Deck 9: Experimental Research

Question 1

Pete wanted to see whether caffeine intake increased a subject's arousal state. He randomly assigned 100 high school seniors to an experimental or control group. The experimental group drank a high caffeine soda, while the control group drank a caffeine-free soda. He then measured and compared arousal states for both groups. What type of design did Pete use?

A) interrupted time series
B) two-group posttest-only design
C) classical experimental
D) pretest-posttest

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following is LEAST suited to providing clear evidence about a CAUSAL relationship between two variables?

A) posttest only control group design
B) Solomon four-group design
C) classical experimental design
D) one-shot case study

Answer 2

D

Question 3

What is the Hawthorne effect?

A) A reactivity effect named after a famous case in which subject responded to the fact that they were in an experiment more than to the treatment. In effect, the experiment became the independent variable.
B) It is a special instrument for measuring emotionally charged attitudes invented in the 1930s Hawthorne, England.
C) When subjects do not receive the real treatment and instead receive an imitation treatment but respond as though they have received the real treatment. In effect, the belief that they received a treatment effects their behavior.
D) It is a type of experimental design using three control groups developed by Sir Thomas Hawthorne in the 1960s when investigating the effects of noise on mental concentration.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The Solomon four-group design combines which two other designs?

A) classical experimental and equivalent time series
B) classical experimental and two group posttest only
C) one group pretest-posttest and static group comparison
D) case study and two group posttest

Question 5

An experimenter says "it was a 3 by 3." What does this mean?

A) It was a time series design with three Xs and three Os.
B) It was a Latin Square design with three groups.
C) It was a factorial design with two variables, each had three levels.
D) It was a factorial design with three independent variables.

Question 6

The speed limit on interstate highways in the United States was reduced from 65 to 55 miles per hour in 1976. It was raised back to 65 in 1988; in 1996, individual state governments could decide the limit and many raised it to 75 miles per hour. Proponents and critics of the law have looked at the number of traffic deaths per 1000 miles driven on the highways between 1970 and 1998 to see whether the law affected traffic deaths. What type of design is this?

A) one shot case study
B) pretest-posttest one group design
C) interrupted time series design
D) equivalent time series design

Question 7

Several people criticized Dr. Gordon's classroom experiment on the effects of density of living conditions on aggression due to issues of external validity. This means problems with

A) posttest effects.
B) generalizability.
C) ethics.
D) randomization to the experimental or control group.

Question 8

Yolanda wanted to test the effectiveness of a new 4-hour anger management treatment session. She first took 24 clients who had been referred for anger management pre-test) in March and divided them randomly into two groups. One group was assigned to the new 4-hour session, the other group went to a traditional anger management session. Each was given an in-take assessment measuring anger management skills. After clients finished the two-week sessions, she measured the level of anger management skills among all clients in both groups. What experimental design did she use?

A) time series
B) classical experiment
C) one-shot case study
D) static group comparison

Question 9

Dr. Useem designed an experiment on group competition to be realistic. She divided subjects into 6 three- person teams. Only one could "win" a race to assemble a large complex toy. She wanted subjects to get "caught up" in the situation so it would have a large impact on them. A confederate posed as the vice president of a toy manufacturer who offered each member of the winning team $300, but members of the 5 losing teams got nothing. She's trying to create

A) experimental realism.
B) mundane realism.
C) internal validity.
D) generic realism.

Question 10

During the course of her experiment, Yolanda learned that 7 of the 12 clients in her new 4-hour session had quit and walked out of the session before it was completed. What threat to internal validity does her experiment have?

A) experimental mortality
B) history effect
C) selection bias
D) maturation

Question 11

Dr. Marshall conducted an experiment to test changes in sex roles due to spending an entire day reading about the achievements of great women artists and scientists. The experimental group read fifteen articles about great women. The control group read fifteen articles about cooking, automobiles, astronomy, and accounting. During the lunch break, subjects from the experimental and control groups met and talked about what they were reading. What internal validity problem may occur?

A) experimental mortality
B) maturation
C) diffusion of treatment
D) testing

Question 12

The classical experimental design contains all of the following, EXCEPT

A) pretest and posttest measures.
B) random assignment of subjects.
C) an experimental and control group.
D) at least two different independent variables.

Question 13

The following design notation for an experimental design is called 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

A) equivalent time series.
B) Solomon four-group.
C) interrupted time series.
D) classical experimental.

Question 14

Dr. Bootsma designed and produced a 30 second radio commercial for a local automobile dealer. Next, she had the three most widely listened to radio stations in town play the commercial 15 times a day, everyday, for two weeks. She waited until the end of the two-week period, then she called Jack to see what his sales had been lately. What experimental design did she use?

A) time series
B) one-shot case study
C) static group comparison
D) classical experiment

Question 15

If the time between the pretest and the posttest is very short, then

A) the maturation effect is less likely to occur.
B) the instrumentation effect is more likely to occur.
C) the history effect is more likely to occur.
D) the statistical regression effect is less likely to occur.

Question 16

After conducting an experiment on group dynamics, Dr. Smith performed an ethical debriefing. What is Dr. Smith doing?

A) Telling the subjects what the experiment is really all about, because he had lied to them earlier.
B) Telling the subjects a story to deceive them, so they won't know the true hypothesis being tested.
C) Administering a follow-up survey to check for latent effects of the experiment.
D) Encouraging subjects to provide names and phone numbers of their friends and family, so Dr. Smith can recruit more subjects.

Question 17

Dr. Duffy conducted an experiment to raise I.Q. scores by having experimental subjects eat three bananas a day for a month, while control groups had no bananas. Below are his results scores = average I.Q. score for group of subject). $$\begin{array} { l l l } & \text { Pretest } & \text { Posttest } \\\hline \text { Experimental Group } & 102 & 110 \\\hline \text { Control Group } & 80 & 110\end{array}$$ Which of the following can you say about the results?

A) The experiment proves that the Dr. Duffy's treatment works.
B) The experiment has a statistical regression issue.
C) The experiment has history effects.
D) The experiment has selection bias problems.

Question 18

What are "demand characteristics" in experimental research?

A) When neither the subjects nor an assistant helping the experimenter know specifics about the treatment or how hypothesis is being tested.
B) When subjects in a control group "demand" to be treated the same as the subjects receiving the treatment.
C) When an experimenter deceives subjects about the experiment's true nature, then later tells them what it is really about.
D) When subjects pick up clues about the hypothesis of the experiment and change their behavior to do what they think will confirm the experimenter's hypothesis.

Question 19

Internal validity is threatened when subjects in the control group modify their behavior to compensate for not receiving the experimental treatment. What is this called?

A) maturation effect
B) experimenter expectancy
C) compensatory behavior
D) diffusion of treatment

Question 20

Field experiments, compared to laboratory experiments, generally

A) have equal external and internal validity.
B) have higher external validity and lower internal validity.
C) have lower external validity and lower internal validity.
D) have lower external validity and higher internal validity.

Question 21

How do the interrupted and the equivalent time series designs differ?

Question 22

Outline the components of the classical experimental design. How is it different from a one-group pretest posttest design?

Question 23

What is random assignment and why is it important when designing an experiment?

Question 24

Describe the testing effect and its relation to the Solomon four-group design?

Question 25

There are several threats to an experiment's internal validity, explain what diffusion of treatment, experimenter expectancy, and demand characteristics are? How does each threaten internal validity?

Question 26

Explain why mortality, maturation, and history effects threaten a researcher's ability to demonstrate a causal relationship. Why are they more common in longer experiments?

Question 27

What is a "double blind" experiment? Why would a researcher use it?

Question 28

Why is control important in experimental research? How is it related to internal validity?

Question 29

Design an experiment to study the relationship between class attendance and exam grades. Which method is most appropriate for studying this relationship? Explain your answer.

Question 30

There are several threats to an experiment's external validity. Explain what mundane realism, Hawthorne effect, and naturalistic generalization are. How does each threaten external validity?

Question 31

It has been discovered that researchers will often unknowingly treat the experimental group differently than the control group. To minimize this threat to internal validity, research will often direct research assistants who don't know who is in the experimental and control groups) to administer the experimental treatment. This is often called a

A) double-barreled experiment.
B) triple-shop post-test only experiment.
C) classical experimental design.
D) double-blind experiment.

Question 32

Often researchers are interested in investigating how multiple independent variables affect a dependent variable. Which experimental design method allows for the investigation of multiple IVs? Describe how this method is used and give an example of when a researcher would use this method.

Question 33

Compare and contrast field or laboratory experiments. Which has greater internal and external validity? Why?