A French teacher reads an article about how visual imagery i.e., "picturing" things in one's mind)can be used to help students learn French vocabulary words.To find out if visual imagery is more effective than verbal repetition in learning vocabulary words, she develops two different study guides for her students-one that tells students how to use visual imagery to learn French words, and one that tells them just to repeat the words over and over again-and randomly distributes the two study guides to her students.Over the next few weeks, the teacher finds that students using visual imagery study guides achieve higher average quiz scores.She concludes that the study guides describing the visual imagery technique help her students learn their French vocabulary words.Is the teacher's conclusion valid?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The teacher's conclusion is valid because she was able to manipulate a variable in the environment (the use of visual imagery study guides vs. verbal repetition study guides) and found a significant difference in the average quiz scores of the two groups. Random assignment helps to control for extraneous variables and increases the validity of the experiment. The location of the experiment and the IQ scores of the students are not relevant to the validity of the teacher's conclusion.

A French Teacher Reads an Article About How Visual Imagery