beyond library books and
magazines. On the other hand, a scavenger hunt, following historical clues, might be an
experience suitable for an elementary school class. Other ideas include business economics
games with real tokens or coins, or training workers through hands-on workshops in which
they perform the actual tasks they need to perform.

Combination of experimental and scientific methods:

The pattern of action, the processing of facts and the application of new knowledge is
something shared by the scientific and experimental method. One difference is that the
scientific method must be written so that the method, results, and conclusions are clear to
readers. Experiential learning can be recorded in this way, but often the lessons are recorded
only in the minds of the students. To simultaneously apply the experiential learning model
and the scientific method, practical group experiments allow for exchange. The results can be
shared in class between groups. Students can also keep a “lab book,” where their
observations, reflections, and questions are processed during the experiment.

Differences between experimental and non-experimental methods:

Therefore, due to greater control of the variables, the results obtained, in the experimental method,
have a greater relationship with the manipulation to which we have subjected the facts. Another
difference is that while in the experimental method the experimenter intentionally manipulates the
independent variable, in the non-experimental method the researcher is limited to selecting subjects
who already have those values of the independent variable.

Thus, on many occasions, mainly for ethical reasons, it will not be possible to apply an experimental
method, so we will have to resort to another less precise but no less valid method.

But, one of its biggest drawbacks is its high degree of "artificiality", caused by the need to control all
possible foreign variables that may be altering the data, in order to ensure that the result obtained
(value of the dependent variable ) is exclusively due to the manipulations of the independent
variables.

An example that allows us to understand the difference between a non-experimental and

experimental method can be the following: Suppose we want to verify the alleged relationship
between cancer (dependent variable) and tobacco (independent variable), for which we can use an
experimental methodology by injecting different levels of nicotine (independent variable) to various
laboratory rats.