When most people hear "science" or "research", their mind instantly flits through images of goggled scientists in lab coasts examining bubbling Erlenmeyer flasks in the midst of a bustling laboratory. While there certainly are those who fit that image, science takes place in a diverse variety of settings. Each carries with it a different set of variables to control, ways to gather results and possibilities. The broad differences can be seen in the work done in a laboratory setting contrasted with research done in the field.
Laboratory work offers many advantages in proper scientific methodology. On a very practical side, expensive or sensitive equipment can be difficult or impossible to use in the field. Even simply reading results from equipment can require its own set of computers and electrical equipment that won't get along well with the ecosystems you may want to bring it to, and that's assuming your equipment is portable enough to bring with you.
Any mishandling or error could be very costly, even little microelectrodes slipping away can be a $5000 mistake! The other main advantage of laboratory work is internal validity (Howitt and Cramer, 2008). Internal validity is how the results are being affected by the experimental variable you're working with. Lab work does much better than field work with this because everything can be precisely controlled. When outside, sunlight, wind and temperature can change important factors like air temperature, pH, pressure and moisture by the second. The laboratory has precise conditions that assure that readings and results are due only to the experimental variable. One of the greatest threats to an experiment is the much feared "third variable". This is another factor not related to the experimental variable that influences the results. Research done in the field has been found to have many more of these "third variable" problems (Parasuraman, Grewal, Krishnan, 2004). Laboratory work also has the advantage of being very repeatable and reproducible, which is a hallmark of the modern scientific method. This means that large amounts of trials can be done in the lab than can be precisely replicated in the field. When looking at animal behavioral studies done in the field, McClelland and Judd (1993) showed that effects of extreme results are deflated in field work. This could be attributed to the lack of trials that center data on the results occurring within the higher probability region of the distribution that researchers are working with.
Field work has advantages as well. Especially when working with animals, simply being in a laboratory is going to change the results.
In a meta-analysis of 80 studies concerning laboratory experiments with animals, Balcombe et al. found that having the animals in a laboratory caused stress responses in the animals, which was often cited as a confounding effect (a variable that may be influencing the results) in the experiment. While lab experiments are known for their internal validity, field work has the advantage in external validity. External validity is how accurate the results are when applied outside the experiment. Internal validity has been found to be only a part of external validity and is not a guarantee that the conclusion will hold in the world (Parasuraman, Grewal, Krishnan, 2004). If you can control in the field and obtain accurate results, your conclusion is more likely to be replicated in the natural environment (Maxwell, Delaney, 1990). Especially in psychological studies, results gained from situations where subjects aren't aware that their results are going to be analyzed and are unaware that they are being observed are more accurate (Kleck et al. 1976).
The battle of laboratory versus field is a continuing dynamic that include advantages and disadvantages on both sides. There is no universal answer to which setting is superior and much relies on how the scientist can plan and execute their experiment.
References:
Balcombe, Jonathan P. "Laboratory Routines Cause Animal Stress." Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (2004).
Howitt D, Cramer D. "Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology." Pearson Education Limited (2005).
Judd, Charles M., and Gary H. McClelland. "Quantitative Methods in Psychology." Psychological Bulletin (1993).
Kleck, Robert E., et al. "Effects of being observed on expressive, subjective, and physiological responses to painful stimuli." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1976).
Maxwell, S. E., & Delaney, H. D. "Designing experiments and analyzing data." Wadsworth (1990).
Parasuraman, A., Dhruv Grewal, and R. Krishnan. "Marketing Research." Houghton
Mifflin (2004).
Image Credit: MIT (Wikipedia), Snežana Trifunović (Wikipedia)
Fortunately, there are both kinds (and more!), and they're all vital to the scientific enterprise. Which do you think you'd prefer?