Mo, an early childhood researcher, is particularly interested in the effects of reading aloud on students' reading attitudes. She wants to do an experimental study to test the question of whether reading attitudes are more positive in children who are read aloud to during morning free time in classrooms. She randomly assigns students to either be read to or not to be read to daily for the course of one month. After she is two days into her study, children ask the researchers if they can go to other activities instead of going to read aloud time. Ethically she is bound to let them go to free time. By the end of her study she has only half as many participants as were in her initial experimental condition. Given Mo's study, the loss of participants in the experimental condition can be referred to as
A) Placebo effect.
B) attenuation.
C) attrition.
D) novelty effect.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The loss of participants in the experimental condition is referred to as attrition. This is a common issue in longitudinal studies or studies that require participants to remain engaged in an activity for an extended period of time. The fact that only half as many participants remained in the experimental condition can pose a challenge to the study's internal validity as it may have reduced the representativeness of the experimental condition to the population being studied.

Mo, an Early Childhood Researcher, Is Particularly Interested in the Effects