You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
Nonexperimental design
A design in which there is no control or manipulation of the independent variable; cause-and-effect relationships between variables cannot be established.
Experimental design
A research method in which the experimenter controls and manipulates the independent variable, allowing the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships between the independent and dependent variables.
Independent Variable (IV)
The variable that influences the dependent variable. In experiments, the researcher manipulates or controls this variable.
Dependent Variable (DV)
The variable measured in association with changes in the independent variable; the outcome or effect.
Experimental Group
The group or condition that gets the key treatment in an experiment.
Control Group
Any condition that serves as the comparison group in an experiment.
Experimental Realism
The degree to which a study participant becomes engrossed in the manipulation and truly influenced by it.
Mundane Realism
The degree to which a study parallels everyday situations in the real world.
Experimental Control
The ability to keep everything between groups the same except for the one element we want to test in an experiment.
Behavioral Choice
A behavioral measure involving participants making a purposeful selection from several options.
Behavioral Trace
A behavioral measure that relies on evidence left behind by participants who are no longer present.
Behavioral Observation
A behavioral measure that relies on directly seeing or observing behavior.
Experimental Hypothesis
A clear and specific prediction of how the independent variable influences the dependent variable.
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
A board that reviews the ethical merit of all human research conducted at an institution.
Descriptive
Describes or summarizes what is happening in a meaningful way.
Inferential
Tests a specific prediction about why something occurs.
Content Analysis
An analysis technique that involves the systematic examination of communication where researchers organize responses in order to summarize the substance of the communication.
Two-Group Design
In this activity, you will design a two-group experiment to determine whether or not multitasking is beneficial.
Dr. Natalie J. Ciarocco, Monmouth University
Dr. David B. Strohmetz, University of West Florida
Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., Monmouth University
Something to Think About…
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Scenario: As a busy college student, you have a lot to do. You have multiple classes that each come with a combination of assignments, papers, and tests. (Inevitably, several of these assignments will be due on the same day.) You probably also have a job, family obligations, and clubs or organizations that you’re involved in, and you need to find time for exercise, sleep, and—if you’re lucky—a social life. To fit all your responsibilities into the limited number of hours you have in a day, you might consider multitasking in order to accomplish several things at once.
Something to Think About…
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We often hold our multitasking abilities in high regard, and we might even boast about all of the things we can do at once. Can you run on the treadmill while reading an e-book, listening to music, checking Twitter, and posting a selfie to Instagram? Ha! That’s a slow day. Of course, the truth is that you aren’t really focusing on all of these activities at once. Rather, you are quickly switching your attention from task to task—what psychologists call time-sharing—in order to get everything done. Yet you have to wonder how many of these individual tasks you are doing well, and if switching your attention between them really saves you time. In fact, it’s possible that multitasking causes all of these activities to take longer.
Our Research Question
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Based on your experience with multitasking, you can develop a research study that examines its effectiveness. However, you will need something to help you make decisions about how to set up your exploration of this topic. All research studies start with a question, so here is your chance to ask yours.
Now that you have developed a research question (“Does multitasking lead to better task performance for college students?”), it is time to decide what type of research design to use to answer your question. To narrow things down, consider the following:
Now that you have an experimental design that compares multitasking vs. non-multitasking groups, you can identify your independent and dependent variables.
Because you have an experiment with one independent variable with two levels (multitasking vs. completing one task at a time), you have a two-group design, or simple experiment. Next, we should identify our design’s experimental and control groups.
Next, we need to operationally define the independent variable (IV) of multitasking by determining exactly how we will manipulate it. As we define multitasking, we will want to be sure that our study has a high level of experimental realism.
It looks like the task that is highest in both experimental and mundane realism involves students in the experimental group switching between a vocabulary list, an instant messaging conversation, and proofreading. We have also established that our control group will not multitask. Our next decision involves picking the best possible control group, which will be the one with the most experimental control.
You now have the key comparison set up between multitasking and a “one at a time” approach. Next, we need to specify the exact nature of our dependent variable of “task performance.” To eliminate some options, first consider the following:
We know we want a behavioral measure that measures task performance. You will have to determine which type of behavioral measure to use from the options below:
Behavioral Choice
Behavioral Trace
Behavioral Observation
Question
Which of the following behaviors would be best to measure? Choose as many behaviors as is appropriate.
Which of the following behaviors would be best to measure? Choose as many behaviors as is appropriate.
Now that you have determined how you will collect your data and have chosen your intended sample, you must submit your research procedure to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for ethical approval. The IRB will determine whether or not your study meets all ethical guidelines.
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Each IRB has its own protocol that conforms to the national standard when a researcher submits an application for proposed research. In addition to the appropriate paperwork and other information submitted to the IRB, the board considers the following description during their evaluation of your proposed experiment:
The purpose of this research is to determine if multitasking leads to better task performance than completing tasks sequentially. To study this topic, we will have participants perform three tasks: study 10 vocabulary words, chat through an instant messaging app, and proofread an English paper. Researchers will randomly assign participants to switch back and forth between these tasks (multitasking group) or to complete tasks “one at a time” (sequential group). Researchers will then measure how long it took participants to complete all of the tasks, as well as participants’ performance on a 10-question vocabulary quiz.
Responding to the IRB
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The IRB reviewed your submission and has one concern. Specifically, they believe that having students perform three tasks is asking participants to do too much, presenting a high degree of cost, or effort, for students.
You must now determine how to respond to the IRB in order to address their concern and uphold the quality of your study. Your options include changing your design or justifying to the IRB why your current methodology is ethically sound.
Now that you have secured the IRB’s approval, we should confirm what the entire study will look like. Below are the steps of the study. Can you place them in the proper order?
Debrief each participant.
Time how long it takes each participant to complete the 3 tasks (studying the vocab list, instant messaging, proofreading).
Obtain informed consent from each participant.
Provide each participant with instructions for completing the 3 tasks (studying the vocab list, instant messaging, proofreading).
Randomly assign each participant to the experimental or control group.
Give each participant a vocabulary quiz.
Question
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Collecting Data
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Now that you have a sense of how to conduct this study, it is time to see what the data from this study might look like.
If you were to run a full version of this study, you would want to have at least 30 participants in each of your two groups, for a total of 60 participants. Because you have a between-subjects design, each participant will only be in one group.
Example Data Set
This is an example of what your data set would look like. The top row shows the variable names; the other rows display the data for the first 10 participants.
In the “Group” column, 1 = Multitasking Group and 2 = Sequential Group. Vocab test scores were graded from a low score of 1 to a high score of 10, and task time was recorded in seconds.
Participant Number
Group
VocabTestScore
TaskTime
101
1
4
624
102
1
6
671
103
2
10
575
104
1
3
648
105
2
5
550
106
1
3
712
107
2
5
556
108
1
7
465
109
2
2
556
110
2
10
485
Selecting the Proper Tool
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Now that you have collected your data, you must determine the best way to summarize your findings. The decisions you made about how to collect your data dictate the statistics you can use with your data now. First, you need to consider if your study is descriptive or inferential.
The following is an example of output for another two-group design. This study was about how hours slept at night (less than 7 hours vs. more than 7 hours) influence self-reported happiness.
Before continuing, click on the output to learn more about each of its elements.
Alex Brylov/Shutterstock
To report these numbers in a results section, put the numbers in as follows:
t from some variable equals a number; p equals a number.
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for Equality of Variances
t-test for Equality of Means
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Difference
Std. Error Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower
Upper
happiness
Equal variances assumed
.056
.814
2.076
82
.041
.36470
.17566
.01526
.71413
Equal variances not assumed
2.076
81.974
.041
.36470
.17566
.01526
.71414
Group Statistics
Condition
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
happiness
More than 7 hours sleep
42
4.0867
.81209
.12531
Less than 7 hours sleep
42
3.7220
.79776
.12310
Question
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Your Turn: Evaluating Output
Alex Brylov/Shutterstock
Below is the output from your study:
Group Statistics
condition
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
VocabTestScore
Multi-tasking Group
30
4.83
2.156
.394
Sequential Group
30
6.11
2.391
.437
TaskTime
Multi-tasking Group
30
660.11
102.278
18.673
Sequential Group
30
571.84
112.070
20.461
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for Equality of Variances
t-test for Equality of Means
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Difference
Std. Error Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower
Upper
VocabtestScore
Equal variances assumed
.828
.367
-2.173
58
0.34
-1.278
.588
-2.455
-.101
Equal variances not assumed
-2.173
57.389
0.34
-1.278
.588
-2.455
-.101
TaskTime
Equal variances assumed
.016
.901
3.215
58
.002
89.071
27.701
33.621
144.520
Equal variances not assumed
3.215
57.522
.002
89.071
27.701
33.611
144.530
Your Turn: Evaluating Output
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Based on the results of your statistical analyses, provide the values in the “Answer” column that correspond to the terms in the “Prompt” column.
t for the vocabulary test DV
t for the vocabulary test DV
df for the vocabulary test DV
df for the vocabulary test DV
p for the vocabulary test DV
p for the vocabulary test DV
t for the task time DV
t for the task time DV
df for the task time DV
df for the task time DV
p for the task time DV
p for the task time DV
Question
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Activity: Graphing Results
chapter_8_graph_activity_1
In order to visualize your data, use the values on the previous screens to input the mean that corresponds to each condition listed in the output. Then, check out the graphic representation of your data, below.
Group Statistics
condition
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
VocabTestScore
Multi-tasking Group
30
2.156
.394
Sequential Group
30
2.391
.437
TaskTime
Multi-tasking Group
30
______
102.278
18.673
Sequential Group
30
______
112.070
20.461
Vocab Test Score
Question
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Activity: Graphing Results
chapter_8_graph_activity_2
In order to visualize your data, use the values on the previous screens to input the mean that corresponds to each condition listed in the output. Then, check out the graphic representation of your data, below.
Group Statistics
condition
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
VocabTestScore
Multi-tasking Group
30
4.83
2.156
.394
Sequential Group
30
6.11
2.391
.437
TaskTime
Multi-tasking Group
30
102.278
18.673
Sequential Group
30
112.070
20.461
Task Time
Question
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Your Turn: Results
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Now that you have worked with your data, you must determine the best way to express your findings in written form. You must be sure that how you describe your findings accurately represents the data.
Now that you have determined how to express your findings in a scientifically responsible way, you need to be able to talk about what your findings mean in everyday terms so that the world can benefit from your science.