Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).
In addition to measuring the group of participants who joined a fraternity/sorority, Dr. Fletcher decides to give the same measure to another group of 55 participants who decided to not join a fraternity/sorority. After conducting the study, Dr. Fletcher finds out that the people who joined a fraternity/sorority all saw a documentary on body image sponsored by the InterGreek Council the night before recruitment began. This threat to internal validity is known as a:
A)selection threat.
B)selection-history threat.
C)history threat.
D)testing threat.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The fact that the group who joined the fraternity/sorority all saw a documentary on body image sponsored by the InterGreek Council the night before recruitment began represents a selection-history threat. This is a threat to internal validity because it means that the group who joined the fraternity/sorority had an experience (seeing the documentary) that the group who did not join did not have, which could account for any differences in their levels of attractiveness and appearance concern.

Dr Fletcher Is Interested in Whether Joining a Fraternity/sorority Causes