Samantha conducts a study on her campus to better understand voting behaviour. She finds that the majority of students support one candidate. Samantha may not be able to generalize her findings to the larger population of all Canadians, because most of the students at her school are within a certain age group, and many have similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Samantha's problem is a lack of
A)internal validity
B)descriptive norms
C)external validity
D)a control group
E)an experimental group

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Samantha's study may lack external validity because the sample (students on her campus) might not be representative of the larger population of all Canadians, due to similarities in age and socioeconomic backgrounds among the students. External validity refers to the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people.

Samantha Conducts a Study on Her Campus to Better Understand