UR Research Design Variations and Impact Questions

QUESTION 1

1. A researcher wants to understand whether exercise impacts sleep quality. Propose an experimental, within-subjects design for assessing this research question.

QUESTION 2

1. Write a research question that could be answered with a 2×3 factorial design.

QUESTION 3

1. A researcher wants to assess how year in school (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) and university type (liberal arts college, research university, community college) impact job prospects. Create the factorial table associated with this research question. Remember to fill in the cells completely.

QUESTION 4

1. A researcher wants to examine whether caffeine impacts test performance. Propose a non-experimental, between-subjects design for assessing this research question.

QUESTION 5

1. A researcher wants to understand the impact of drinking tea on stress. Propose an experimental, between-subjects design for assessing this research question.

QUESTION 6

1. Point out two problems with the following survey question, then fix them:

How many alcoholic drinks should people have on an average day?

A. 1-2

B. 2-3

C. 3-4

D. 4-5

E. 5 or more

QUESTION 7

1. Indicate which study design would be used to assess each research question.

A researcher wants to know whether eating cookies impacts mood. They randomly assign half the sample to eat 3 cookies and half to eat no cookies before assessing mood.

A researcher wants to know whether candy impacts teaching evaluations. On the last day of class, they randomly assign professors to either give out candy during evaluation time or not.

A researcher wants to know whether people with long legs run faster.

A researcher randomly assigns some participants to chew gum and other to not chew gum, and then tests working memory.

A researcher wants to know whether a new testing format improves performance. They give the new test to one of their classes but not the other and compare final grades across the two classes.

A researcher wants to explore whether height is associated with extraversion.

A researcher wants to understand the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. They ask a random sample of therapists to report the number of clients they saw 6 months prior to the pandemic and the number of clients they saw in June 2020.

A researcher wants to explore whether a group of maltreated children will differ in school achievement from a group of nonmaltreated children.

A researcher wants to know whether household income is associated with psychological well-being.

A. Quasi-experimental

B. Experimental

C. Non-experimental

QUESTION 8

1. Point out two problems with the following survey question, then fix them:

Do you agree that the president ruined the country?

A. frequently

B. sometimes

C. often

D. always

QUESTION 9

1. A researcher wants to examine the association between extraversion and relationship satisfaction. Propose a non-experimental, within-subjects design for assessing this research question.