Laura has developed a new treatment to increase spatial ability. She randomly assigns students to either her intervention or a control condition. In the treatment condition students engage in working puzzles for twenty minutes a day for 10 days. Unfortunately, students do not like her intervention and refuse to do puzzles for all of the days. When she examines post-test means on the spatial ability measure, there are no differences between her treatment and the control condition. Which of the following demonstrates a threat to validity demonstrated in this study?
A) Maturation
B) Testing
C) Instrumentation
D) Mortality

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The refusal to engage in the treatment (working puzzles) represents a threat to internal validity known as mortality, which refers to the loss of participants from one group, often due to attrition or dropout. This can impact the ability to draw valid conclusions about the effectiveness of the treatment, and may bias results if those who drop out are systematically different from those who do not.

Laura Has Developed a New Treatment to Increase Spatial Ability