Kathy trains nurses. She designed a new assertive communication unit to include in her training. She administers a pretest and then randomly assigns nurses to her treatment or a control condition. She tests their communication skills after the treatment. She sees significant differences at immediate testing but after eight weeks she retests the nurses and finds no differences between her treatment and control students.
-It appears Kathy should be most concerned with which of the following threats to her study?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The significant differences at immediate testing suggest that the treatment had an effect, but the lack of differences after eight weeks suggests that the effect did not last. This may be due to a novelty effect, where the nurses were initially motivated by the new unit but lost interest over time. Participant, researcher, and placebo effects would not explain the temporary effect observed in the immediate testing.

Kathy Trains Nurses