Planning and conducting research: Practice Questions

A researcher is studying the effect of noise on concentration. They test the same group of 10 students in a quiet room on Monday and a noisy room on Tuesday. Which experimental design is being utilized in this study?

A researcher is testing a new memory-enhancing drug. They compare a group taking the drug to a group taking a placebo. However, the drug group happens to have a much higher average age than the placebo group. In this context, age is best described as:

A researcher is designing an observation to study the frequency of aggressive acts in a prison yard. They decide to record every single instance of a pre-defined 'aggressive act' (e.g., pushing, shouting) as it happens throughout the entire hour-long session. Which sampling technique is being used, and what is a potential weakness of this approach?

When planning and conducting research, a psychologist decides to use a matched participants design rather than a repeated measures design. What is a specific advantage of choosing the matched participants design in relation to order effects and participant variables?

Which of the following is an example of a two-tailed (non-directional) alternative hypothesis?

Identify one advantage of using snowball sampling to recruit a sample of participants when researching sensitive topics such as illegal gang activity.

When planning and conducting research using a matched participants design, explain how a researcher would successfully implement this design to control for participant variables.

A student is planning and conducting research using an observation. They decide to record behaviors by dividing the total observation period into intervals and ticking a box if the target behavior occurs at the exact moment each interval ends. Identify this specific sampling technique and explain how it differs from event sampling.