A careful randomized controlled experiment on a large but unrepresentative group of subjects will have what type of internal and external validity?

In a randomized controlled experiment, internal validity refers to the extent to which the results of the study can be attributed to the manipulations made by the experimenter, rather than any other variables. A carefully designed experiment that controls for confounding variables generally maintains high internal validity, as it allows for causal conclusions to be drawn from the study findings.

However, external validity pertains to the generalizability of the study’s results to the larger population outside of the research settings. A large but unrepresentative group of subjects typically compromises this aspect because the sample does not accurately reflect the broader population of interest. As a result, while the internal validity of the experiment can be considered high due to careful design and randomization efforts, the external validity is low because the findings may not be applicable to other groups or real-world contexts beyond those studied.

This distinction is essential in understanding the dual aspects of validity in research; just because an internal methodology is robust does not guarantee that its findings can be extrapolated beyond the specific sample used.