Dr. Xiong conducts a study examining whether people feel more motivated when music is playing versus when there is silence. At first, his findings appear to indicate that those in the "music condition" do better. However, he learns that his research assistant encouraged the participants in the music condition but did not encourage those in the silent condition. Now, Dr. Xiong doesn't know whether the better performance was due to the music or the encouragement. Dr. Xiong's study has poor:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Dr. Xiong's study has poor internal validity because he cannot determine whether the better performance was due to the music or the encouragement. Internal validity refers to the extent to which a study is able to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the independent and dependent variables, without the influence of extraneous variables. In this case, the extraneous variable of encouragement may have confounded the results, making it unclear whether the music was the true cause of the better performance.

Dr Xiong Conducts a Study Examining Whether People Feel More