Dr Murphy is investigating the effect of caffeine on students' performance on a memory task. She randomly allocates 200 university students into two groups. She asks Group A to drink 30ml of black coffee 30 minutes before the memory task, whilst Group B is asked to drink 30ml of water instead. Group B is:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The control group is the group that serves as a baseline to compare the experimental group to. In this case, the control group is Group B, who drank water instead of coffee. Therefore, Group B is the control group. Group A is the experimental group as they are the ones who were given the treatment (coffee) to see if it had an effect on their performance on the memory task. The terms "basic group" and "independent group" are not commonly used in experimental design.

Dr Murphy Is Investigating the Effect of Caffeine on Students