An instructor wishes to find out whether a new teaching method is superior to his usual procedures, so he conducts an experiment. Everyone in his classes is quite excited about the prospect of learning under the new procedure, but he cannot administer the new teaching method to everyone: a random half of the students receive the new method and the remaining half receive the old method. What is the MOST obvious flaw in this experiment?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The excitement about the new method could lead to placebo effects, where students feel they are learning better simply because they believe the new method is superior, or experimenter bias, where the instructor's expectations about the new method's effectiveness influence the outcome. These factors can distort the results, making it hard to determine if any observed differences are due to the teaching method itself or to the students' and instructor's expectations.

An Instructor Wishes to Find Out Whether a New Teaching