A group of researchers are investigating the effects of TV on
undergraduate study habits. They recruit 6 participants, who are
assigned to 1 of 3 treatment groups. All groups will be given a
word list for 5 minutes and then be tested for word recall 45
minutes later. The control group will sit in a quiet room
throughout the duration of the experiment, the first experimental
group will be required to study the word list for 5 minutes with a
loud TV on and then will sit in a quiet room until word recall is
tested 45 minutes later, and the second experimental group will
have a loud TV on throughout the experiment (study, rest, recall).
The researchers use repeated-measures T-tests to compare word
recall between all group combinations and conclude that there is no
significant effect of television on studying.
Questions: Does this experimental design
accurately assess the effects of TV on studying? How could this
design have been improved? How could the small participant pool of
this study (n=6 total) have affected the researchers’
conclusions?