A sports psychologist develops a new technique that might improve accuracy in shooting free throws in school children. To test her technique she arranges to give the new program to a girls' physical education class and the standard technique to the boys' physical education class. She finds that indeed the girls' accuracy in shooting improved more than the boys' accuracy. A colleague correctly points out
A) that as this was an experiment the new technique caused the observed differences.
B) that gender was an extraneous variable that was held constant.
C) that the experiment is confounded by gender and is therefore inconclusive.
D) that the results were actually caused by gender and not the technique.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The experiment is confounded by gender because the new technique was only tested on girls and the standard technique on boys, making it impossible to determine if the observed differences in shooting accuracy were due to the technique or the gender of the participants.

A Sports Psychologist Develops a New Technique That Might Improve