RESEARCH STUDY 3.4
Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B.
-Refer to Research Study 3.4 above to answer the following question. Dr.Kang's decision to assign participants randomly to Group A and Group B increases which of the following?
A) The covariance of the study
B) The temporal precedence of the study
C) The internal validity of the study
D) The external validity of the study
E) The construct validity of the study

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

By randomly assigning participants to Group A and Group B, Dr. Kang is controlling for potential confounding variables that could affect the results. This increases the internal validity of the study, as it allows for a causal inference to be made between the emotional content of the words and the participants' ability to remember them. It does not necessarily impact the covariance, temporal precedence, external validity, or construct validity of the study.

RESEARCH STUDY 3.4 Dr. Kang, a Cognitive Psychologist, Conducts an Experiment Examining the Experiment