Identify whether this example has an internal validity problem. If it does, identify (i) whether the problem is a design confound, a selection effect, or an order effect. Finally, (ii) explain how each of the problematic studies might be changed so that it does not have an internal validity problem. A cognitive psychologist believes that people learn better when they spread out their studying over several days, so she creates a study with three groups of participants. Each group studies the same list of 120 Chinese vocabulary words (none of the participants had studied Chinese before). One group studies the words for 20 minutes on the first day. The second group studies the words for 20 minutes on the first and second days. The last group studies the words for 20 minutes on the first, second, and third days. On the fourth day, all of the participants are tested on how well they have learned the Chinese vocabulary words. The people in the last group scored the best, so the researcher concludes that distributed studying does improve people’s ability to learn.
- Identify whether this example has an internal validity problem. If it does, identify (i) whether the problem is a design confound, a selection effect, or an order effect. Finally, (ii) explain how each of the problematic studies might be changed so that it does not have an internal validity problem.
A cognitive psychologist believes that people learn better when they spread out their studying over several days, so she creates a study with three groups of participants. Each group studies the same list of 120 Chinese vocabulary words (none of the participants had studied Chinese before). One group studies the words for 20 minutes on the first day. The second group studies the words for 20 minutes on the first and second days. The last group studies the words for 20 minutes on the first, second, and third days. On the fourth day, all of the participants are tested on how well they have learned the Chinese vocabulary words. The people in the last group scored the best, so the researcher concludes that distributed studying does improve people’s ability to learn.
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